From storytelling to story-making. Skip Bivens AR+ Yes/And Action research Podcast with Joanna Wheeler and Katie Collins


In this Yes/And Action Research podcast episode, Skip speaks with Joanna Wheeler and Katie Collins.

Joanna is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of the Western Cape. She is also the founder of Transformative Story. A specialist in participatory storytelling methodologies, Joanna has facilitated over 200 participatory storytelling workshops and courses during the past decade. Katie is a poet and member of the English faculty at Oxford University. For the past several years, through the story-methods-focused Ibali Network, Joanna and Katie have collaborated on storytelling workshops with various communities and groups, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa, which have endured pervasive exclusion and marginalization. Through the Ibali work, Katie was invited to offer an ethnographic analysis of several story workshops facilitated by Joanna. This set the stage for generative collaboration between the two and the subsequent bourgeoning of new ideas around the nature and process of participatory storytelling within action research processes.

In this podcast, Joanna and Katie outline a conceptual and practical shift from storytelling to story-making, which elevates the role of the participant well beyond the role of producer of data. From the story-making perspective, the makers are artistic agents in their own right and their stories stand alone, with purpose and integrity both within and beyond the research processes in which they were created. This sets the stage for a more participant-centered process with greater emphasis on exploration, analysis and heightened potential for individual and collective growth and empowerment.

The podcast delves into the generative and methodological aspects of a story-making approach, in particular, the need for new mindset regarding facilitation, a revision of ethical and intellect property considerations, and a reorientation of how stories relate and integrate with the wider research processes in which they are embedded.

Joanna and Katie are wrapping up a new book about the story-making approach and will be facilitating several related courses and events in 2025.

Please see the links below for more information, as well as opportunities for learning and collaboration.

  1. Ibali Network: https://wels.open.ac.uk/research/networks/ibali/about-ibali
  2. Transformative Story: https://www.transformativestory.net/
  3. Katherine Collins, Poet: https://katherinecollinspoet.com/
  4. Antarctica: More-than-human stories event: https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/event/antarctica-more-than-human-stories
  5. Storytelling as Participatory Research, Wheeler and Bivens (2021), Sage Handbook of Participatory Research and Inquiry: https://www.academia.edu/81859141/Storytelling_as_Participatory_Research
Hilary Brad
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