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This book follows a physically disabled researcher's journey from stigmatized embodiment on her way to creating accessible storytelling performances. These unique performances function not only as traditional, peer-reviewed forms of critical qualitative research, but also as 'narrative teaching productions' that guide students and their audiences in the pursuit of social justice and equality. The book begins by developing the author's personal standpoint, and provides an evocative discussion of the multiple perceptions and identities experienced by those with disabled bodies. It negotiates how performance research can be created and conducted within the confines of course learning objectives, moves through complications encountered in research design and data collection, and explores a range of insightful responses from community members, social activists, and performance critics, as well as more traditional academic audiences. Critical autoethnographic personal narratives, performance scripts, and poetry are used to illuminate struggles over legitimate methodological practice and storytelling performance pedagogy. Each chapter confronts the fear of mortality that presses us to stigmatize those who remind us of our inescapably vulnerable embodiments and offers hope for an inclusive, adaptable culture. The book will be compelling reading for scholars in Performance Studies, Disability Studies, Cultural Studies, Narrative Methodology, Ethnography, Higher Education, Autoethnography, Creative Nonfiction and everyone interested embodiment and/or storytelling for social change.
Please visit www.uncwstorytelling.org/chapter-summaries-1 to access supplementary material for the book.
List of contents
Chapter 1. Connecting to the Bodies We Research.- Chapter 2. There's No Center without the Margins: Revealing Compulsory Performance to Achieve Audience Empathy.- Chapter 3. Creating Accessible, Pedagogical Storytelling Performances as Research: Take 1.- Chapter 4.Can Rigorous Research be Art for the Masses? A Student-Teacher Debrief.- Chapter 5. Hyper-Embodiment and Outsider-Research-Pursuing Empathy and Connection in the Field.- Chapter 6. Creating Accessible, Pedagogical Art as Research: Take 2.- Chapter 7. Can Rigorous Research Be for the Masses Revisited: A Second Student-Teacher Debrief.- Chapter 8: Compromising Methodology for Open Audiences.- Chapter 9. Conclusion: A Call for Hyper-Embodied Research Art Pedagogy for Social Justice.
About the author
Julie-Ann Scott is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, USA. She has published numerous articles on autoethnography, narrative performance research, and pedagogy in journals such as
Qualitative Inquiry and
Text and Performance Quarterly. She is the recipient of UNCW's Distinguished Award for Scholarly Engagement and Public Service, Chancellor's Teaching Excellence Award and the National Communication Association's Ethnographic Article of the Year Award.
Summary
Explores how performance can become a part of research and pedagogyDraws on personal experiences to demonstrate the use of performance studies in the classroomHighlights the effect of embodied interaction in the classroom setting and how this can be developed further
