Doing the Feminist Intergenerational Mic: Methodological Reflections on Digital Storytelling as Process and Praxis

Authors

  • May Chazan Trent University
  • Madeline Macnab Trent University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-19.2.2949

Keywords:

Digital storytelling, Feminist methodology, Participatory methodology, Intergenerationality, multimedia creation, Critical arts-based methods, Aging and technology, Activism

Abstract

In this article, we reflect on the methodology of a digital storytelling workshop held in May 2016, gathering activists and academics across four generations to share and record their activist histories. Drawing on observational notes and participant feedback, we investigate whether and how the workshop challenged knowledge-production conventions, ageist assumptions, and intergenerational scripts. We offer the concept of a feminist intergenerational mic, arguing that the norm-challenging possibilities of this methodology lay not in providing access to a mic, but rather in particular, routinized, feminist and intergenerational practices. Through this article, we contribute to conversations about feminist methodologies, power and vulnerability in research, participatory media creation, and aging studies.

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Author Biographies

May Chazan, Trent University

May Chazan, PhD (Carleton), is an assistant professor and Canada Research Chair in gender and women's studies at Trent University, Nogojiwanong (Peterborough, Canada). May leads the activist-research collective, Aging Activisms. She is inspired by how social justice movements form, operate, and generate change, and by how, across enormous differences in power, privilege, and worldview, alliances are forged and maintained. Through intergenerational activist storytelling methodologies, feminist oral histories, and decolonial epistemological approaches, she explores the ways in which activists of different backgrounds, ages, abilities, and genders tell their own stories and understand their complex relations to one another and to place, in the settler colonial context of present-day Canada.

Madeline Macnab, Trent University

Maddy Macnab, MA (Trent), is a graduate of the M.A. in Canadian studies and Indigenous studies at Trent University, Nogojiwanong (Peterborough, Canada), and a researcher with the activist-research collective, Aging Activisms. Her areas of research and praxis include feminist oral history, the politics of migration, and settler solidarities.

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Published

2018-03-30

How to Cite

Chazan, M., & Macnab, M. (2018). Doing the Feminist Intergenerational Mic: Methodological Reflections on Digital Storytelling as Process and Praxis. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 19(2). https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-19.2.2949

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Section

Single Contributions