Please join us for a Qualitative Methods COP – QWG* Quarterly Seminar.
EVENT DATE: March 12th, 2024 10am – 11am PST
Title: Honoring Participants' Voices and Autonomy:Digital Storytelling as a Research Methodology
Speaker(s): April J. Bell, PhD; Sativa Banks, MPH
Register to join via Zoom:
https://ucsf.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUkfuGprD8uE9e48QH3ksfUkq8fxrQs_IZp
Questions? Email the co-directors: Dr. Julia McQuoid at Julia-McQuoid@ouhsc.edu; Dr. Neil Jordan at Neil-Jordan@ouhsc.edu; Dr. Kerstin Reinschmidt at Kerstin-Reinschmidt@ouhsc.edu
Speaker bios: Dr. Bell is a community health researcher, social epidemiologist, and health equity advocate dedicated to improving the sexual and reproductive health outcomes of historically marginalized adolescents. Dr. Bell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine in the School of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco. Her research focuses on reducing health disparities in sexual and reproductive health among Black adolescent women and girls through the development and implementation of novel methods and strategies created in partnership with the community. Dr. Bell believes in the power of storytelling and has incorporated it as a research methodology.She is committed to conducting research that is antiracist and does not perpetuate the harms of anti-blackness and white supremacy.
Sativa Banks is a Doctoral Student in Health Education at the University of Toledo specializing in sexual and reproductive health and social policy. Sativa earned a B.A. in Public Health Education from Otterbein University in 2018 and an MPH from the University of Toledo in 2020. Sativa’s research interests center around questions of sexual and reproductive health access and contraceptive behaviors. She holds professional membership with the Society of Family Planning, and the American Public Health Association where she is also a Councilor for the Sexual and Reproductive Health section. Through her advocacy work and scholarship, Sativa aims to advance reproductive justice, reduce sexual and reproductive health disparities among vulnerable groups, expand access to contraception, and reduce unintended pregnancies.
Abstract
Background: A growing pool of literature emphasizes that the experience of creating and communicating a personal story grants individuals a sense of control and emotional acceptance. This project uses digital storytelling (DST), a group-based participatory research framework, to create 1-3 minute personal visual narratives to document the abortion experiences of Black women in CA and IN.
Methods: Participants created a digital story using a 3-step iterative process and completed a 1-hour post-workshop interview. We synthesized findings from narrative analysis of digital stories, field notes written in and around the DST workshop process, and follow-up individual interviews with workshop participants.
Results: Participants included 12 self-identified Black women aged 18 or older, living in CA or IN, who had at least one abortion, and were willing to participate in the 6-week virtual DST workshop. Participants described the workshop as a safe, nurturing, and cathartic space that was both healing and transformative, allowing them to articulate, understand, and validate their experiences around abortion stigma.
Conclusions: Digital storytelling is an empowering method that can disrupt cultural beliefs while serving as a critical narrative intervention, in which abortion storytellers’ engagement in the storytelling process enables them to collaboratively interrogate and potentially address trauma related to abortion stigma, bolster a sense of social support and solidarity, and potentially recalibrate stigmatizing conversations.
*Qualitative Methods Community of Practice