Narrative Research Now: Critical Perspectives on the Promise of Stories 9781529228656

Citation preview

NARRATIVE RESEARCH NOW Critical Perspectives on the Promise of Stories Edited by Ashley Barnwell and Signe Ravn With a Foreword by Rachel Thomson

First published in Great Britain in 2024 by Bristol University Press University of Bristol 1–​9 Old Park Hill Bristol BS2 8BB UK t: +​44 (0)117 374 6645 e: bup-​[email protected] Details of international sales and distribution partners are available at bristoluniversitypress.co.uk © Bristol University Press 2024 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-​1-​5292-​2860-​1 hardcover ISBN 978-​1-​5292-​2861-​8 ePub ISBN 978-​1-​5292-​2865-​6 ePdf The right of Ashley Barnwell and Signe Ravn to be identified as editors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of Bristol University Press. Every reasonable effort has been made to obtain permission to reproduce copyrighted material. If, however, anyone knows of an oversight, please contact the publisher. The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the editors and contributors and not of the University of Bristol or Bristol University Press. The University of Bristol and Bristol University Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any material published in this publication. Bristol University Press works to counter discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability, age and sexuality. Cover design: Lyn Davies Design Front cover image: unsplash/​Florian Klauer Bristol University Press uses environmentally responsible print partners. Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

Contents List of Figures Notes on Contributors Acknowledgements Foreword by Rachel Thomson

v vi ix x

1

1

Narrative Now: Trends and Tensions Ashley Barnwell and Signe Ravn

PART I Institutional Authority and Counter-​Stories 2 Telling Stories with Ribbons: Visual Acknowledgement in the Wake of Child Sexual Abuse Dave McDonald 3 Policy Narratives and Policy Change: The Case of Pill Testing Martin Bortz 4 The Criminalised Other as Storyteller: The Promise and Peril of Bringing ‘Lived Experience’ into the Classroom Diana Johns PART II Tellable and Untellable Stories 5 Ethical Weaving: Creative Narrations of Family Trauma and Resilience Wajeehah Aayeshah 6 “I can’t believe how much I’ve done”: Joan and the Evolution of Her Life Story Nikki Henningham PART III The Ethics of Representation 7 Songs as Narratives: Ethical Tensions in Midnight Oil’s Dead Heart (1986) and Gadigal Land (2020) Liz Dean 8 Reading Back as a Way to Give Back? A Narrative Practice-​Informed Method for Interview-​Based Research Sarah Strauven iii

19

39 56

73

87

105

122

Narrative Research Now

9

Narrating Women’s Life Histories: Voice, Audience, Ethics Rachael Diprose

139

10

Narrative Next: Ways Forward for Narrative Research Ashley Barnwell and Signe Ravn

158

Index

165

iv

List of Figures Colour versions of the images displayed in this book can be viewed at https:// bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/ 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 2.10 4.1

St Patrick’s Cathedral Loud Fence, Ballarat (Stuart Street perimeter, daytime) St Patrick’s Cathedral Loud Fence, Ballarat (Dawson Street, evening) St Alipius Primary School Loud Fence, Ballarat (presbytery) St Alipius Primary School Loud Fence, Ballarat Inscribed ribbon at St Alipius Primary School, Ballarat St Patrick’s College reflective garden and monument, Ballarat (Sturt Street perimeter) St Patrick’s College reflective garden and monument, Ballarat (water feature) St Patrick’s College reflective garden and monument, Ballarat (bench and chest) St Patrick’s Cathedral, Ballarat (Dawson Street perimeter, daytime) St Patrick’s Cathedral memorial garden, Ballarat Masson Theatre, the University of Melbourne

v

19 21 26 26 27 29 29 30 31 32 56

Notes on Contributors Wajeehah Aayeshah is an educational designer at the University of Melbourne. An academic geek, she develops meaningful learning experiences and investigates co-​creation of teaching and learning. Her research explores designing safe pedagogical spaces that are inclusive, interesting and kind. Her current project ‘Early Career Academics’ Covid19 life’ looks at the lived experiences of academics during the pandemic. It includes collaboration with artists and game designers to produce creative narratives. Her interdisciplinary publications range from research articles and book chapters to short stories, This Teaching Life podcast, creative features and collaborative artwork. Ashley Barnwell is a sociologist at the University of Melbourne. She is interested in sociological aspects of emotions, memory and narrative, and the role of life writing, archives and literature in sociological research. Her current project, ‘Family Secrets, National Silences: Intergenerational Memory in Settler Colonial Australia’, investigates the inherited family secrets, stories and memories that inform Australians’ understandings of colonial history. Ashley has published several books and in leading journals across the fields of sociology, history and literary studies. With Signe Ravn, she co-​directs the Narrative Network and co-​hosts the podcast Narrative Now. Martin Bortz is Honorary Senior Fellow at the Melbourne School of Government. Martin’s current research is investigating management consultants, policy narratives and transformative festival culture. In addition to his academic research, Martin works as a policy practitioner. He has worked in multiple portfolios including education, health, justice and Indigenous affairs. This work has included several evaluations, targeted policy advice, detailed literature reviews, organisational reviews and research to support service improvement. He has worked in local and state government, academia, and private consulting. Martin has undergraduate qualifications in Law and Arts (both from Monash University), a master’s degree in Public Policy and Management (from the University of Melbourne) and a PhD in Public Policy. vi

Notes on Contributors

Liz Dean is a sociologist at the University of Melbourne, continues to explore the intersections of social theory, continental philosophy, feminism, anticolonial theories and decolonial practice, with a specific focus upon the ethics of voice and social inequalities. Rachael Diprose is Associate Professor in Development Studies and Indonesian Studies at the University of Melbourne. Rachael’s mixed-​ methods research traverses two inter-​related streams; first, on the dynamics of rapidly changing political and social contexts and the implications of such change for communities, the environment, policy and political order. And second, on understanding and addressing poverty and inequalities, with a particular focus on inclusion, gender and empowerment. She has published in a range of high impact journals in political science, sociology and the multidisciplinary field of development studies, as well as the book Contesting Development (Oxford University Press, 2011). Nikki Henningham is Consultant Oral Historian and Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne, with extensive experience working on projects that preserve and promote Australian women’s historical stories. A life history interviewer for the National Library of Australia’s Oral History and Folklore Unit, her expertise in oral history practice and methodology has been developed over 20 years, working with diverse groups of people to help them communicate and record their stories. She has a particular interest in the way gender frames narrative construction in the interview space, but also in the ethical dimensions of retelling shared, seemingly private, stories for a public audience. Her recent projects include Redefining Leadership, an oral history of women disability rights activists, and The End of an Era: The Last of the Gippsland Lakes Fishermen, winner of the 2021 Oral History Victoria community history award. Diana Johns is Associate Professor in Criminology at the University of Melbourne. A qualitative researcher, her work is focused on the effects of criminalisation, the impacts of imprisonment, and the possibilities of restorative, relational and reintegrative justice practices, particularly for children and young people. Her book Being and Becoming an Ex-​Prisoner (2018) was published as part of Routledge’s International Series on Desistance and Rehabilitation. She is co-​author of two recent books: Place, Race and Politics: The Anatomy of a Law and Order Crisis (Weber et al, Emerald, 2021) and Co-​production and Criminal Justice (Johns et al, Routledge, 2022). Dave McDonald is a criminologist at the University of Melbourne. His work investigates cultural and legal responses to child sexual abuse and vii

Narrative Research Now

paedophilia. His current project examines memorialisation in the wake of institutional abuse, with a particular emphasis on how publicly situated DIY memory projects produce counter-​archives of violence. His work has appeared in high quality journals across the fields of criminology, law and socio-​legal studies, and he is currently working on a monograph on unofficial truth projects in response to institutional abuse. Signe Ravn is a sociologist at the University of Melbourne. Her work centres on youth, marginalisation, gender and temporality. She is currently working on a monograph based on her recent project, ‘Girls Growing Up’, about the everyday lives and imagined futures of young women on the margins. Signe has published a number of books, most recently Youth Beyond the City: Thinking from the Margins (Bristol University Press, 2022). Her articles appear in high impact journals in sociology, gender studies, media studies and youth studies. With Ashley Barnwell, she co-​directs the Narrative Network and co-​hosts the podcast Narrative Now. Sarah Strauven is a psychologist and narrative therapist. Specialising in refugee mental health and complex trauma, she worked alongside people seeking asylum for ten years. Sarah is currently a research fellow at Phoenix Australia –​Centre for Posttraumatic Mental Health (University of Melbourne) and conducts research across a number of trauma-​impacted populations including people impacted by disaster and adversity. She has an interest in translational research that supports communities in their own recovery responses and increases access to systems of care for marginalised people. She also works in clinical practice. Rachel Thomson is Professor of Childhood & Youth Studies and Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange, School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sussex. Her research interests include the study of the life course and transitions, as well as the interdisciplinary fields of gender and sexuality studies. She is a methodological innovator and is especially interested in capturing lived experience, social processes and the interplay of biographical and historical time.

viii

Acknowledgements We wish to thank members of the Narrative Network, including the authors, for a rich and sustaining intellectual community. We also thank the School of Social and Political Sciences for their moral and financial support for the Network and this book. Our gratitude goes to the wise and wonderful Rachel Thomson for her Foreword, and to Shannon Kneis for her belief in this project when we first presented it to Bristol University Press. Thanks also to Emily Ross, Anna Richardson and the staff from Bristol University Press for editorial assistance.

ix

Foreword Rachel Thomson This book showcases narrative research now, embracing the challenge to situate the most enduring practice of storytelling in relation to new times, new technologies and the new kinds of publics that they enable. Stories are always situated within histories that shape what can be told and heard, making stories part of practices of oppression and resistance. So critical narrative research ‘now’ must engage with digital methods and the ease of replication and linkage that these bring. Narratives now have to be contextualised in relation to new doubts about veracity and the institutional and virtual spaces through which emotion can be moved, intensified and instrumentalised. Narratives now must be understood as having escaped the confines of talk, inhabiting architectures, songs, ribbons, nudges and likes. Representing the stories of others involves ‘joining in’ with the telling, including claiming, deflecting, returning and amplifying narrative value. We also have our own biographical ‘nows’ from which we experience narrative. These days I am becoming intimately connected with the eulogy as a narrative form –​the story of self that is told about us by those who have loved and lost us: connecting fragments and points of view from friends, family, colleagues and material traces. At other times in my life I have been sensitised to other kinds of storytelling: the critical moments that power coming-​of-​age narratives; the connective stories of familiarity and inheritance and that talk into being a new generation; and encounters with forgotten and unstoried material rediscovered in archives that surprise, enchant and even haunt us. And of course, those insurgent sexual stories that were our preoccupation in the late 1980s and 1990s, new ways of talking that made public problems out of private trouble and enacted sex and gender in radically new ways. And so, I would like to honour the death in 2022 of Ken Plummer, a prince of narrative methods, who connected a sociology of interaction with humanistic understandings of text and documentation. His worked helped me and many others understand how stories are always conservative and conserving: it takes chains and webs of people to imagine, articulate and x

newgenprepdf

Foreword

hear stories. That’s a lot of social and intimate labour. It is hard to tell new stories, and when we do, the world changes –​or perhaps the presence of new stories alerts us to changes in the world, cultural hotspots where agency and structure catalyse. Plummer also had practical smarts for the researcher –​he helped puncture our sentimentality, reminding us that we coax, coach and even coerce in our role as co-​producers, collectors and curators of narratives. At the same time we are engaged in a humanistic and creative enterprise. These are all lessons in criticality which have been learned within the interdisciplinary field of narrative studies, and in this collection we find a nuance, ambivalence and hope. Again, context matters; this is an Antipodean contribution, informed by a particular history of colonialisation and its aftermath, where the ownership and control of stories is a vital politics –​ underpinned by a recognition of how stories have been abstracted from cultures and from spirit. The collection is situated in the Narrative Network –​ a vibrant community of scholars and a culture of collaborative enquiry and mutual support at the University of Melbourne which expresses the best of inter and intra-​generational solidarity and renewal. Narrative works at different scales, and the collection is framed in such a way that retells a story of methodological, political and theoretical change. The book shares some of the fruits of the work of the network and illuminates contemporary preoccupations: the relationship between narrative and institutional authority; the enduring tensions between the tellable and untellable and the ethics of representation. This is an exciting collection, showing how and why ‘narrative’ continues to be relevant within and beyond academia, powerful as an idea, as a practice and as a shared object that connects us in the present, and within traditions past and yet to come. The collection makes sense of this moment as seen from a porous place, complicated by transnational connection and virtual possibilities to a wider community of narrative scholarship. I am grateful to Signe and Ash for involving me in their intellectual community and inviting me to introduce the collection. The volume deserves to join a small collection of essential texts in narrative studies, capturing the state of the art and sharing lyrical and provocative research that uses narrative as a mode of critical enquiry. I am confident that readers will join me in finding it rewarding and inspiring. Lewes, December 2022

xi

1

Narrative Now: Trends and Tensions Ashley Barnwell and Signe Ravn

Narrative research gathered momentum in the 1980s and 1990s and has been a popular approach across a range of disciplines ever since. As scholars became increasingly interested in the stories people tell about themselves and how they make sense of their place in the world, narrative provided a means for exploring these questions, putting such stories at the centre of inquiry. With this rise in interest, literature on narrative also flourished. Alongside a number of how-​to textbooks that introduce narrative methods (Riessman, 2008; Elliot, 2005; Andrews et al, 2013), distinct journals dedicated to the narrative approach are now well-​established. While the understanding of what exactly a narrative is may differ across disciplines (an issue we return to later in this chapter), scholars share a common interest in narrative’s use for individual and collective meaning-​making and the power of storytelling for understanding social change. However, with this enthusiasm for narrative comes challenges that may lead some to perceive narrative approaches as naive and no longer up to the task. These challenges include well-​known points of critique about the trouble of ‘giving voice’ and an increasing awareness of the politics of representation (for example, Moreton-​Robinson, 2000; Shuman, 2005; Björninen et al, 2020). But they also reflect more recent developments, where the site of narrative inquiry extends well beyond the academy. First, narrative is now a hot topic across a broad range of spheres. From therapy (Morgan, 2000; White, 2007) to sport (Kelly, 2020), narrative has been popularised and, in some cases, instrumentalised. Similarly, narrative has emerged as a buzzword in the corporate sphere, with businesses encouraged to develop a ‘brand narrative’ or reach staff and clients via ‘strategic stories’ (Patterson, 2002; Damodaran, 2017; Dolan, 2017), and with new job titles such as ‘Chief 1

Narrative Research Now

Storyteller’1 finding their way into organisational language; a turn that Brooks (2022) has termed a ‘narrative takeover of reality’ (p 7). This has led to calls for reflection on the wider uses of storytelling, including from within narrative research as a field. Second, the potential misuses of narrative in what has been termed the ‘post-​truth era’, where dubious accounts multiply and circulate unregulated online, has reignited critical stances towards narrative and posed questions about truth and authenticity (Salmon, 2010; Mäkelä et al, 2021; Brooks, 2022). These recent developments, as well as ongoing questions about representation and ethics, drive the inquiries of this book. With this edited collection we take a critical but committed look at narrative research today. We reflect on the value of narrative research and narrative as form in a time of contested realities. More specifically, we explore the potentials of narrative while also engaging critically with its limitations at both theoretical and methodological levels. While many of these concerns have been voiced by other scholars before us, these critiques often remain siloed within specific disciplines. With this collection, we bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars and leverage this interdisciplinarity to cross-​fertilise and expand debates and discussions. Collectively, the chapters examine how narrative researchers can work reflexively with the innovations of the field so far, and continue to bring it forward. Our aim in this introductory chapter is not to offer an extended history or a comprehensive review of narrative research, but to address some pressing questions that are then pursued in the subsequent chapters. In the concluding chapter we return to these questions and offer suggestions for future directions, drawing together insights that stem from the chapters in the book. We believe that narrative as both form and approach still holds great value, however it must address critical issues around power, authenticity and representation if it is to meet present-​day challenges.

What is narrative? This book covers various approaches to narrative and reflects the interdisciplinary breadth of contributors. Disciplines deal with narrative in unique yet related ways, often using slightly different language to describe similar concepts, or pairing established ideas with new approaches to analysing stories (Hyvärinen, 2006). For instance, in narratology, scholars of literature explore the narrative workings within texts (Todorov, 1977; Phelan, 1996). Within this field scholars have pushed boundaries exploring the ethical responsibilities of fiction and non-​fiction (Booth, 1988; Meretoja, 2018. Sociologists have analysed how the stories people tell are both personal and collective, drawing from shared social scripts about particular life experiences (Labov, 1972; 2013; Plummer, 1995; Stanley, 1995; Berger & Quinney, 2005; Abbott, 2007; Becker, 2007). In the sociology of health and illness in 2

Narrative Now

particular, scholars have analysed how individuals define their experiences of illness amidst the categorising narratives of medical institutions, and the power differentials involved in competing narrations (Riessman, 1990; 2008; Frank, 1995, 2010; Bury, 2001, Mattingly, 2010). Narrative psychologists have explored how people organise their thoughts into narratives, using story to construct realities and rationalise their experiences in ways that lean on or unsettle common understandings (Freeman, 1993; Bruner, 2004). A focus in this field has been examining how people foresee, imagine or make sense of their life histories in hindsight –​be they political, spiritual, romantic or professional (Andrews, 2007; Freeman, 2010; Tamboukou, 2016). In sociolinguistics, scholars emphasise the finer details of the stories we tell, unpacking how the daily narratives that pepper our speech construct, convey and sometimes cover meanings (Bamberg, 2007; Georgakopoulou, 2007). And in narrative therapy, therapists focus on the role of the stories we tell for identity and self-​perception, and the possibility for ‘re-​authoring’ (Morgan, 2000; Denborough, 2014) our stories. The promises of narrative have even seen this approach picked up in traditionally positivist disciplines. Narrative criminologists focus on the role of stories in inspiring, sustaining, explaining or discouraging harmful actions (Presser and Sandberg, 2015). In policy analysis, the narrative policy framework has emerged as a framework for analysing the importance of stories in public policy (  Jones et al, 2014). And with the very recent introduction of Narrative Economics, economists have started to consider the power of stories by offering ‘the beginnings of a new theory of economic change that introduces an important new element to the usual list of economic factors driving the economy: contagious popular stories that spread through word of mouth, the news media, and social media’ (Schiller, 2019, p 3). As this brief overview demonstrates, narrative research is a wide and vibrant field. While we see this diversity as a strength of narrative as a field, and of this book more specifically, it does come with challenges. If the term ‘narrative’ can include anything and everything, where then are the boundaries of narrative research? This problem is not new; in fact, narrative research is partly defined by being hard to define. This is because it is a highly dynamic field that is responsive to changes in how people tell stories about their lives as well as shifts in the social sources that serve as inspiration for these stories. As leaders in the field Andrews, Squire and Tamboukou (2008) have noted, ‘both in popular culture and in social research “narrative” is strikingly diverse in the way it is understood. … It displays different definitions within different fields, and the topics of hot debate around these definitions shift year to year’ (p 3). This, however, does not mean that narrative research is ‘whatever-​ goes’ or a catch-​all for any work on stories, but rather a space for asking critical and creative questions; questions that anchor various approaches to narrative research, including concerns about temporality and scale; the 3

Narrative Research Now

ethics of representation; power and inequalities; truth and falsehood; and the relationships between personal and social stories. One response to this interdisciplinary challenge and potential fuzziness has been put forward by Andersen et al (2020) who suggest that narrative can operate as a boundary object, drawing on the work of Susan Leigh Star (2010) and Niamh Moore (2016). A boundary object refers to an idea or approach that ‘is shared by a number of communities of practice, but understood and deployed differently’ (Andersen et al, 2020, p 368). In this conceptualisation, narrative becomes ‘a meeting point for different disciplines, but also for popular and lay audiences’ (Andersen et al, 2020, p 368). Narrative research then does not require full agreement in terms of what narrative is. Here we draw on this inclusive approach. We do not require definitions across academic disciplines or popular uses of narrative to align, nor do we propose a narrow definition of what narrative is that all contributors to this book abide by. However, we do take one step further towards a form of common ground in suggesting that what unites the approaches to narrative in this collection is an interest in how stories are told, and the conditions and implications of their telling, rather than a focus on the contents of the story as such (see also Plummer, 2019). In that sense, our concern is not so much with what constitutes a narrative as with what narratives can do.

Critiques and challenges It is widely accepted that stories and storytelling matter. However, in recent years narrative research has met challenges from within the humanities and social sciences, as well as challenges presented by broader social changes. This is in addition to well-​known critiques of narrative research, such as the lack of capacity for addressing power differentials and the politics of representation (Wiegman, 1995; Jackson and Mazzei, 2008; Presser, 2018). Indeed, while narrative has been praised for ‘giving voice’ and putting emphasis on how individuals experience and make sense of the social world, critics –​from both within and beyond the field –​have questioned which voices are being heard, or allowed to speak, and which experiences are made to count (Langton, 2012; Nelson, 2014; Santos, 2016). As Francesca Polletta writes, we need more attention to the ways that ‘stories are differently intelligible, useful, and authoritative depending on who tells them, when, for what purpose, and in what setting’ (2006, p 3). Our intention in this text is not to detail the various critiques directed at narrative research over the past 30 years, but to focus on more recent interventions. What makes these provocations particularly fascinating is that they are coming from scholars of narrative, who are invested in its promise, but have begun to think carefully about its potential perils and how they may be faced. 4

Narrative Now

In her 2014 essay, ‘This narrated life’, Maria Tumarkin draws our attention to a cavalcade of claims that we live in the ‘age of stories’ and that storytelling makes us human or can save humanity. She points to a uniformity in the style of stories that are popular in podcasts such as This American Life, story-​ slams and Ted Talks, all seeking to tackle complex social issues via a personal story of struggle and triumph, which then leads the audience to feel catharsis and empowerment. The trouble with these narratives, she argues, is that they often omit structural obstacles, important ambivalences, hard work yet to be done, and the fact that sometimes things do not change and are not redeemed. Tumarkin writes: ‘When public conversations become distorted by particular storytelling tics, you have to question what is being missed and what is not allowed to happen’ (Tumarkin, 2014, np). Tumarkin remains committed to narrative, yet in her caution we can see the power of narrative to manipulate, conform and shape experience into stories that are legible or popular for specific socio-​political reasons. On this critical point, a Finnish narratology project, Dangers of Narrative, cleverly captures the way political actors of both left and right persuasions have instrumentalised the merits of ‘storytelling’ in their efforts to connect with constituencies or humanise their campaigns (Mäkelä, 2018; Mäkelä et al, 2021). Mäkelä and team called for the Finnish public to submit examples of social media posts from politicians, they then analysed how these posts used (sometimes composite or fabricated) life stories to enlist emotion or lived experience into the ways in which politicians communicate to validate their claims or make them relatable. For instance, a politician vividly retold the story of her encounter with a drug user, whose presumed life story became a driver for her political ambition to prevent social problems through early interventions. As the authors write, ‘[t]‌he most obvious argument for political action, namely, the statistically salient fact of the hereditariness of social disadvantage and low intergenerational social mobility, is obscured by narrative reasoning’ (Björninen et al, 2020, p 446, original emphasis). In this way, the Finnish scholars point to ethical tensions as well as a blurring of facts in this instrumentalisation of narrative. This leads us to the somewhat different, but nevertheless serious, challenge to narrative imposed by the rise of fake news and conspiracy theories. In this context, narrative scholars’ original emphasis on stories as capturing the lived truths of experiences, especially those silenced by the censorship of official narratives, sits quite close to claims that ‘felt truths’ are being dismissed by the elitism of scientific ‘facts’. While the interplay of facts and fiction remains an important focus of narrative research, recent political shifts and the centrality of social media call for a more critical assessment of the uses and values of testimonies and narratives (Salmon, 2010, p viii). Narratives may be used instrumentally or even to deceive in a time of fake news and amidst a plurality of competing stories. How do we as scholars navigate this 5

Narrative Research Now

multitude of stories and determine what our responsibilities are? It may be considered ethically dubious to seriously question or disprove someone’s account of their life experiences in a qualitative research setting, beyond considerations about subjective viewpoints and the fallibility of memory, yet it may be equally problematic to not be cognisant of potential misuses of narrative. This does not mean that personal stories and ‘voice’ are no longer valuable as tools of resistance. Here it is also crucial for us to consider who gets to question whose stories, by what means, and to what effect. These are questions that feminist scholars have long raised but that have been highlighted recently by the #MeToo movement. Women took to social media to share previously stigmatised, silenced or dismissed testimonies of gendered violence in a way that also served to critique legal channels for justice, which are doggedly mired in gendered inequity. While the most prominent voices were those of celebrities, many regular women also chose this time to speak candidly (see also Chapters 6 and 9). In these contexts, personal stories worked to expose the suppression of women’s narratives –​ whether formally via non-​disclosure agreements or informally via stigma or distrust in the system –​and draw attention to where stories can be told and by whom. However, as Woodiwiss writes, ‘feminism has [also] taught us [other] important lessons regarding the telling of stories, the dangers of speaking for others and the promotion of singular or dominant stories’ (2017, p 14). In this vein, feminist critics have cautioned against being too celebratory of the movement. As Fileborn and Loney-​Howes explain, ‘#MeToo has largely been taken up by young, cisgender, heterosexual women. Subsequently, the particular experiences, needs and dynamics of sexual violence within and against those from differentially situated communities remain marginalised, if not entirely absent, within #MeToo’ (2019, pp 8–​9). Paying attention to questions of voice, ownership and the structural contexts in which stories are told is important, not only for researching the stories that women (can) tell, but for attending to storytelling in general. Indeed, as Woodiwiss et al note, ‘stories are differentially available to different individuals both in terms of being told and being heard’ (2017, p 3). Discussions about who narrates history and for what present political purpose have also gained new momentum with the #BlackLivesMatter movement and protests about colonial monuments and plundered museum collections around the world (ABC, 2021; Barrowcliffe, 2021; Brown et al, 2021; Dejmanee et al, 2022). These arguments alert us to the role of collective narratives in censoring or silencing individual or community narratives where these may differ or pose a threat to the ostensibly ‘shared’ story. In these contexts it may also be stories that work to challenge the status quo and mount a protest against dominant narratives. Further, the process by which protest stories can counteract or become co-​opted is dynamic and 6

Narrative Now

calls for careful analysis (see also Chapters 2 and 3 in this collection). These concerns echo existing research on the role of nation states as narrators of stories which often obscure inequalities in citizenship and state-​sanctioned violence (Mumby, 1993; De Mel, 2001; Shapiro, 2004; Anderson, 2006; Wright, 2016; Wertsch, 2021). With these uses of narrative comes an important call not to be naive about storytelling’s capacities or to assume that centring life stories is a way to empower the powerless. Even in fields that are overtly benevolent, these questions arise. Writing about trends within human rights advocacy, Sujatha Fernandes (2017) similarly describes an ‘emergent culture of storytelling that presents carefully curated narratives with predetermined storylines as a tool of philanthropy, statecraft, and advocacy’ (p 2). Tracking this culture, she observes that here too, ‘curated personal stories shift the focus away from structurally defined axes of oppression and help to defuse the confrontational politics of social movements’ (Fernandes, 2017, p 3). And yet, for Fernandes, there is also hope, as ‘storytellers in state sponsored and nonprofit storytelling initiatives sometimes, even if briefly, manage to break out of the utilitarian binds imposed on them to create alternative spaces of collective imagining’ (p 12). This is thorny territory for narrative research and a vital inquiry to pursue. As we explore in this collection, for narrative to remain relevant going forward, narrative research must give more attention to structural influences and power differentials, and to questions about both representation and authority. These are dimensions that several scholars of narrative and storytelling have started engaging with. For example, in Other People’s Stories: Entitlement Claims and the Critique of Empathy (2005), Amy Shuman explains that ‘storytelling is pushed to its limits both by the use of a particular story beyond the context of the experience it represents and by the use of a personal story to represent a collective experience’ (p. 4). Shuman argues that in daily life we will inevitably tell other people’s stories, but we need to ask a series of ethical questions each time about the right to do so and from where this right derives –​who benefits from this telling, if at all? Taking a slightly different position, Alexis Wright (2016) argues that in cases where there has been a power imbalance, for example, and where a dominant group has primarily spoken about or on behalf of a minority group, priority should be given to people to tell their own stories and to determine their own realities and futures in the process (see also Chapter 7 in this collection).

Engaging with the critique: chapter outline The contributors to this collection are members of a research cluster called the Narrative Network, convened by the editors and based at the University of Melbourne, Australia. As an interdisciplinary forum for narrative research, 7

Narrative Research Now

the network comprises 70-​plus members from sociology, history, criminology, geography, development studies, cultural studies, creative writing, education, politics, social work and social policy. The eight contributors represent this wide-​ranging scope and show how narrative methods and concepts are being used, debated and extended across the social sciences and humanities. The idea for this book sprang from recurring discussions in the network. Over and over again, discussion about the affordances of narrative approaches has been accompanied by critical questions around authenticity, representation, power and ethics, to name but some of the central themes in this book; themes that are also central to the contemporary (critical) frontier of narrative research as outlined earlier. As will also be clear when moving through the book, we are working with narratives at different scales. The narratives in this book are found in oral histories and interview data, in classrooms, in lyrics, in visual representations, in policy design and in digital repositories. These differences in scale showcase the breadth of narrative approaches on a methodological level, where narratives can take many different shapes and forms and call for varying modes of analysis. The book is arranged into three cross-​cutting themes –​‘Institutional Authority and Counter-​stories’; ‘Tellable and Untellable Stories’; and ‘The Ethics of Representation’. Under these headlines we present three sets of chapters that take on some of the important concerns that critics of narrative research argue have been thus far overlooked, mostly prominently the ethics, power dynamics and politics of storytelling in a social world. The unique, interdisciplinary approach to these considerations opens up potential links and tensions between different approaches to shared ethical and methodological questions and together the chapters point to new ways ahead for narrative research. In the first section, ‘Institutional Authority and Counter-​stories’, the chapters explore storytelling in specific institutional contexts that each come with their own power structures, dominant stories and idealised identities. Dave McDonald’s opening chapter, ‘Telling Stories with Ribbons: Visual Memorialisation in the Wake of Child Sexual Abuse’, focuses on visual storytelling in the context of the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse. In this chapter, McDonald explores the informal narrative that arose from survivors and the community at large and was manifested in the ‘Loud Fence’ of colourful ribbons. While this was initially an informal narrative, created in opposition to the institutions’ dominant narrative about these events, it gradually gained prominence and became institutionalised. Thus, this chapter explores the possibilities for change that bottom-​up storytelling can hold, even in relation to powerful institutions. With its focus on visual storytelling, the chapter also offers

8

Narrative Now

important methodological developments in terms of expanding our understanding of how we can conceive of narratives beyond language. The relationship between institutions, policy makers and public narratives sits at the centre of Martin Bortz’s chapter, ‘Policy Narratives and Policy Change: The Case of Pill Testing’. Over the last few decades, the role and importance of narrative in shaping public policy has been widely recognised by academics and practitioners. Narrative is seen as a way through which policy preferences, interests and values are expressed and policy actors come to make sense of the world they inhabit. While the importance of narratives is argued for in policy scholarship generally, there has been less empirical work on understanding the role of narratives in processes of policy change. Indeed, one of the fundamental concerns in policy studies is the notion of change. Under what conditions do policies change, and in what way? Bortz explores the role of narrative in such change. To do this, he focuses on the case of drug law reform in the jurisdictions of New South Wales (NSW), Australia and Aotearoa/​New Zealand, specifically the discourse of harm minimisation and a relatively recent policy initiative called ‘pill testing’. Offering a path for narrative policy scholars, comparing and contrasting processes of change, and the roles of narrative therein, Bortz provides us with unique insights into processes of narrative and change. Finally for this section, Diana Johns turns our attention to the university classroom. In her chapter entitled ‘The Criminalised Other as Storyteller: The Promise and Peril of Bringing “Lived Experience” into the Classroom’, Johns offers a much-​needed critical engagement with the notion of ‘lived experience’ and with the role of narrative in criminology more generally. Based on experiences from her own teaching on penal justice and abolition, and drawing on critical pedagogy, Johns discusses the dilemma between ‘giving voice’ to offenders versus reifying and othering that voice in the process. This discussion is set against the backdrop of not only the penal system but also the university as an institutional context that might not be so prone to change. The second section, ‘Tellable and Untellable Stories’, explores issues of power and narrative from a very different vantage point by examining what makes some stories untellable and/​or unhearable. Opening this section, Wajeehah Aayeshah’s chapter on ‘Ethical Weaving: Creative Narrations of Family Trauma and Resilience’ explores the dilemmas involved in doing family history and working with memory. In this chapter, the question of tellable and untellable stories is tied to the researcher’s emotional proximity to the research topic –​the people as well as the events being retold –​and to the traumatic nature of family memories that include war, grief and forced migration. Through a discussion of the ethics of family members telling these stories, and the researcher representing them as data in a creative/​

9

Narrative Research Now

graphic novel, Aayeshah demonstrates the complexity of working with intergenerational narratives. Next, Nikki Henningham’s chapter entitled ‘ “I can’t believe how much I’ve done”: Joan and the Evolution of Her Life Story’ offers an in-​depth, micro-​level analysis of one oral history interview and its afterlife to ask questions about responsibility, ownership and identity. Taking its point of departure in a sexual assault which the oral history narrator, Joan, experienced in 1950s rural Australia, the chapter explores the barriers for Joan to tell her story at the time and the consequences these barriers had for her across her life. This past is juxtaposed with the narrator’s present situation, as an older adult diagnosed with dementia, to gain powerful insights into narrative and the telling of stories as an existential condition. Through this analysis, the chapter offers insights that are all the more timely when considering the present moment and the changes in the tellability of survivor narratives. Who decides what is a tellable story, and how does the answer to that change with time? What do we do when family politics overlay this complicated terrain? Henningham unravels these tangled threads during and after her interview with Joan. The last section of the book focuses on ‘The Ethics of Representation’ and includes three chapters that share a common interest in the parameters of how stories are told, who is doing the telling and the accompanying responsibilities. The first chapter in this section is written by Liz Dean. This chapter, ‘Songs as Narratives: Ethical Tensions in Midnight Oil’s Dead Heart (1986) and Gadigal Land (2020)’, turns our attention to a different type of narratives; those represented by and in song lyrics. Comparing two songs by popular Australian band Midnight Oil –​one from 1986 and one from 2020 –​Dean explores how the broader socio-​historical context is key to understanding and addressing questions of responsibility, ownership and ‘voice’ and who gets to speak for whom, in this case white settler musicians speaking on behalf of Indigenous Australians. As Dean documents, changes occurring in the time between those two songs alter the responses to these questions and alert us to the need to pay close attention to the dynamic socio-​cultural contexts in which stories are told and heard. Next, Sarah Strauven’s chapter entitled ‘Reading Back as a Way to Give Back? A Narrative Practice-​Informed Method for Interview-​Based Research’ also takes up questions about representation. Strauven considers the ethics of the relationship between researcher and research participant as she draws on insights from narrative therapy to propose a method of reading interview participants’ narratives to them. Strauven argues that the practice of ‘reading back’ as an act of reciprocity not only creates a space for reflection –​on the story told and the implications of this –​but also is an act of assigning value to the narrative. This is particularly important when doing research with 10

Narrative Now

marginalised groups whose narratives might often not be seen as valued at a broader, societal level. The final chapter in this section is Rachael Diprose’s ‘Narrating Women’s Life Histories: Voice, Audience, Ethics’. Fittingly, this chapter takes a step back and considers the act of representation involved in the dissemination of research findings, shifting our attention from the narratives of research participants to those created by the researcher. Diprose focuses on the pronounced challenges that come with digital storytelling as a mode of dissemination where the consumption and usage of research narratives is far beyond the researcher’s control. This raises important questions about the researcher’s responsibility to protect the identity of research participants versus respecting participants’ interest in taking ownership over their stories. To sum up, these eight chapters provide a rich exploration of critical concerns facing narrative research in the present moment. Taken together, the chapters showcase the frontiers of the ‘Antipodean school’ of narrative research, serving as an important extension of a field often dominated by UK-​and US-​based scholarship. What comes through is an interdisciplinary attention to the ethics and ownership of stories that opens new paths for the field of narrative research in new times. We hope the chapters in this volume will be a source of inspiration for others to build on in order to advance a critical but committed narrative tradition. Note 1

In May 2023, Launch Housing, a not-​for-​profit organisation in Melbourne, Australia, advertised for a Chief Storyteller to be responsible for communication strategies and to ensure impact through storytelling.

References Abbott, A. (2007) ‘Against narrative: A preface to lyrical sociology’. Sociological Theory 25(1), pp 67–​99. ABC (Australian Broadcasting Association) (2021) Stuff the British Stole. https://​www.abc.net.au/​radion​atio​nal/​progr​ams/​stuff-​the-​brit​ish-​stole Andersen, D., Ravn, S. and Thomson, R. (2020) ‘Narrative sense-​making and prospective social action: Methodological challenges and new directions’. International Journal of Social Research Methodology 23(4), pp 367–​75. Anderson, B. (2006) Imagined Communities. London: Verso. Andrews, M. (2007) Shaping History: Narratives of Political Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Andrews, M. (2014) Narrative Imagination and Everyday Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Andrews, M., Squire, C. and Tamboukou, M. (2008) Doing Narrative Research. London: SAGE. Bamberg, M. (ed) (2007) Narrative: State of the Art. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 11

Narrative Research Now

Barrowcliffe, R. (2021) ‘Closing the narrative gap: Social media as a tool to reconcile institutional archival narratives with Indigenous counter-​ narratives’. Archives and Manuscripts 49(3), pp 151–​66. Becker, H.S. (2007) Telling About Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Berger, R.J. and Quinney, R. (2005) Storytelling Sociology: Narrative as Social Inquiry. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Björninen, S., Hatavara, M. and Mäkelä, M. (2020) ‘Narrative as social action: A narratological approach to story, discourse and positioning in political storytelling’. International Journal of Social Research Methodology 23(4), pp 437–​49. Booth, W.C. (1988) The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction. Berkeley: University of California Press. Brooks, P. (2022) Seduced by Story: Use and Abuse of Narrative. New York: New York Review Books. Brown, N., Block Jr., R. and Stout, C. (eds) (2021) The Politics of Protest: Readings on the Black Lives Matter Movement. New York: Routledge. Bruner, J. (2004) ‘Life as narrative’. Social Research 71(3), pp 691–​710. Bury, M. (2001) ‘Illness narratives: Fact or fiction?’. Sociology of Health & Illness 23(3), pp 263–​85. Damodaran, A. (2017 Narrative and Numbers: The Value of Stories in Business. New York: Harper Business. De Mel, N. (2001) Women & the Nation’s Narrative: Gender and Nationalism in Twentieth Century Sri Lanka. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Dejmanee, T., Millar, J., Lorenz, M., Weber, K. and Zaher, Z. (2022) ‘#Aboriginallivesmatter: Mapping Black Lives Matter discourse in Australia’. Media International Australia 184(1), pp 6–​20. Denborough, D. (2014) Retelling the Stories of Our Lives: Everyday Narrative Therapy to Draw Inspiration and Transform Experience. London: W.W. Norton & Company. Dolan, G. (2017) Stories for Work: The Essential Guide to Business Storytelling. Milton: Wiley. Elliott, J. (2005) Using Narrative in Social Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. London: SAGE. Fernandes, S. (2017) Curated Stories: The Uses and Misuses of Storytelling. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fileborn, B. and Loney-​Howes, R. (2019) #MeToo and the Politics of Social Change. Cham: Springer International. Frank, A. (1995) The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Frank, A. (2010) Letting Stories Breathe: A Socio-​narratology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Freeman, M. (1993) Rewriting the Self: History, Memory, Narrative. London: Taylor & Francis. 12

Narrative Now

Freeman, M. (2010) Hindsight: The Promise and Peril of Looking Backward. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Georgakopoulou, A. (2007) Small Stories, Interaction, and Identities. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hyvärinen, M. (2006) ‘Towards a conceptual history of narrative’. In The Travelling Concept of Narrative. Helsinki: Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, pp 20–​41. Jackson, A.Y. and Mazzei, L.A. (2008) Voice in Qualitative Inquiry: Challenging Conventional, Interpretive, and Critical Conceptions in Qualitative Research. London: Taylor & Francis. Jones, M.D, Shanahan, E.A. and McBeth, M.K. (eds) (2014) The Science of Stories: Applications of the Narrative Policy Framework in Public Policy Analysis. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Kelly, S. (2020) ‘Selling the drama: Why storytelling is the future of professional sport’. Contact Magazine. https://​stor​ies.uq.edu.au/​cont​act-​ magaz​ine/​2020/​sell​ing-​the-​drama-​story​tell​ing future-​of-​professional-​ sport/​index.html Labov, W. (1972) Language in the Inner City. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Labov, W. (2013) The Language of Life and Death: The Transformation of Experience in Oral Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Langton, M. (2012) Well, I Heard it on the Radio and I Saw it on the Television …: An Essay for the Australian Film Commission on the Politics and Aesthetics of Filmmaking by and about Aboriginal People and Things. Melbourne: Custom Book Centre. Leigh Star, S. (2010) ‘This is not a boundary object: Reflections on the origin of a concept’. Science, Technology & Human Values 35(5), pp 601–​17. Mäkelä, M. (2018) ‘Lessons from the dangers of narrative project: Toward a story-​critical narratology’. Tekstualia 1(4), pp 175–​86. Mäkelä, M., Björninen, S., Karttunen, L., Nurminen, M., Raipola, J. and Rantanen, T. (2021) ‘Dangers of narrative: A critical approach to narratives of personal experience in contemporary story economy’. Narrative 29(2), pp 139–​59. Mattingly, C. (2010) The Paradox of Hope. Berkeley: University of California Press. Meretoja, H. (2018) The Ethics of Storytelling: Narrative Hermeneutics, History, and the Possible. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Moore, N. (2016) ‘Weaving archival imaginaries: Researching community archives’. In N. Moore, A. Salter, L. Stanley and M. Tamboukou (eds) The Archive Project: Archival Research in the Social Sciences. London: Routledge, pp 141–​64. Moreton-​Robinson, A. (2000) Talkin’ Up to the White Woman: Indigenous Women and White Feminism. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. 13

Narrative Research Now

Morgan, A. (2000) What Is Narrative Therapy? An Easy-​to-​Read Introduction. Adelaide: Dulwich Centre Publications. Mumby, D. (ed) (1993) Narrative and Social Control: Critical Perspectives. Thousand Oaks: SAGE. Nelson, H.L. (2014) Stories and Their Limits: Narrative Approaches to Bioethics. London: Taylor & Francis. Patterson, W. (2002) Strategic Narrative: New Perspectives on the Power of Personal and Cultural Stories. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Phelan, J. (1996) Narrative as Rhetoric: Technique, Audiences, Ethics, Ideology. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. Plummer, K. (1995) Telling Sexual Stories: Power, Change and Social Worlds. London: Routledge. Plummer, K. (2019) Narrative Power. Cambridge: Polity Press. Polletta, F. (2006) It Was Like a Fever: Storytelling in Protest and Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Presser, L. (2018) Inside Story: Why Narratives Drive Mass Harm. Oakland: University of California Press. Presser, L. and Sandberg, S. (2015) Narrative Criminology: Understanding Stories of Crime. New York: New York University Press. Riessman, C.K. (1990) ‘Strategic uses of narrative in the presentation of self and illness’. Social Science & Medicine 30(11), pp 1195–​200. Riessman, C.K. (2008) Narrative Methods for the Human Sciences. Thousand Oaks: SAGE. Salmon, C. (2010) Storytelling: Bewitching the Modern Mind. London: Verso Books. Santos, B.d.S. (2016) Epistemologies of the South: Justice Against Epistemicide. Abingdon: Routledge. Schiller, R.J. (2019) Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Shapiro, M.J. (2004) Methods and Nations: Cultural Governance and the Indigenous Subject. London: Routledge. Shuman, A. (2005) Other People’s Stories: Entitlement Claims and the Critique of Empathy. Champaign: University of Illinois Press. Stanley, L. (1995) The Auto/​biographical I: The Theory and Practice of Feminist Auto/​biography. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Tamboukou, M. (2016) Gendering the Memory of Work: Women Workers’ Narratives. London: Taylor & Francis. Todorov, T. (1977) The Poetics of Prose. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Tumarkin, M. (2014) ‘This narrated life: The limits of storytelling’. Griffith Review 44, pp 175–​84. Wertsch, J.V. (2021) How Nations Remember: A Narrative Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press. White, M.K. (2007) Maps of Narrative Practice. London: W.W. Norton & Company. 14

Narrative Now

Wiegman, R. (1995) Who Can Speak? Authority and Critical Identity. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Woodiwiss, J. (2017) ‘Challenges for feminist research: Contested stories, dominant narratives and narrative frameworks’. In J. Woodiwiss, K. Smith and K. Lockwood (eds) Feminist Narrative Research: Opportunities and Challenges. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 13–​38. Woodiwiss, J., Smith, K. and Lockwood, K. (eds) (2017) Feminist Narrative Research: Opportunities and Challenges. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Wright, A. (2016) ‘What happens when you tell somebody else’s story?’. Meanjin 75(4), pp 58–​76.

15

2

Telling Stories with Ribbons: Visual Acknowledgement in the Wake of Child Sexual Abuse Dave McDonald Figure 2.1: St Patrick’s Cathedral Loud Fence, Ballarat (Stuart Street perimeter, daytime)

Source: Dave McDonald

19

Narrative Research Now

Introduction They look festive. In the years since they first began to appear in May 2015, colourful ribbons have become replete throughout much of this place. They are bright, visual, even kaleidoscopic as they flicker when the wind picks up. To an untrained eye they give the appearance of decorations. (Fieldnotes, 4 January 2018) Cities are an expression of stories. From the monumental through to the mundane, the materiality of cities embody stories on the part of town planners, architects, urban designers, advertisers, citizens and others. While such stories are often a source of protection in the form of heritage overlays, the shifting form of the built environment underscores the changing nature of stories within the contemporary city. This can be seen from global cities through to more vernacular regional centres. This chapter follows one such regional Australian city that has been undergoing a rapid aesthetic transformation –​the Victorian city of Ballarat. A storied place in the context of Australia’s 19th-​century colonial history, it was the epicentre of Australia’s gold rush in the 1850s, and the site of the richly celebrated Eureka rebellion in 1854.1 Known to many as the birthplace of Australian democracy, these events remain enshrined in the town’s material culture. The past endures in other ways as well. Catholicism dates back to the early days of mining when the first mass was conducted on diggings, and over the intervening years a number of Catholic parishes, schools and orphanages were established (McPhillips, 2017, p 138; Wilson and Golding, 2018, pp 864–​5). More recently, Ballarat has been transformed by the appearance of bright, colourful ribbons that have come to dominate the visuality of the town. Appearing at first spontaneously in 2015, in the years since they have become a movement that tells a new story; one of institutional child sexual abuse throughout the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat. Known as Loud Fence, the meanings these ribbons articulate onto publicly visible (if not public) spaces is the subject of this chapter. What public memories are made through the placement of ribbons? How are issues of responsibility and complicity invoked through such a practice? How are these meanings recalibrated according to the actors who place them? These questions animate my engagement with institutional fences as sites of visual storytelling. Since the 1990s, the story of institutional abuse has been dramatically reconfigured. Across an array of institutions ranging from open, community-​ based sites through to closed, total institutions, such abuse has been ‘discovered’ internationally (Daly, 2014a; 2014b). The impact of this has been felt widely. The impetus giving rise to this development has been persistent demands for 20

Telling Stories with Ribbons

Figure 2.2: St Patrick’s Cathedral Loud Fence, Ballarat (Dawson Street, evening)

Source: Dave McDonald

recognition from survivors, who have called for collective modes of recognition that transcend the ingrained and widely documented failures of criminal justice responses (Wright and Henry, 2019; McDonald and Oldfield, 2023). This has culminated in a succession of high-​profile public inquiries throughout the Western world, which have provided a platform for the articulation of collective accounts of abuse. While public inquiries into child welfare date back to the 19th century (Scott and Swain, 2002), a distinguishing feature of many recent inquiries into institutional abuse is the way they foreground the experiences and stories of victims/​survivors as central to the inquiry process (Swain, 2014). In this respect, the organisation of these inquiries around such experiences has been influenced in particular by truth and reconciliation commissions that have responded to widespread conflict and atrocity in transitional justice settings (Swain, 2014; Sköld, 2015; Gallen, 2016; Hamber and Lundy, 2020; McDonald and Oldfield, 2023). As Posel has written, ‘the idea of the truth commission derived from the conviction that truth could unify and reconcile by exposing the horrors that past oppressors had denied or hidden and by then passing resolute and robust judgment on what had gone wrong’ (2008, p 121). In the case of institutional abuse, a similar logic has been employed. By foregrounding the oral testimonies of victims/​survivors, the arena of the public inquiry has been posited as an official site of truth-​telling. The use of official responses like public inquiries, and their function in relation to truth-​telling, has received significant scholarly interest. In contrast, 21

Narrative Research Now

unofficial or informal responses that have occurred in the shadow of state initiatives have been much less remarked upon. Loud Fence represents one such example. While testimonial accounts pervade official responses, this chapter considers how oral histories of abuse can give way to an aesthetic response that embodies a visual mode of storytelling. I explore the function of Loud Fence as a practice through which the international discovery of institutional child sexual abuse is rendered meaningful –​indeed, legible –​onto institutional fences throughout Ballarat. In this way, it functions as a visual mode of storytelling. Arising out of a broader testimonial culture, I explore how the visuality of Loud Fence challenges dominant institutional narratives of child sexual abuse (or denial thereof), and in so doing inscribes an alternative story in which collective mourning for victims is coaligned with institutional culpability and betrayal. The following section positions the chapter in the context of truth-​telling, and the role of oral histories within this. The remainder investigates the way Loud Fence articulates a form of visual storytelling. My focus is threefold: first, upon the way the ribbons function as a form of memorialisation that honour victims/​survivors; second, as an expression of institutional culpability; and third, how institutional responses can function as a form of appropriation in the wake of such a visual critique. Taken together, the chapter seeks to offer new insights concerning the relationship between visuality and narrative, and the role of visual memorialisation as an accompaniment to oral storytelling in the wake of institutional child sexual abuse.

Child abuse, storytelling and testimony It is a contemporary orthodoxy that the sexual abuse of children has been endemic across a variety of institutional contexts. However, the origins of this realisation are historically recent. As Daly has noted, the victimisation of children is as old as history and yet ‘the words now used to describe it –​physical abuse, sexual abuse, and institutional abuse –​are new’ (2014a, p 16). Each term has its own recent trajectory, with the recent history of child sexual abuse a case in point. Its emergence as a widely recognised social problem was precipitated by interventions on the part of second-​wave feminists throughout the 1970s, who emphasised the abuse of girls as a distinct manifestation of sexual violence (Angelides, 2004; Swain, 2015). While this critique was primarily concerned with intrafamilial incest, throughout the 1980s this gave way to a broader cultural anxiety around paedophilia and so-​called stranger danger (Jenkins, 1998; Angelides, 2005; McDonald, 2012). If the point of second-​wave analyses of incest was to draw attention to the everyday nature of such abuse, the rearticulation of a cultural narrative of abuse that centred upon the figure of the stranger had the contradictory effect of externalising the imagined sources of such harm. 22

Telling Stories with Ribbons

The emergence of institutional abuse as an international matter of concern is even more recent still. Throughout the 1990s, a series of until then siloed logics of child harm coalesced to produce institutional child sexual abuse as a recognisable social problem (see Daly, 2014a, pp 83–​111). In Australia, these shifts were exemplified by a trilogy of inquiries through which sexual abuse came to appear as a particular component of harmful child welfare practices (Swain, 2015, p 290). These encompassed the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission’s (1997) Inquiry into the Stolen Generations,2 and Australian Senate inquiries (2001, 2004) into both child migrants (known as the ‘Lost Innocents’3) and care leavers (known as the ‘Forgotten Australians’4). In each of these instances, sexual abuse emerged as a distinct manifestation of abuse despite its absence from the inquiries’ terms of reference (Swain, 2015, p 290). The effect was to reinforce emerging recognition of child sexual abuse as a deeply entrenched problem, while serving to lend further legitimacy to survivors and their demands for justice. Aligning with a succession of high-​profile media controversies and scandals across a multitude of institutions, by the latter 2000s political and public awareness of such abuse was well and truly nascent. Out of this context came the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (2013–​17). The longest, largest and most expensive royal commission in Australian history to date, it is widely acknowledged as one of the most significant inquiries into institutional abuse internationally (McAlinden and Naylor, 2016; Wright et al, 2017, p 1). Echoing the influence of truth and reconciliation commissions, oral histories of victims/​survivors were made central to its work. Over five years it conducted a total of 57 case studies focusing on the way institutions had responded –​or failed to respond –​to abuse within their remit. In comparison to the adversarial arena of the criminal trial in which victims are afforded a limited role akin to witness, the case studies were deliberately organised in order to centre the stories of survivors, whose testimony was used at the beginning of a case study before other witnesses were heard from. Separate to the formal public hearings that comprised the Royal Commission’s 57 case studies, the Royal Commissions Act 1902 was amended to enable the inquiry to conduct private sessions with survivors who wanted to share their story away from a public hearing. In total, more than 8,000 private sessions took place, each of which were heard before one or two commissioners of the inquiry. Weaving through this context –​with regard both to the Royal Commission, its public and private hearings, as well as the international context from which it emerged –​is a central reliance upon storytelling. In the same way that the Royal Commission represented a formal invitation for victims/​survivors to share their stories –​and during which their testimonies proceeded from the statement that they would be believed –​the global reckoning in response to institutional sexual abuse has been predicated on the ascendency of 23

Narrative Research Now

testimony and truth-​telling. As a juridical function of law, testimony is highly regulated according to strict rules of evidence. Nowhere is this more starkly demonstrated (and experienced) than in the arena of the criminal trial, where the role of the victim is limited to that of a witness in an adversarial contest between state and defendant. In comparison, testimony as a function of truth-​telling about the past has assumed an important role as a tool for the production of collective memory (Kennedy, 2004; 2014). Having become dominant as a mode of response in the wake of the Holocaust, Roseanne Kennedy describes testimony as ‘a transnational cultural form [that] is today crucial to the process of documenting violations, constructing memories, and soliciting witnessing publics in human rights campaigns’ (2014, p 51). Unmoored from the strictures of criminal law, the promise of testimony as a tool for truth-​telling is that it speaks not just to the past but also the future. Across different domains, state and institutional cruelty towards children came to appear as a structural feature of child welfare practices, and testimonial accounts of victims/​survivors played a powerful role in documenting the subjective experiences of such practices. The significance of oral histories within this transformation cannot therefore be overstated. The advent of a testimonial culture of truth-​telling has been central in giving voice to victims/​survivors and enabling the international discovery of institutional abuse more broadly. However, to understand the visual transformation of Ballarat in the form of Loud Fence as a manifestation of this context, one significant point of departure is the way that Loud Fence conveys meaning aesthetically rather than orally. In order to develop this, in what follows I present three different ‘scenes’ –​sites that are spatially and temporally distinct –​in which variations of Loud Fences have arisen throughout Ballarat. Emerging at different points and driven by different set of actors and interests, each of these scenes invokes a different figuration of responsibility and remorse. If Loud Fence expresses a broad story of institutional abuse, my account of these scenes underscores that stories never exist as static or self-​contained. Rather, I conceive of them as fluid, permeable and subject to being appropriated by different actors for different purposes.

Scene 1: The appearance of Loud Fence, St Alipius Primary School Of the 57 case studies that encompassed the Royal Commission’s public hearings, one of these concerned Ballarat’s Catholic Church Authorities (Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, 2017). The hearings that comprised this began in Ballarat on 19 May 2015. After opening statements from the Commission’s chair and counsel assisting, one by one 17 adult men came forward to testify about abuse they suffered at the hands of Diocesan officials. Ten were abused at the St Alipius Primary 24

Telling Stories with Ribbons

School, and seven were abused at St Patrick’s College. These survivors became the public face of abuse across the Diocese, and their accounts were supplemented by a deeper cache of evidence from other witnesses, bystanders and Catholic officials, as well as survivor testimonies from private hearings. Underscoring the scale of abuse occurring throughout institutions such as these, the Royal Commission heard that at one point in the 1970s, for example, every male teacher at St Alipius was sexually abusing children (see McPhillips, 2017, p 139). Beyond the toll this took upon victims/​survivors, the Inquiry heard of a ‘divided community’, with groups ‘who are at war with each other over the response they have to the history of child sexual abuse in the community’ (cited in McPhillips, 2017, p 139). If Ballarat was once the epicentre of Australia’s gold rush, the Royal Commission painted a picture where Ballarat routinely came to be described as an ‘epicentre’ or ‘ground zero’ of institutional sexual abuse in Australia (Gliddon, 2018; Cuthbertson et al, 2019; Davey, 2020). As survivor testimonies were being heard throughout the first week of the Ballarat case study, colourful ribbons began appearing on the fence of St Alipius Primary School.5 Two women, Maureen Hatcher and her friend Jacinta, had gone to school nearby when many of those giving evidence recounted being abused at St Alipius. Describing the impact of the revelations a few years later, she said: ‘It still amazes me, even now, that all of that went on and we didn’t know. So, when the Royal Commission began and we were hearing the stories, we felt so deceived and the community felt hoodwinked. We all wanted to do something to help, to show support’ (cited in Younes, 2018, np). In response, on 21 May 2015, the two women circulated an invitation announcing they would be at St Alipius Primary School with ribbons. Elsewhere, Hatcher has described how the name came to be: ‘we were discussing what colour they should be and I said they had to be colourful and loud as there had been too much silence. I very quickly created a Facebook page to invite people to join us and it needed a title. “Loud Fence” came to mind’ (Ballarat Courier, 2017, p 4). As this ‘scene’ makes clear, the emergence of Loud Fence shows how testimony given in public hearings constitutes a social address that called forth a response from the listener. Survivors giving voice to prolific abuse across institutions like St Alipius Primary School precipitated an impulse that was felt by community members to speak back to those survivors. So while the testimonial dimensions of public inquiries have been a subject of increasing interest to scholars of institutional abuse, the fact that Loud Fence emerged as a direct grassroots response to such testimonies adds further insight into the productive dimensions they may inaugurate. Beyond the formal hearing room of the Royal Commission, or the pages of its final report, for example, these testimonies are generative in the way they activate a response from local witnesses. 25

Narrative Research Now

Figure 2.3: St Alipius Primary School Loud Fence, Ballarat (presbytery)

Source: Dave McDonald

Figure 2.4: St Alipius Primary School Loud Fence, Ballarat

Source: Dave McDonald

26

Telling Stories with Ribbons

In the early days of the Ballarat case study, the appearance of ribbons was inaugurated by the affective charge of testimony. Over subsequent months and years, they have come to embody an uneasy tension with those schools and churches on whose fences they have been placed. As their (re)appearance has persisted, however, their proliferation has come to embody a more diverse set of meanings. Part of this complexity arises from the fact that the ribbons exist upon institutional fences. This underscores the fact that positionality is central to the stories these ribbons embody, aligning with recent scholarship emphasising the spatiality of public monuments. For example, Johnson writes of such memorials that their ‘sites are not merely the material backdrop from which a story is told, but the spaces themselves constitute the meaning by becoming both a physical location and a sight-​ line of interpretation’ (2002, p 293). Thinking about the positionality of ribbons upon institutional fences then, their placement alters meaning –​both in terms of the ribbons themselves, as well as the meaning of the fences onto which they are tied. As the name suggests, Loud Fence attempts to utilise the fence in order to make a broad, expressive and visual statement. In this way, the fence becomes a metaphor for those conditions that have enabled child sexual abuse in institutions to be covered up and denied so pervasively. The story the ribbons narrate, then, is thus not exclusively one of commemoration or solidarity with victims/​survivors. The fact that these Figure 2.5: Inscribed ribbon at St Alipius Primary School, Ballarat

Source: Dave McDonald

27

Narrative Research Now

are institutional fences underscores how the institution itself is intertwined in the story they express. Nowhere is this more strikingly demonstrated than in Figure 2.5, in which a ribbon is inscribed with the word ‘SHAME’.

Scene 2: St Patrick’s College Alongside St Alipius Primary School, another site in which ribbons quickly appeared was St Patrick’s College. As I have already indicated, these two institutions came to assume an immense and significant focus throughout the Royal Commission’s Ballarat case study. Founded in 1893, St Patrick’s is an esteemed day and boarding school with alumni including high-​profile lawyers, politicians, athletes and ordained priests. Some of these priests went on to be convicted of child sex offences. Many other offending priests lived or worked at the school. In the wake of the enactment of a Loud Fence on the fence surrounding the college in 2015, hundreds of ribbons were collected and preserved by staff. The headmaster, John Crowley, had responded to initial ribbons by tying some himself. As another winter approached in early 2016, however, he posted a public message on the school’s website announcing that ribbons on the school’s fence would be collected until a permanent and publicly visible installation could be built in a prominent position on the school’s grounds. The following year, in a high-​profile event that brought together victims/​ survivors, students, media and the general public, a reflective garden and monument to victims/​survivors was publicly unveiled by some of those who testified before the Commission. Located on college grounds adjacent to a fence, it is publicly accessible from the footpath and visually references Loud Fence through a bright, colourful stained-​glass structure and with ribbons preserved in a trunk installed on the site. Designed by an artist, the school consulted with local survivors and used the occasion to deliver a detailed acknowledgement and apology for abuse that had been committed against students. This response by St Patrick’s College demonstrates how, beyond the expression of complicity or shame that is inscribed as an effect of the positionality of Loud Fence on the site of institutional fences, another dimension of meaning arises from the question of who it is that ties such ribbons. In the context of Loud Fence’s initial appearance in May 2015, it was community members who organically came together to express solidarity for those whose abuse was disclosed before the Royal Commission. However, over the intervening years Loud Fence has grown into a movement that has continued to proliferate within and beyond Ballarat. To a casual observer, these ribbons may appear to endure. Ephemeral and precarious, however, they do not simply exist in a static or eternal sense. They fade with the weather, they age, and they are liable to being swiftly removed. Accordingly, there is a temporality to their vibrancy, and without further human intervention their visibility wanes over time. Whether it is obvious to a casual bystander or not, 28

Telling Stories with Ribbons

Figure 2.6: St Patrick’s College reflective garden and monument, Ballarat (Sturt Street perimeter)

Source: Dave McDonald

Figure 2.7: St Patrick’s College reflective garden and monument, Ballarat (water feature)

Source: Dave McDonald

29

Narrative Research Now

Figure 2.8: St Patrick’s College reflective garden and monument, Ballarat (bench and chest)

Source: Dave McDonald

the enduring presence of Loud Fence is buttressed by organised campaigns or ‘working bees’, where people come together to replenish them. Yet the fact remains that they exist on private property. The fence may appear public in the sense that it is made into a screen encountered in public space, but this belies an alternative reality. This calls institutional responses into focus.

Scene 3: St Patrick’s Cathedral Nestled geographically between St Alipius Primary School and St Patrick’s College in the middle of central Ballarat is St Patrick’s Cathedral. In the wake of the Royal Commission’s revelations of abuse across the Diocese, the cathedral quickly became a site in which ribbons appeared in 2015. As with St Alipius and the college, ribbons were initially tolerated by church officials. However, as the end of the Royal Commission approached in December 2017, Vicar-​General Justin Driscoll announced in the local Ballarat Courier newspaper that the time had come for the ribbons to be removed (Wrigley, 2017). On one level this announcement resembled that of St Patrick’s College, when John Crawley announced that a permanent monument and reflective garden would be built. Adding further symbolism was the fact that a gate at the rear of the cathedral that had been locked shut for decades would be unlocked to enable public access to the memorial (Wrigley, 2017). 30

Telling Stories with Ribbons

However, whereas consultation with the local survivor community had been a key feature of the college’s response, many survivors reacted angrily to a lack of consultation of the part of the cathedral. Philip Nagle, for example, described to the Ballarat Courier how survivors: are quite upset and it’s not really a garden at all. The Vicar-​General could have done so much to make it an appropriate place. The gesture of opening the gate in Lyons St is a great gesture, but once you walk in there it’s a corner, a couple of seats and a box. … Survivors feel like they want to get rid of us and the ribbons in time for Christmas. (Cited in Smith, 2017, np) As Nagle forewarned, within a mere few days ribbons began to reappear. In a pattern that would become familiar, the removal of fading ribbons was replaced by new ribbons that brought renewed vigour and vibrancy (see Figure 2.9). In comparison to the college’s monument garden, which was thoughtfully designed by an artist in consultation with survivors, and publicly opened in an event that was lauded by many, the reflective garden at the rear of the cathedral feels decidedly more lifeless –​makeshift, even (see Figure 2.10). It has both the look and feel of a swiftly hatched plan that has never endeared itself to local survivors. In contrast, ribbons continue Figure 2.9: St Patrick’s Cathedral, Ballarat (Dawson Street perimeter, daytime)

Source: Dave McDonald

31

Narrative Research Now

Figure 2.10: St Patrick’s Cathedral memorial garden, Ballarat

Source: Dave McDonald

to reappear on the cathedral’s external fences. When they begin to wane, local working bees reconvene to replenish them, irrespective of the views or wishes of cathedral authorities. Across these three distinct sites, three very different stories are narrated concerning the sexual abuse of children throughout Ballarat’s Catholic institutions. At St Alipius, the appearance of ribbons emerged as an organic response on the part of local community members to give visual effect to a devastating scale of abuse. More than seven years on at the time of writing, they endure as an aesthetic expression of solidarity to survivors whose testimony was foregrounded by the Royal Commission, and all those other victims/​ survivors they represent. The effect they produce is haunting, functioning as an invitation to passers-​by to contemplate the litany of harms that occurred behind the walls of a seemingly banal presbytery and church. On the opposite side of Ballarat, the expansive fences of St Patrick’s College rarely feature many ribbons these days, however the visual motifs of Loud Fence endure in the form of the school’s reflective garden and monument. There is a permanence to this structure, and a sense of tranquillity that comes from sitting in the garden listening to the gentle sounds of water flowing from its fountain. In comparison to these scenes is that of St Patrick’s Cathedral. Located in the centre of Ballarat, it is nonetheless an outlier in its relation to Loud Fence. Like the college, it is now home to a memorial garden that is open to public visitors, and which includes a collection of ribbons displayed 32

Telling Stories with Ribbons

in a trunk. However, whereas headmaster John Crowley met fortnightly with survivors over an extended period to discuss how the college could meaningfully respond to abuse committed in its name (see Cunningham, 2015), no such meaningful consultation influenced the cathedral’s response. It was the cathedral rather than survivors who decided the time had come to remove ribbons, and rather than liaise with locals about the course of action that followed, this occurred unilaterally. Whereas Loud Fence sought to make visible local abuse, the response of the cathedral is akin to wanting to bring such visibility to pass. The unlocking of a gate at the rear of the property was envisaged as a powerful symbolic expression that the cathedral hoped would suffice. It did not. If the conclusion of the Royal Commission in December 2017 represented an opportunity for the cathedral to bring the story of Loud Fence to a close, its response has had the paradoxical effect of reinvigorating the impulse to visually inscribe its fences with ribbons. In response to the working bee of parishioners that gathered in December 2017 to remove ribbons, in the years since an ongoing retinue of locals have assembled in a campaign of defiance. While the reflective garden at the rear of the cathedral sits lifeless and unloved, new life has been breathed into Loud Fence.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have investigated the complex series of stories that are embodied by the placement of ribbons on institutional fences in the aftermath of child sexual abuse in the Victorian city of Ballarat. Marita Sturken writes of public commemoration that ‘it is a form of history-​making, yet it can also be a contested form of remembrance in which cultural memories slide through and into each other, merging and then disengaging in a tangle of narratives’ (1991, p 181). This observation helps illuminate the multilayered meanings that the ribbons, and Loud Fence, carry, which the three scenes discussed in this chapter have demonstrated. While Loud Fence has some qualities in common with other spontaneous shrines like roadside memorials, the roadside memorial rarely locates responsibility (see Santino, 2006). In comparison, Loud Fence utilises the publicness of the fence in order to convey a public statement (albeit on private property) to a general audience, distilling grief, solidarity and shame. In this regard, both object and space matter. As a memorial that intertwines a complex set of meanings, Loud Fence also in some respects resembles another iconic memorial wall or fence –​the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC (see Sturken, 1991; Hass, 1998). A wall that is symbolically replete with shame, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial has come to exemplify the move towards counter-​monumentalisation, a critical approach that seeks to invert and problematise the genre of the conventional monument or 33

Narrative Research Now

memorial (Young, 1992; Strakosch, 2010; Krzyżanowska, 2016; DeTurk, 2017). Counter-​monuments tend to be provocative and dialogic, at odds with the monumentalism that was so long considered customary to the function of monuments and memorials. Returning to Loud Fence, part of this comparison arises from the fact that both constitute memorials upon walls or fences, which invoke a complex series of affective dimensions. It can also be seen in the rather disarming or even contradictory effect that is produced through the placement of bright, colourful ribbons on otherwise solemn, institutional fences. As my fieldnotes that opened this chapter describe it, the ribbons may appear festive, they give the appearance of decorations, and they can be literal in their flickering loudness as the wind picks up and they rustle in the breeze. This underscores how the ribbons embody a complex or kaleidoscopic series of meanings, wherein the functional purpose of the fence as a barrier is reconfigured from a metaphor representing silence to a screen that represents civil disruption and colourful resistance. However, while resistance can be seen in the way local community members targeted these institutional fences as sites on which to project solidarity and shame, this is not where this story ends. As my analysis of the three scenes also demonstrates, the meanings Loud Fence initially carried were a response to the testimonies heard in the Royal Commission hearings. For scholars working at the intersection of trauma, testimony and public memory, testimony is more than simply a personal account of the past on the part of a victim/​survivor. Shoshana Felman describes testimony as an address that entails both a social and an ethical relation: ‘to testify is thus not merely to narrate but to commit oneself, and to commit the narrative, to others –​to take responsibility’ (cited in Felman and Laub, 2002, p 204; original emphasis). Similarly, Kennedy writes that ‘the understanding of testimony as address draws out the listener’s ethical responsibility to respond’ (2014, p 50). Thinking about how ribbons first began to appear, we can see them as ethical responses to testimonies being heard before the Royal Commission. However, in the months and years that followed, a different set of logics came to be revealed. Fortnightly meetings took place between local survivors and the principals of St Alipius Primary School and St Patrick’s College. As the Ballarat Courier reported in 2015, well before the decision to install a permanent memorial had been reached, ‘between cups of coffee friendships have developed and grown into insightful discussions on how to move beyond the city’s harrowing past and create change’ (Cunningham, 2015, np). With the affordances of time and trust, the idea for the college’s reflective garden and monument became a reality that was borne out of genuine consultation. In comparison to this organic process that was built upon open dialogue, the response of St Patrick’s Cathedral was motivated by a desire to impose an end point on the story of Loud Fence. As Amy Shuman evocatively 34

Telling Stories with Ribbons

reminds us, ‘the order that storytelling imposes on events is never neutral’ (2010, p 13). Rather, it functions to ‘establish and preserve a dominant order’ (Shuman, 2010, p 13). Grasping at the symbolism of an unlocked gate, the cathedral unilaterally imposed an end point that was devoid of substance. This tokenistic gesture functioned as a shield to negate genuine and meaningful action, driven by a pragmatic and self-​serving motivation on the part of the cathedral. It was akin to an appropriation of Loud Fence, rather than a meaningful attempt to render it less ephemeral in built form. Such is the ethical perilousness of storytelling, whereby stories of suffering may be co-​opted for nefarious purposes. In concluding, it is instructive to dwell a moment longer on what these scenes reveal about the affective work of testimony more generally. Within the move to foreground the stories of victims/​survivors within such responses as a Royal Commission, the question of what counts as testimony has been taken as implicit. From oral accounts given within courtrooms or ad hoc commissions of inquiry; accounts shared with journalists and reproduced within newspapers or on television news programmes; to memoirs or other written accounts: throughout each of these forms, testimony entails a speech act that emanates from the mouth of the victim. However, to view testimony as dialogic is to emphasise the social context in which it is expressed, and the ethical responsibility this produces for the witness of such an account. The significance of Loud Fence is partly that it operates as a visual response to the linguistic accounts of survivors. As Sturken writes, ‘memorials embody grief, loss, and tribute of obligation; in doing so, they serve to frame particular historical narratives’ (1991, p 120). The same is true of Loud Fence. More than this, however, it reveals the ethical responsibility that comes to pass through such testimonials. Notes 1

2

3

The Eureka rebellion refers to a revolt by miners in response to a brutal model of policing, excessive taxation and a lack of democratic representation. Throughout 1854, a series of mass meetings took place in which miners demanded better living and working conditions on the goldfields. Culminating in what is widely lauded (and contested) as Australian’s first and only recorded armed civil uprising, in the early hours of 3 December 1854 government troops attacked a makeshift stockade miners had set up. At least 22 miners and six soldiers were killed. In the wake of widespread support for the miners, suffrage was tended to all males in the colony such that the event is often described as the birth of Australian democracy. The Stolen Generations refers to First Nations children who were systemically removed from their families, and placed in institutions or with White families for the purposes of segregation and assimilation. This occurred in Australia under the auspices of government policy from the 19th century well into the latter parts of the 20th century. The Lost Innocents refers to child migrants. It is estimated that between the 1600s and the mid-​1960s, between 100,000 and 180,000 British children were sent to countries including Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, New Zealand, Rhodesia, South Africa and 35

Narrative Research Now

4

5

the US. In Australia, policies of child migration existed between 1912 and 1970. See Australian Senate (2001) and Daly (2014a, pp 47–​8). The Forgotten Australians refer to those who were placed in institutional ‘care’, such as orphanages, residential homes, training schools and juvenile detention. See Australian Senate (2004) and Daly (2014a, pp 48–​9). St Alipius Primary School is the name of the school today. It has subsumed the former boys’ school, St Alipius Boys’ School, and is no longer operated by the Christian Brothers.

References Angelides, A. (2004) ‘Feminism, child sexual abuse and the erasure of child sexuality’. GLQ 10(2), pp 141–​77. Angelides, A. (2005) ‘The emergence of the paedophile in the late twentieth century’. Australian Historical Studies 36(126), pp 272–​95. Australian Senate (2001) Lost Innocents: Righting the Record –​Report on Child Migration. Report, Community Affairs References Group, Commonwealth of Australia, 30 August. Australian Senate (2004) Forgotten Australians –​A Report on Australians Who Experienced Institutional or Out-​of-​Home Care as Children. Report, Community Affairs References Group, Commonwealth of Australia, 30 August. Ballarat Courier (2017) ‘Loud Fence: Era ends’. Ballarat Courier, 27 May, p 4. Cunningham, M. (2015) ‘Support for the future’. Ballarat Courier, 6 November. Cuthbertson, D., Thomson, A., Tomazin, F. and Vedelago, C. (2019) ‘Ground zero: How the Ballarat Diocese exported paedophiles to the world’. The Age, 23 September. https://​www.the​age.com.au/​natio​nal/​ victo​r ia/​g ro​und-​zero-​how-​the-​balla​rat-​dioc​ese-​expor ​ted-​paed​ophi​les-​ to-​the-​world-​20190​923-​p52​tvq.html Daly, K. (2014a) Redressing Institutional Abuse of Children. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Daly, K. (2014b) ‘Conceptualising responses to institutional abuse of children’. Current Issues in Criminal Justice 26(1), pp 5–​29. Davey, M. (2020) ‘ “Why didn’t he help those little boys?”: How George Pell failed the children of Ballarat’. The Guardian, 9 May. https://w ​ ww.theg​ uard​ian.com/​austra​lia-​news/​2020/​may/​09/​why-​didnt-​he-​help-​those-​lit​ tle-​boys-​how-​geo​rge-​pell-​fai​led-​the-​child​ren-​of-​balla​rat DeTurk, S. (2017) ‘Memory of absence: Contemporary counter-​ monuments’. Art and the Public Sphere 6(1), pp 81–​94. Felman, S. and Laub, D. (2002) Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History. New York: Routledge. Gallen, J.G. (2016) ‘Jesus wept: The Roman Catholic Church, child sexual abuse and transitional justice’. The Journal of Transitional Justice 10(2), pp 332–​49. Gliddon, G. (2018) ‘Ballarat an “epicentre” of institutional child abuse’. Ballarat Courier, 26 June. https://w ​ ww.thec​ our​ier.com.au/​story/​5488​296/​ balla​rat-​an-​epicen​tre-​of-​instit​utio​nal-​child-​abuse/​ 36

Telling Stories with Ribbons

Hamber, B. and Lundy, P. (2020) ‘Lessons from transitional justice? Toward a new framing of a victim-​centred approach in the case of historical institutional abuse’. Victims and Offenders 15(6), pp 744–​70. Hass, K.A. (1998) Carried to the Wall: American Memory and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Berkeley: University of California Press. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (1997) Bringing Them Home: Final Report. National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families. Report, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Jenkins, P. (1998) Moral Panic: Changing Concepts of the Child Molester in Modern America. New Haven: Yale University Press. Johnson, N.C. (2002) ‘Mapping monuments: The shaping of public space and cultural identities’. Visual Communication 1(3), pp 293–​8. Kennedy, R. (2004) ‘The affective work of Stolen Generations testimony: From the archives to the classroom’. Biography 27(1), pp 48–​77. Kennedy, R. (2014) ‘Moving testimony: Human rights, Palestinian memory, and the transnational public sphere’. In C. De Cesari and A. Rigney (eds) Transnational Memory Circulation, Articulation, Scales. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, pp 51–​78. Krzyżanowska, N. (2016) ‘The discourse of counter-​monuments: Semiotics of material commemoration in contemporary urban spaces’. Social Semiotics 26(5), pp 465–​85. McAlinden, A.M. and Naylor, B. (2016) ‘Reframing public inquiries as “procedural justice” for victims of institutional child abuse: Towards a hybrid model of justice’. The Sydney Law Review 38(3), pp 277–​309. McDonald, D. (2012) ‘Ungovernable monsters: Law, paedophilia, crisis’. Griffith Law Review 21(3), pp 585–​608. McDonald, D. and Oldfield, J. (2023) ‘Institutional child sexual abuse activism: Reconsidering the role of public inquiries’. In G. Martin, V. Canning and S. Tombs (eds) International Handbook of Activist Criminology. Bingley: Emerald. McPhillips, K. (2017) ‘“Unbearable knowledge”: Managing cultural trauma at the Royal Commission’. Psychoanalytic Dialogues: An International Journal of Relational Perspectives 27(2), pp 130–​46. Posel, D. (2008) ‘History as confession: The case of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission’. Public Culture 20(1), pp 119–​41. Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (2017) ‘Case study 28: Public hearing into various institutions run by catholic church authorities in and around Ballarat’. https://​www.childa​ buse​roya​lcom​miss​ion.gov.au/​media-​relea​ses/r​ epo ​ rt-c​ athol​ ic-c​ hur​ ch-a​ uth​ orit​ies-​balla​rat-​relea​sed

37

Narrative Research Now

Santino, S. (2006) ‘Performative commemoratives: Spontaneous shrines and the public memorialisation of death’. In J. Santino (ed) Spontaneous Shrines and the Public Memorialisation of Death. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 5–​15. Scott, D. and Swain, S. (2002) Confronting Cruelty: Historical Perspectives on Child Abuse. Parkville: Melbourne University Press. Shuman, A. (2010) Other People’s Stories: Entitlement Claims and the Critique of Empathy. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Sköld, J. (2015) ‘Apology politics: Transnational features’. In J. Sköld and S. Swain (eds) Apologies and the Legacies of Abuse of Children in ‘Care’. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 13–​27. Smith, M. (2017) ‘Survivors vow to replace Loud Fence ribbons removed from St Patrick’s Cathedral’. Ballarat Courier, 17 December. https://​www. thec​ our i​ er.com.au/​story/​5126​333/​surviv​ors-v​ ow-t​ o-r​ epla​ ce-l​ oud-f​ ence-​ ribb​ons-​remo​ved-​from-​st-​patri​cks-​cathed​ral/​ Strakosch, E. (2010) ‘Counter-​monuments and nation-​building in Australia’. Peace Review 2(3), pp 268–​75. Sturken, M. (1991) ‘The wall, the screen, and the image: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial’. Representations 35, pp 118–​42. Swain, S. (2014) History of Australian Inquiries Reviewing Institutions Providing Care for Children. Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. https://s​ afegu ​ ardi​ ngch ​ ildr​ en.acu.edu.au/r​ esear​ ch-a​ nd-r​ esour​ ces/h ​ isto ​ ry-o ​ f-​aus​tral​ian-​inquir​ies-​review​ing-i​ nstit​ utio ​ ns-p​ rovidi​ ng-c​ are-​ for-​child​ren Swain, S. (2015) ‘Giving voice to narratives of child sex abuse’. Australian Feminist Law Journal 41(2), pp 289–​304. Wilson, J.Z. and Golding, F. (2018) ‘The tacit semantics of “Loud Fences”: Tracing the connections between activism, heritage and new histories’. International Journal of Heritage Studies 24(8), pp 861–​73. Wright, K., Swain, S. and McPhillips, K. (2017) ‘The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse’. Child Abuse and Neglect 74, pp 1–​9. Wright, W. and Henry, A. (2019) ‘Historical institutional child abuse: Activist mobilisation and public inquiries’. Sociology Compass 13(12), e12754. Wrigley, B. (2017) ‘More than two years on, St Pat’s Cathedral ribbons set to come down’. Ballarat Courier, 5 December. Younes, L. (2018) ‘Ribbon fence commemorates three years of hope and support for survivors’. Ballarat Courier, 23 May. https://​www.the​cour​ier. com.au/​story/​5421​584/​three-​years-​on-​ballara​ ts-r​ ibb​ on-m ​ essa​ ge-e​ ndur​ es/​ Young, J.E. (1992) ‘The counter-​monument: Memory against itself in Germany today’. Critical Inquiry 18(2), pp 267–​96.

38

3

Policy Narratives and Policy Change: The Case of Pill Testing Martin Bortz

Narrative and public policy The importance of narrative in public policy is now widely recognised by academics and practitioners. Organisations like the Frameworks Institute, the Center for Story-​based Strategy and the Narrative Initiative have been established primarily to pursue policy outcomes through narrative. Likewise, publications like The Atlantic, New York Times and Stanford Social Innovation Review have featured stories on the role and function of narratives in public policy. In academia, frameworks like the discourse coalition framework (Hajer, 1997; Hajer and Laws, 2006) or the narrative policy framework (NPF) (McBeth et al, 2007; Jones and McBeth, 2010) have, at their core, a concern with narrative. At the same time, a question remains regarding the specific contribution of narrative to changes in public policy. Indeed, the concept of narrative is missing from several of the dominant theories of policy change, including the advocacy coalition framework (Sabatier, 1988; Weible and Sabatier, 2007), the ‘three streams’ approach (Kingdon, 1984) or Baumgartner and Jones’ (2010) punctuated equilibrium. The most notable attempt to address this gap is the NPF (McBeth et al, 2007; Jones and McBeth, 2010; Jones and Radaelli, 2015). As part of the NPF, advocacy coalitions are seen to ‘embed stable policy core beliefs in their narratives, and then use those narratives to further dynamic political strategies’ (McBeth et al, 2007, p 102). At the same time, the NPF has been heavily criticised for the incompatibility of its positivist ontology and epistemology with the constructivist underpinnings of narrative approaches (see, for instance, Dodge, 2015). In particular, the NPF’s reliance on the 39

Narrative Research Now

hypothetico-​deductive method has caused significant reproachment from interpretivist-​constructivist policy scholars. While these criticisms may be valid, they do not necessarily advance our understanding –​from a constructivist perspective at least –​of how narratives and policy change might relate to one another. Considering this, the purpose of this chapter is to tease out these dynamics in more depth. Unlike the NPF, the chapter does not seek to develop a comprehensive theory of change. Instead, and somewhat more modestly, the aim is to consider in more detail the dynamics between narratives and change as a way of further developing constructivist policy scholarship in this area. To do this, the chapter advances its argument through three main ‘moves’. First, it explores the policy literature on the relationship between discourse, narrative and change, noting that the links between the three concepts are not immediately obvious from the literature. It then applies the theoretical insights from that section to the issue of ‘drug checking’ –​a controversial policy response to illicit drug use. This is a particularly useful intervention to explore, as it has had varied uptake across different jurisdictions. Finally, the chapter introduces its main contribution, which is to argue for the concept of narrative subscription (Miller, 2020a) as the key link between policy narratives and policy change.

Discourse, narrative and change In the early 1990s, policy studies underwent an ‘argumentative turn’ (Fischer and Forester, 1993). Underlying this shift was a recognition that policy analysis is never a neutral, purely technical or value-​free endeavour. Rather, policy analysts –​both practitioners and academics –​are always introducing their own assumptions, biases and worldviews into their advice and recommendations. Because of this, policy scholarship must enlarge its purview to encompass consideration of values, interests and power dynamics. Central to this is the act of communication. As part of this, policy emerges through competing arguments made by different people –​both individuals and collectives. This means that acts of communication and the strategic deployment of language become central as people seek to understand policy processes and outcomes. Such shifts mirror wider changes across the social sciences that sought to understand the primacy of language in shaping social and political realities (see, for instance, Rorty, 1967). These developments have produced a wide variety of different scholarly approaches that all centre on the concept of discourse, including the discourse coalition framework (Hajer, 1997; 2003), interpretive policy analysis (Yanow, 1999; Yanow and Schwartz-​Shea, 2006), narrative politics (Miller, 2020a) and discursive institutionalism (Schmidt, 2008; 2011). As part of this, policy scholars have drawn from both Foucauldian and Habermasian understandings 40

Policy Narratives and Policy Change

of discourse to define and analyse the ways in which language shapes reality (Yanow, 1999; Hajer and Versteeg, 2005; Schmidt, 2008). This has produced a wide variety of different definitions of the term. For Hajer and Versteeg (2005, p 175), discourse is ‘an ensemble of ideas, concepts and categories through which meaning is given to social and physical phenomena, and which is produced and reproduced through an identifiable set of practices’. For Schmidt (2008, p 310), discourse ‘is not only what you say, however; it includes to whom you say it, how, why, and where in the process of policy construction and political communication in the “public sphere” ’ (see also Howarth, 2000). In this sense, discourse includes a wide variety of linguistic and semiotic acts through which actors convey meaning and seek to impact their world. As part of this, discourse can include narrative, myth, metaphors, frames, images, concepts or categories (Schon and Rein, 1994; Marston, 2000; Schmidt, 2008; Yanow, 2015). Put simply, discourse is ‘language in use’ –​in whatever form that might take. When viewed in this way, discourse becomes a very rich phenomenon, capable of encompassing a wide variety of communicative acts and utterances. Narratives then become one element, instantiation or representation of a broader discourse (Hajer, 1993; Hardin et al, 2003; Schmidt, 2008; Miller, 2020b). The significance of narrative, however, has led to a dedicated strand of research in policy studies. Indeed, the focus on narrative developed in parallel to the wider argumentative turn in the field. Narrative quickly became a central component of this new approach, with authors like Roe (1994), Kaplan (1986) and Stone (1989) making early but important contributions to understanding policy through the lens of narrative. Several decades later, narrative policy analysis remains a contested field. As Chapter 1 to this volume discusses, agreement on the ontological status of narrative remains elusive. Some definitions see narrative as a clearly defined set of actions or events that are linked together in a causal chain (Stone, 1989; Feldman et al, 2004) –​A leads to B which leads to C. This is a fundamental approach to narrative that underscores the deeper conceptual work that is often completed by policy practitioners. Tools and frameworks like ‘program logics’ or ‘theories of change’ often rely on linear models of causation that are reminiscent of how the early policy scholars understood narrative. Alternatively, constructivist scholars like Maarten Hajer, David Laws, Dvora Yanow and Frank Fischer have been less concerned with defining what a narrative is and instead focus on how narrative explicates processes of meaning-​making by policy actors. Despite these differences, there is a general agreement that narratives emerge through collective practices. While individuals might express or reproduce a particular narrative, such narratives are often taken from, or influenced by, the collectives they inhabit. Indeed, policy scholars across the ontological divide emphasise that a shared narrative is one way in which 41

Narrative Research Now

actors are bound together in a field of struggle (Hajer, 1997; Shanahan et al, 2011; Béland and Cox, 2016). Individual actors will coalesce around a shared interpretation or understanding of the world. Often, this is couched in a vision –​a way of understanding the world as it is, then thinking through and articulating how else it might be. In this sense, a policy narrative articulates a vision of change, who needs to be involved and what needs to happen for the vision to be made real. The narrative here becomes an organising principle for collective action –​what people are working towards and how they plan to make it happen. Moreover, in doing so, the narrative becomes an expression of both political power and political agency. By determining and articulating the collective story of the group, people are empowered to work and act in ways that they can affect the change they want to see or believe is needed. As part of this, the ‘truth’ of a narrative matters less than its role in coordinating and empowering collectives. Thus, the policy analyst can understand communication at two levels. The first is at the level of discourse. Analysis at this level seeks to understand the wide variety of different ways in which a particular social and political phenomenon is represented and understood by different cultures at specific points in time. It is far more general and, as suggested earlier, can encompass a range of different modalities of communication. At a second level of analysis, focus is on the narratives that are contained within a broader discourse. They are typically located within and propagated by a coalition. Moreover, they position and link actors within a series of events. As a result, multiple narratives can exist within a wider discourse. While they essentially understand a particular social phenomenon (that is, drug use) in a similar way, the underlying vision of change and the values espoused therein may be quite different. In this way, we can identify both narratives and counter-​narratives in a specific policy discourse (Bridgman and Barry, 2002). Furthermore, by identifying and unpacking the narratives that people express –​either through speaking or writing –​we can explore how they understand themselves and the reality they must confront. In this way, narrative can help us understand the underlying mental models that allow people to give form and shape to the social and political world. Focusing on narrative as the key observable feature of a policy discourse gives us greater access to the kinds of discourses that are shaping a particular policy universe than focusing on the more diffuse level of discourse itself. While policy scholarship makes clear the difference between narrative and discourse, there is still more room to theorise the relationship between narratives and policy change. Indeed, one of the fundamental concerns in policy studies is the notion of change (Weible and Sabatier, 2007). Under what conditions do policies change, and in what way? One of the more significant contributions here is Maarten Hajer’s concepts of discourse 42

Policy Narratives and Policy Change

structuration and discourse institutionalisation. In simple terms, the former refers to the credibility of policy actors being reliant on their ability to communicate the tropes of a particular discourse. The latter refers to the translation of a discourse into institutional structures and processes (Hajer, 1997, pp 60–​61). The implication here is that we can identify the influence of a discourse on institutional change by pointing to the extent to which the relevant policy arena is both structured around and ‘spoken about’ through the concepts and categories of a particular discourse. What is missing in this work is detailed attention to the level of narrative, meaning that the ability of this work to explain the underlying processes through which narratives shape change is less clearly understood. Given this, the remainder of this chapter applies these theoretical insights to a specific policy reform known as pill testing or drug checking. This initiative is part of wider discursive struggles globally to shift the political discourse away from a focus on criminalisation and towards health –​what has been called harm minimisation or harm reduction. Such changes have received mixed success in jurisdictions around the world; some have embraced them, while others have not. Thus, changes in policy regarding pill testing are fertile ground for exploring the links between narratives and change (see also Miller, 2020a). The purpose of the case material is therefore both illustrative and critical. First, it illustrates the theoretical points raised earlier. Second, it extends the analysis to explore the ways in which institutional settings have either embraced, or remained resistant to, change.

Methodology To support the findings and analysis in this chapter, I drew on two main data sources –​documents and interviews. First, I looked at media articles, published research and ‘grey literature’ related to illicit drug use in Aotearoa/​ New Zealand and the state of New South Wales (NSW), Australia, as well as several other international jurisdictions. This was done to understand the different ways in which illicit substances had been constructed in popular discourse. This allowed me to identify both a discourse of criminality as well as a harm-​minimisation discourse. It also provided insights into the extent and nature of change in both Aotearoa and NSW, and some preliminary information about pill testing. The document review also provided me with an initial list of interviewees. This investigation was further explored through interviews. As part of this, I interviewed people from the key advocacy organisations and service providers (that is, Know Your Stuff, the NZ Drug Foundation) and members of political parties (that is, the NSW Greens, Young NZ First). Additional interviewees were added to the initial list in a ‘snowball’ approach and recruitment continued until saturation had been reached. 43

Narrative Research Now

The interviews had three main focal points. First, I explored with each interviewee their role in harm-​minimisation efforts in their respective jurisdictions. This allowed me to understand their background and the ways in which they had advocated for change in relation to illicit drug use. Second, I asked them to identify the different narratives that they felt were present in contestations about pill testing. This produced a long list of different narratives that were circulating in the sector, many of which overlapped or had significant similarities. Third, I explored with the interviewee the different barriers and enablers of change in their respective jurisdictions. This part of the interview considered the reasons why change had (or had not) occurred, and the role of narrative therein. Analysis then occurred in three distinct steps. First, I completed an inductive thematic analysis of the different narratives about pill testing that were circulating in both Aotearoa and NSW. This allowed me to simplify the complex discursive terrain into a few key stories. It also allowed me to link the different narratives to specific coalitions involved in each case. I then returned to my documents to examine the different narratives reproduced by decision-​makers in key positions of power in both jurisdictions. This allowed me to understand the degrees of similarity between the coalitions’ narratives as well as those actors who were able to shift government policy (that is, State Premiers). Once I had established these similarities (or differences), I was able to complete a more systematic review of different concepts from the literature that might explain or articulate the mechanisms of change that were revealed in my case material. What this means is that the analysis has been conducted abductively. Unlike deductive (which moves from the general to the specific) and inductive (which moves from the specific to the general), abductive reasoning ‘bounces’ between both general and specific claims to produce probabilistic claims about the area of investigation. As part of this, I regularly tested links and looked for the most likely explanation. This meant I did not approach my data with a sense of what ‘ought’ to be the case. Instead, I rejected any explanations that were not supported by both theory and data. In essence, then, I used my data to refine the theory, and then the theory to refine the data until I could draw a ‘line of best fit’ between the two. Once I had done so, the write up began.

Drug checking In Western societies, the use of illicit drugs is less taboo than it once was (Duffy and Smith, 2017). As part of this, new concepts have been introduced as an attempt to shift policy and practice. One of the key shifts has been the introduction of the concept of ‘harm minimisation’. This concept aims to reframe both drugs and drug users as a health issue, rather than one of 44

Policy Narratives and Policy Change

criminality. In doing so, it implicitly recognises that the so-​called ‘war on drugs’ has failed and that there are limits to government power. As a result, it emphasises saving lives over punishment. A key technique that has been developed under the harm-​minimisation rubric is ‘drug checking’. Drug checking (also called ‘pill testing’) is a service provided to people who intend to use illicit, recreational substances. As the name suggests, service providers check the contents of users’ substances to ascertain whether there is anything in them that might be harmful. This is done through subjecting the substances to scientific testing techniques, including (different forms of) spectrometry, spectroscopy and chromatography (Harper et al, 2017). There have been several evaluations of drug checking as a harm-​ minimisation strategy (Barratt et al, 2018). For instance, Measham (2019) evaluated a pilot programme of a festival-​based drug checking service in the United Kingdom. Measham found that drug checking has a part to play in harm-​minimisation efforts by ‘identifying and informing service users, emergency services and offsite drug-​using communities about substances of concern’ (p 102). Likewise, as part of the same study, one-​fifth of service users disposed of their substances after finding out that the ingredients were not what they had intended to buy. Parallel findings came out of Makkai and colleagues’ (2018) evaluation of pill testing services at a music festival in Australia. The report indicated that 35 per cent of attendees who used the service would change their behaviour. As part of this, 18 per cent indicated they would not consume the drug at all, while 12 per cent responded that they would consume less. Similar results were produced in a study of drug checking programmes in Switzerland (Chinet et al, 2007). These results have been framed as positive by some researchers and advocates (Measham, 2021; Puljević et al, 2021). The effectiveness of drug checking has, however, been challenged. In a recent review of evidence on the efficacy of pill testing services, Scott and Scott (2020) argue that there has been an undue emphasis on drug checking as a ‘common sense’ approach to harm minimisation. As part of this, the authors question the quality of the studies completed to date and caution that drug checking might introduce a false sense of security about the quality and safety of substances being tested. Other researchers have argued that the scientific techniques adopted by drug checking services are insufficient to provide accurate and reliable results about the chemical composition of pills and powders (Winstock et al, 2001; Schneider et al, 2016). Despite these controversies, several countries have adopted versions of pill testing. The practice was first introduced in the Netherlands in the 1980s and has since become a part of health services in a number of countries in Europe, America and Australasia (Brunt, 2017; Barratt et al, 2018; Smit-​Rigter and Van der Gouwe, 2019). However, the legal status of the practice has remained ambiguous. For instance, in the Netherlands 45

Narrative Research Now

and Austria, people using drug checking services are reliant on an official agreement between the public prosecutor and researchers. To be effective, this agreement requires political support from the government and police –​it is not enshrined in law (Brunt, 2017). In the United States, the equipment used to test substances is still prohibited under drug paraphernalia laws, thus making drug checking particularly challenging to carry out for service providers (Pu et al, 2021).

Pragmatism and punishment The issue of drug checking therefore exists in a complex discursive terrain of harm minimisation. This terrain includes competing narratives and their counter-​arguments, a variety of different framings, and alternative interpretations of the evidence. Moreover, the discourse has been institutionalised in different ways in the varying jurisdictions involved. As a result, it is not possible to point to a single ‘answer’ or ‘best practice’ policy response. Rather, the ways in which pill testing has been interpreted by different coalitions globally have shaped the varying ways in which policy responses have emerged –​either as a common-​sense response to a perennial policy challenge, or else a dangerous band-​aid that will only encourage further risky drug use and death. These discursive contestations are well demonstrated at the local level in Aotearoa and in NSW. As will be illustrated in what follows, coalitions in both jurisdictions draw on the harm-​minimisation discourse. That is, key actors expressed that the purpose of any policy interventions should be to save lives and minimise potential injury. However, where the coalitions diverged was in the best way to achieve that purpose. Broadly speaking, two narratives emerged here –​a pragmatist narrative and a punitive narrative. For those supporting the former, pill testing represents a simple, effective and evidence-​based technique to reduce harms. However, those supporting the latter narrative argued that pill testing is not sufficiently supported by the evidence and will ultimately increase the risk from illicit substances by creating a false sense of security. In the end, two very different institutional settings emerged. In Aotearoa, drug checking now enjoys legal protection while the NSW government has yet to approve a trial. The reasons for this, and the role of narrative therein, will now be explored.

Aotearoa In Aotearoa, two different coalitions emerged as pill testing came onto the policy agenda. Each of these coalesced around a different narrative. The pragmatist narrative was propagated by organisations like Know Your Stuff, the NZ Drug Foundation, certain academics and Members of Parliament. 46

Policy Narratives and Policy Change

This narrative had two elements to it. The first of these was an evidence-​ based approach. As part of this, proponents argued that pill testing actually discourages people from taking something that might harm them. For instance, in 2018 there were 13 hospitalisations in Christchurch from pills contaminated with a dangerous substance known as n-​ethylpentylone. As one pill testing service provider described it: ‘We weren’t at the event where that happened, but it did play very well into our narrative, because we were able to respond to that with: “Well, we had detected the substance at every event we’d been at for the last two years, and 100 per cent of the people who found that substance have then chosen not to take it”.’ (Interviewee 2, pill testing service provider) The second component to the narrative was an emotive one. As part of this, drug checking services and advocates argued that the presence of pill testing at events sends the message that society does not want people dying or being seriously harmed from their choices: ‘[W]‌hen you don’t provide harm reduction, the message you’re sending is “We don’t care if you die.” And so, given the results we have, that many people are choosing not to take their drugs after we’ve tested them, and the fact that we’re there at all helping people make these choices, we’re sending a much better message than “We don’t care if you die”.’ (Interviewee 2, pill testing service provider) These two sub-​elements of the narrative were summarised by one proponent as follows: ‘So that’s two of the narratives that we’ve got. One is the evidence first. The message that we’re sending being about providing information to help people assess the risks and make better decisions, and therefore demonstrating that we care about them. … I guess the thing that I’ve said over and over again when people ask why we’re doing this, is that we don’t want people to die.’ (Interviewee 2, pill testing service provider) In this sense, the pragmatist narrative appealed to both evidence and values. It appealed to evidence both in terms of appealing to the research evidence on drug checking as well as providing users with sufficient evidence to make informed choices. At the same time, it appealed to values by pointing to the use of pill testing as a way of saying to young people that they are valued and are allowed to take risks. 47

Narrative Research Now

In contrast to the pragmatist narrative was a punitive narrative. Proponents of this narrative –​most publicly represented by the New Zealand First Party and The Nationals Party –​argued that pill checking sends a message that drug use is acceptable. Like the pragmatist narrative, this argument also rested on a few basic premises. Here, drug use is seen as inherently risky. As a result, the only way to stop harms from recreational drugs is to send the message that there are no conditions under which drugs should be used. In this view, recreational drugs are inherently dangerous and people who use them should be punished accordingly. Pill checking would undermine this narrative and therefore has the potential to cause more harm than its proponents would otherwise admit. For instance, as the Aotearoa First’s (then) law and order spokesperson Darroch Ball stated: ‘We’re being very reactionary if we think that it’s OK to start saving lives or to start protecting people after the drug has been taken or after the drug has been purchased’ (1News, 2019). Ultimately, in December 2020, the Aotearoa government introduced legislation that made it easier for drug checking services to be provided at festivals and events. As part of this, the government passed several amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 that temporarily legalised drug checking at music festivals and similar events until these temporary changes were made permanent in December 2021. These reforms to the Misuse of Drugs Act enjoyed strong support in the Aotearoa parliament –​passing 88 votes to 33. Drug checking also received support from the Aotearoa Ministry of Health and the police. Ultimately, it was the pragmatist narrative that aligned with government policy priorities at the time: “especially with the government we [had at the time], which [was] pushing kindness as a principle that they want to operate on. So, the caring kind of interventions are the ones they’re interested in” (Interviewee 2, pill testing service provider). Indeed, current Aotearoa Prime Minister Jacinta Ardern had on many occasions referred publicly to ‘kindness’ as an underlying principle of her government. The ability of the pragmatist coalition to appeal to this principle as part of their narrative made harm reduction a far more attractive proposition to senior government officials than the punitive narrative. In this way, the coalition was able to contribute to changed institutional settings in Aotearoa.

New South Wales Efforts to introduce pill testing in New South Wales gained significant momentum following the release of a 2019 state coroner’s report that examined the deaths of six young people over a 13-​month period from December 2017 until January 2019. All deaths were associated with the use of 3,4-​methylenedioxymethylamphetamine, more commonly known as MDMA. Following the inquest, the coroner made several policy 48

Policy Narratives and Policy Change

recommendations, one of which was that pill testing should be trialled as a legitimate and effective way to reduce harms from recreational drug use. There are distinct parallels between the arguments made in NSW and those in Aotearoa. The punitive narrative put forward the idea that no drug is safe and that the only way to ensure that no harm is caused by drugs is simply not to take them. This narrative has led to institutional responses that privilege policing and reductions in supply. In NSW, such narratives were espoused by people in key positions of power, in particular the (then) NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller: ‘All illegal substances carry the risk of harming, or ultimately killing, the user. … The [New South Wales Police Force] remains committed to reducing the harm caused by the consumption of illegal substances through targeting supply networks and organised criminal groups’ (Mick Fuller, quoted in Langford, 2019). Or, as one interviewee explained: “[I]‌n terms of narrative, it remains very much in the ‘drugs are dangerous’ story, that is the core narrative, and the policy response that goes with that is punishment” (Interviewee 8, harm-​minimisation advocate). Alternatively, those in the pragmatist coalition adopted two counter-​ narratives. The first of these constructed a different story about illicit drug use. As part of this, advocates “[supported] people to be able to tell stories that reflect the reality of drug use, including the primarily positive experiences that people have with drugs” (Interviewee 8, harm-​minimisation advocate). This was supplemented by arguing for the therapeutic benefits of substances like MDMA: “in addition to that, there’s a really exciting opportunity to tell a different story about drugs because of the growing awareness of the therapeutic value of currently prohibited substances” (Interviewee 8, harm-​ minimisation advocate). However, unlike Aotearoa, the pragmatist narrative was met with significant resistance from key decision-​makers in government, particularly the (then) Conservative Premier Gladys Berejiklian. In public statements, Ms Berejiklian echoed the ‘just say no’ and appeals to personal responsibility that were propagated by members of New Zealand First: I will say today, don’t take those pills. That is the strongest message we can send to everybody. Please don’t take these pills. These pills can kill you. At the end of the day there is also, and I know, I have to be careful how I use my words, but there is also a level of personal responsibility here. People have to step up and acknowledge that if you take a pill, if you take multiple pills, it can kill you, it can kill your friends. (Gladys Berejiklian, quoted in McGowan, 2019) This view was attributed to Ms Berejiklian’s conservative Christian values by one interviewee: “Her values in terms of, I don’t know, religious conservativism when it comes to this” (Interviewee 9, harm-​minimisation advocate). 49

Narrative Research Now

Thus, despite ongoing efforts from reformers such as The Greens, drug checking did not receive sufficient support from the government or powerful administrators. Since then, the policy landscape has not changed. Pill testing remains illegal, and the NSW government has not taken steps to implement a trial of the initiative.

The value of values Comparing two very similar jurisdictions and their very different responses to harm minimisation provides us with a degree of insight into the processes through which a narrative can shape institutional change. In Aotearoa, the government was receptive to arguments put forward by the pragmatist coalition, which contributed to an overall shift in the policy settings. However, the NSW government ultimately rejected the pragmatist narrative, choosing instead to perpetuate policy responses that privilege punishment, policing and personal responsibility. This ultimately raises questions about why we have seen such different approaches in jurisdictions that were similar in so many ways. To explain these differences, I argue that we can point to Miller’s (2020a) concept of narrative subscription. Narrative subscription refers to the express alignment of an actor (either an individual or group) with an argument or a narrative. It emerges through a range of different factors and techniques. Certainly facts, evidence and logic are one approach through which one person or coalition comes to subscribe to a particular narrative. At the same time, subscription can emerge as narratives appeal to our values, emotions and identification with specific groups or people. These factors all intermingle in complex ways, leading to varying responses to a particular narrative. The pragmatist coalition in Aotearoa was highly successful in appealing to facts, evidence and values all at the same time. The appeal to facts and evidence happened in two ways. First, it was providing evidence to would-​be drug users about the contents of their substances. While this was not directly relevant to key government decision-​makers, it nevertheless provided legitimacy to pill testing through cloaking it in scientific terms that supported individual autonomy and informed choice-​making. The second way in which this occurred was through generating an evidence base about the effectiveness of pill testing –​both through its direct experience but also referring to studies conducted by other organisations. But what added to the strength of the narrative from the Aotearoa pragmatists was their appeal to some of the underlying values of the government-​of-​the-​day, particularly the ways in which the Ardern government was seeking to generate kinder and more compassionate approaches to governing. In contrast, the pragmatist coalition in NSW was unable to disrupt the status quo. Unlike their counterparts in Aotearoa, the NSW pragmatists 50

Policy Narratives and Policy Change

adopted a counter-​narrative approach that sought to highlight the positive experiences that users might have with recreational drugs. This was an appeal to the evidence as a way of supporting their counter-​narrative that illicit drugs are not inherently bad. It was also a normative argument, in the sense of attempting to introduce a positive meaning associated with illicit drugs. At the same time, this narrative did not appeal to the conservative values of those in key positions of power –​the Police Commissioner and the (then) Premier. As a result, pill testing in NSW has not gained support from the NSW government and there has been very little change in the policy environment. In both instances, narrative subscription provides a conceptual link between the narrative and the observed change, or lack thereof. We can see how both pragmatist coalitions attempted to appeal to facts and evidence, but also tried to introduce normative or values-​based elements of their narratives. However, it was the underlying values and policy principles of the government that ultimately shaped the role that the narrative had in the change of policy. In Aotearoa, a kindness approach to governing made the use of pill testing more appealing to policy makers and subscribing to the narrative was not a big leap for the government. In NSW, the government did not subscribe to the pragmatist narrative. This was reported as being related to the underlying conservative and Christian values of the (then) government as best embodied by the Premier at the time. All parties in this case were able to draw from different facts and evidence to support their narrative. In the end, it was the alignment of values between the various coalitions and powerful government decision-​makers that determined the ways in, and extent to which, a narrative contributed to new policy settings vis-​à-​vis pill testing.

Conclusion This chapter has explored the links between policy narratives and policy change. Drawing from a constructivist understanding of narrative, it has argued that we can understand processes of narrative change by pointing to the concept of narrative subscription. More specifically, a narrative is more likely to contribute to change when key government decision-​makers also subscribe to the narrative. Such powerful actors are more likely to subscribe to a narrative when those narratives are supported by the available evidence (even if only in part) and appeal to their underlying values. When these conditions are met, there is a higher chance of a narrative contributing to change. These findings contribute more widely to scholarship in several ways. First, and as described earlier, the relationship between narratives and change is not something that has received a significant amount of scholarly attention. 51

Narrative Research Now

Rather, constructivist scholarly inquiry has tended to focus on discourse, rather than narrative. While this is important, it elides the ways in which we might understand the role of various discursive techniques, artefacts or tropes (that is, narrative, myth, metaphor, frames, and so on) in how change occurs. Exploring at a deeper level the processes or mechanisms through which narratives contribute to change thus provides us with a richer way of understanding how policy change occurs –​particularly for those whose work sits within a constructivist or interpretivist paradigm. It also develops critiques of the NPF further by incorporating narrative subscription into the conceptual architecture of constructivist narrative scholarship relating to change. Finally, the arguments in this chapter contribute further to unpacking the differences between discourse and narrative. These terms are sometimes used interchangeably in the constructivist literature. However, while similar, there are some explicit differences between the two. The theoretical components of this chapter have therefore teased out these differences and have argued that narratives are just one element of a wider discourse. References 1News (2019) ‘NZ First to reconsider stance on pill testing at festivals’. 20 October. https://​www.1news.co.nz/​2019/​10/​19/​nz-​first-​to-​rec​onsi​der-​ sta​nce-​on-​pill-​test​ing-​at-​festiv​als/​ Barratt, M.J., Kowalski, M., Maier, L. and Ritter, A. (2018) ‘Global review of drug checking services operating in 2017’. Drug Policy Modelling Program Bulletin 24, pp 1–​23. Baumgartner, F.R. and Jones, B.D. (2010) Agendas and Instability in American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Béland, D. and Cox, R.H. (2016) ‘Ideas as coalition magnets: Coalition building, policy entrepreneurs, and power relations’. Journal of European Public Policy 23(3), pp 428–​45. Bridgman, T. and Barry, D. (2002) ‘Regulation is evil: An application of narrative policy analysis to regulatory debate in Aotearoa’. Policy Sciences 35, pp 141–​61. Brunt, T. (2017) Drug Checking as a Harm Reduction Tool for Recreational Drug Users: Opportunities and Challenges. Lisbon: European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. Chinet, L., Stephan, P., Zobel, F. and Halfon, O. (2007) ‘Party drug use in techno nights: A field survey among French-​speaking Swiss attendees’. Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior 86(2), pp 284–​9. Dodge, J. (2015) ‘Indication and inference: Reflections on the challenge of mixing paradigms in the narrative policy framework’. Critical Policy Studies 9(3), pp 361–​7. Duffy, C. and Smith, C. (2017) Community Attutide Research on Alcohol and Other Drugs. Sydney: Snapcracker Research & Strategy. 52

Policy Narratives and Policy Change

Feldman, M.S., Sköldberg, K., Brown, R.N. and Horner, D. (2004) ‘Making sense of stories: A rhetorical approach to narrative analysis’. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 14(2), pp 147–​70. Fischer, F. and Forester, J. (1993) The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning. Durham: Duke University Press. Hajer, M. (1993) ‘Discourse coalitions and the institutionalization of practice: The case of acid rain in Britain’. In F. Fischer and J. Forester (eds) The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning. Durham: Duke University Press, pp 43–​75. Hajer, M. (1997) The Politics of Environmental Discourse: Ecological Modernization and the Policy Process. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hajer, M. (2003) ‘Doing discourse analysis: Coalitions, practices, meaning’. In M. van den Brink and T. Metze (eds) Words Matter in Policy and Planning: Discourse Theory and Method in the Social Sciences. Utrecht: Labor Grafimedia, pp 65–​76. Hajer, M. and Laws, D. (2006) ‘Ordering through discourse’. In M. Moran, M. Rein and R. Goodin (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Public Policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 251–​68. Hajer, M. and Versteeg, W. (2005) ‘A decade of discourse analysis of environmental politics: Achievements, challenges, perspectives’. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning 7(3), pp 175–​84. Hardin, R., Pateman, C., Weingast, B. and Elkin, S. (2003) Deliberative Policy Analysis: Understanding Governance in the Network Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harper, L., Powell, J. and Pijl, E.M. (2017) ‘An overview of forensic drug testing methods and their suitability for harm reduction point-​of-​care services’. Harm Reduction Journal 14, pp 1–​13. Howarth, D. (2000) Discourse. Buckingham: McGraw-​Hill Education. Jones, M.D. and McBeth, M.K. (2010) ‘A narrative policy framework: Clear enough to be wrong?’. Policy Studies Journal 38(2), pp 329–​53. Jones, M.D. and Radaelli, C.M. (2015) ‘The narrative policy framework: Child or monster?’. Critical Policy Studies 9(3), pp 339–​55. Kaplan, T.J. (1986) ‘The narrative structure of policy analysis’. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 5(4), pp 761–​78. Kingdon, J.W. (1984) Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. Boston: Little, Brown & Company. Langford, J. (2019) ‘NSW Police Commissioner condemns calls for pill testing in official statement’. MusicFeeds, 11 November. https://​mus​icfe​ eds.com.au/​news/​nsw-​pol​ice-​commi​ssio​ner-​conde​mns-​calls-​for-​pill-​ test​ing/​ Makkai, T., Macleod, M., Vumbaca, G., Hill, P., Caldicott, D., Noffs, M., Tzanetis, S. and Hansen, F. (2018) Report on Canberra GTM Harm Reduction Service. Canberra: Harm Reduction Australia. 53

Narrative Research Now

Marston, G. (2000) ‘Metaphor, morality and myth: A critical discourse analysis of public housing policy in Queensland’. Critical Social Policy 20(3), pp 349–​73. McBeth, M.K., Shanahan, E.A., Arnell, R.J. and Hathaway, P.L. (2007) ‘The intersection of narrative policy analysis and policy change theory’. Policy Studies Journal 35(1), pp 87–​108. McGowan, M. (2019) ‘Drug deaths inquest: Gladys Berejiklian says she is “closing the door” on pill testing’. The Guardian, 11 December. https://​ www.theg​uard​ian.com/​austra​lia-​news/​2019/​dec/​11/​drug-​dea​ths-​inqu​ est-​gla​dys-​bere​jikl​ian-​says-​she-​is-​clos​ing-​the-​door-​on-​pill-​test​ing Measham, F.C. (2019) ‘Drug safety testing, disposals and dealing in an English field: Exploring the operational and behavioural outcomes of the UK’s first onsite “drug checking” service’. International Journal of Drug Policy 67, pp 102–​7. Measham, F.C. (2021) Drug checking works. Transform: Drug Policy Foundation. https://​tra​nsfo​r mdr​ugs.org/​blog/​drug-​check​ing-​works-​new-​ evide​nce-​from-​the-​loop Miller, H.T. (2020a) Narrative Politics in Public Policy: Legalizing Cannabis. Cham: Springer Nature. Miller, H.T. (2020b) ‘Policy narratives: The perlocutionary agents of political discourse’. Critical Policy Studies 14(4), pp 488–​501. Pu, J., Ajisope, T. and Earlywine, J. (2021) Drug Checking Programs in the United States and Internationally: Environmental Scan Summary. Oakland: Mathematica. Puljević, C., Leslie, E. and Ferris, J. (2021) Pill testing: The facts. University of Queensland. https://​stor ​ies.uq.edu.au/​small-​cha​nge/​pill-​test​ing-​the-​ facts/​index.html Roe, E. (1994) Narrative Policy Analysis: Theory and Practice. Durham: Duke University Press. Rorty, R. (1967) The Linguistic Turn: Essays in Philosophical Method. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sabatier, P.A. (1988) ‘An advocacy coalition framework of policy change and the role of policy-​oriented learning therein’. Policy Sciences 21, pp 129–​68. Schmidt, V.A. (2008) ‘Discursive institutionalism: The explanatory power of ideas and discourse’. Annual Review of Political Science 11, pp 303–​26. Schmidt, V.A. (2011) ‘Speaking of change: Why discourse is key to the dynamics of policy transformation’. Critical Policy Studies 5(2), pp 106–​26. Schneider, J., Galettis, P., Williams, M., Lucas, C. and Martin, J. (2016) ‘Pill testing at music festivals: Can we do more harm?’. Internal Medicine Journal 46(11), pp 1249–​51. Schon, D. and Rein, M. (1994) Frame Reflection: Resolving Intractable Policy Issues. New York: Basic Books.

54

Policy Narratives and Policy Change

Scott, I.A. and Scott, R.J. (2020) ‘Pill testing at music festivals: Is it evidence-​ based harm reduction?’. Internal Medicine Journal 50(4), pp 395–​402. Shanahan, E.A., Jones, M.D. and McBeth, M.K. (2011) ‘Policy narratives and policy processes’. Policy Studies Journal 39(3), pp 535–​61. Smit-​Rigter, L. and Van der Gouwe, D. (2019) The Drugs Information and Monitoring System (DIMS) Factsheet on Drug Checking in the Netherlands. Utrecht: Trimbos Institute. Stone, D. (1989) ‘Causal stories and the formation of policy agendas’. Political Science Quarterly 104(2), pp 281–​300. Weible, C. and Sabatier, P. (2007) ‘A guide to the Advocacy Coalition Framework’. In F. Fischer, G. Miller and M. Sidney (eds) Handbook of Public Policy Analysis: Theory, Politics, and Methods. Boca Raton: CRC Press, pp 123–​36. Winstock, A.R., Wolff, K. and Ramsey, J. (2001) ‘Ecstasy pill testing: Harm minimization gone too far?’. Addiction 96(8), pp 1139–​48. Yanow, D. (1999) Conducting Interpretive Policy Analysis. Thousand Oaks: SAGE. Yanow, D. (2015) ‘Making sense of policy practices: Interpretation and meaning’. In F. Fischer, D. Torgerson, A. Durnová and M. Orsini (eds) Handbook of Critical Policy Studies. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp 401–​21. Yanow, D. and Schwartz-​Shea, P. (2006) Interpretation and Method: Empirical Research Methods and the Interpretive Turn. New York: M.E. Sharpe.

55

4

The Criminalised Other as Storyteller: The Promise and Peril of Bringing ‘Lived Experience’ into the Classroom Diana Johns Figure 4.1: Masson Theatre, the University of Melbourne

Source: Chris Mowat @Dr_​Mow, 7 November 2018. Reproduced from Twitter with permission.

56

The Criminalised Other as Storyteller

The old lecture theatre bristles with attention. Students perch on wooden seats looking down towards the speaker at the front of the room. The storyteller was once a student here himself, an Arts/​Law undergraduate, many years ago. He remembers sitting in lecture theatres just like this one, names scratched into soft wood surfaces, now Tippexed. He doesn’t look like a ‘typical crim’, does he, he asks rhetorically, no visible scars, tattoos or missing teeth. The ‘respectable’ outer layer, though, belies deep emotional and psychological scars. And anger –​such roiling, raging anger –​it has nearly consumed him at times. Anger and shame at what happened to him, at what he did, at how he suffered and how others suffered because of him. He was imprisoned at the age of 21 –​just a kid, really –​released at 27. In court, his father had pleaded to serve the time in his stead. It was decades ago now. But it is still so real, so palpable, so much part of him, despite everything he’s done to try and put it behind him. He tells of what it feels like to come very close to taking a man’s life with his own gun, the adrenalin-​blurred moments surrounding arrest, the way time pauses and rushes at supersonic speed, stretching and condensing experience into fragments of memory that lodge under the skin like splinters. He tells of how this paradox of time foreshadows the experience of being locked behind iron bars, steel doors, stone walls. Locked in emotional darkness, where the sounds and smells of suffering and torment permeate your dreams and waking hours. Outside, as your father ages, sickens and dies, family lives on. Sounds are traveling vibrations in the form of pressure waves in an elastic medium. Objects move at supersonic speed when the objects move faster than the speed at which sound propagates through the medium.1 Like sound, time moves forward in the elastic medium of the outside world. On the inside, in the rigid unyielding medium of the prison, it gets stuck, snagged on razor wire and splinters. The storyteller captures students’ attention with tales of horror, abjection, base human experiences. Their faces open, their eyes wide, they listen. They try to understand. They try to make sense of the way prison time follows you outside, through the gates, slinking behind you like a shadow that won’t be shaken. Always sneaking up on you. Haunting you. Making ‘rehabilitation’ impossible, a joke. But do they get it? How can we make sense of experiences that are not our own? Stories of the lived experience of suffering or injustice can be powerful vehicles for building empathy and insight –​into stigma and shame, for instance, pain and indignity. Stories can hook us. They can spark outrage, shock, incredulity, a sense of urgency that something must be done. In this way they can create a foundation on which experiential learning builds. But empathy, as Amy Shuman (2005) warns, ‘presumes the ability to understand another’s life story’ (p 162). And without that ability to understand, just as 57

Narrative Research Now

stories can draw us into proximity with each other and with experiences outside our own, they can also cast a spell of mystique or exoticism. Moreover, when they evoke discomfort or challenge our sense of how things should be, stories can create distance between us (the listener) and them (the storyteller). Stories about the lived experience of having been locked up, incarcerated, punished –​for doing the wrong thing –​can be such a place where imagination and indignation collide. This is where the danger lies.

Proximity and participation In this chapter I draw on my experience of teaching undergraduate criminology students about the harms of imprisonment and the challenges and possibilities of penal abolition. The storyteller discussed earlier is a man who brings his personal experience of imprisonment into the classroom of a prestigious Australian university, a lecture theatre similar (if not identical) to the one pictured in Figure 4.1. Using Giroux’s (1992) critical pedagogy as a roadmap for thinking and practice, I invite guest speakers to share their experiences of carceral confinement, to embed their voices and stories in students’ learning. In a subject about incarceration –​the most severe punishment used by the state to control the behaviour of its citizens –​this experiential perspective is crucial, especially for those of us ‘removed from everyday encounters with punishment’s pain’ (Brown, 2009, p 10). As I insist with my students, to understand a phenomenon –​especially one outside our own experience –​ we need to assemble different viewpoints. We need to supplement academic theorising and research evidence with practice expertise as well as knowledge derived from lived (or living) experience. Only then can we start to piece together a full picture and to deepen our understanding of that phenomenon, and the narratives surrounding it. Yet lived/​living experience has typically been dismissed, disregarded, discounted as ‘anecdotal’ or ‘subjective’; relegated to the bottom of a hierarchy of knowledge that reifies and valorises ‘rational’ accounts of measurable phenomena; distance over proximity, ‘objectivity’ over subjectivity. In dominating, silencing and thereby erasing other ways of knowing, this ‘scientific’ view has thus acted as a form of ‘epistemicide’ (Santos, 2007, p 74), killing other knowledge systems (Hall and Tandon, 2017). Māori filmmaker Merata Mita (1989, in Tuhiwai Smith, 2012, p 117), talked about New Zealand’s ‘history of people putting Māori under a microscope in the same way a scientist looks at an insect’. As social scientists gathering research ‘data’, criminologists also tend to view people’s lives and lived experiences from a distance (Spivak, 2010; Tuck and Yang, 2014). This so-​called ‘objective’ scientific view, by turning stories into research ‘products’, can deny people’s expertise in their own lives: ‘The ones doing the looking’, Merata Mita observed, ‘are giving themselves the power to define’ (in Tuhiwai Smith, 2012, p 117). Someone else is defining who and 58

The Criminalised Other as Storyteller

what you are. As Irene Watson writes, in relation to colonial constructions of Aboriginal identity, The objective view is ‘known’ to be more reliable than our own oral stories about ourselves, which are too much ‘inside the story’, and not sufficiently distant from the subject. The state, in engaging the ‘expert’, imposes its way of knowing on us, and deploys colonial institutions to name us, and we are left to work with this, sifting the sand to find the kernel of our lives. (Watson, 2005, p 47) Two points here are important to think about in relation to stories of criminalisation and punishment: the denigration of proximity (being ‘not sufficiently distant’); and the power of naming (‘the “expert” imposes its way of knowing’). The impact for the storyteller is not only that their stories are embezzled, sifted and catalogued, then refashioned into a particular form of knowledge, but that their way of knowing is squashed, silenced. What does this mean for the listener, the receiver? As the earlier story reveals, listening involves all the senses: hearing, seeing, feeling, and more. ‘Speech smells, writing does not’, writes Fawcett (2000, p 140, citing Barthes, 1977), referring to the way speaking brings story to life, ‘because writing can be erased and redone but speech cannot without the traces of the odours (inferences and mistakes) lingering’ (p 140). These ‘odours’ leave impressions and shape our perceptions. The surfaces and membranes of our bodies receive heat, sound, light, and other invisible waves and particles. Through the exchange of all this information, we participate in meaning-​making by turning words and sense impressions into visual and mental imagery that we string together as storylines in our heads, infused with our past encounters, memories and sense of what comes next. We thus participate in story as a form of intersubjective knowledge that propagates through the elastic medium of shared social space. Listening, as Dufourmantelle (2018, p 83) observes, ‘is not one and the other who are listening to each other; it is actually listening that is unfolding between them’, implying presence, proximity and participation. Framing story as participatory in this way changes the relation between criminalised storyteller and listener; it opens up opportunities for seeing each other as co-​producers of knowledge, learning together in ways that might be mutually transformative. To allow for this learning to occur, Santos (2007, p 67) proposes an ‘ecology of knowledges’ premised on ‘the recognition of the existence of a plurality of knowledges beyond scientific knowledge’. From this perspective the listener, the learner, is invited to unsettle certainty and step into unknowing, to welcome not knowing (Johns et al, 2022, p 110). This, however, takes imagination: ‘To embody ecological learning from diverse ethical and epistemological standpoints, one has to remember or learn anew 59

Narrative Research Now

how to story it differently. Great stories and ethics require great imagination’ (Fawcett, 2009, in Adsit-​Morris, 2017, p 1, my emphasis). If imagination means creating new objects, images and ideas beyond immediate sensory input, that is a world-​making process in which narrative is always implicated and involved. For Andrews (2014) it is through narrative imagination –​the link between what is and what could be –​that ‘we are both anchored and transported’ (p 2). Through narrative imagination we become time travellers, listening in the present yet propelled into the ‘not yet’ of possible futures (Andrews, 2014, pp 2–​5).

Story and narrative power So, what happens when a story’s seeds land on barren ground? Or if imaginations are hemmed by past experiences, assumptions and/​or imputed identities? This is where the educator’s role is critical for sparking imagination as ‘the necessary sustenance to create visions of alternative realities’ (Andrews, 2014, p 5), and to provide ‘the impetus to explore what lies beyond known experience’ (p 59). But again, how do we make sense of experiences that are not known, not our own, except through the limits of our own imagination and the collective imaginary. In relating his own experience, the storyteller discussed earlier is simultaneously participating in a wider cultural narrative, such as about ‘crims’ and what it means to be one. His ability to disrupt that storyline depends on his listeners’ willingness and ability to participate in his story; to feel it, to be changed by it. Stories, storylines, narratives –​these intertwining notions can be hard to distinguish or disentangle. Plummer’s (2019, p 4) distinction here is perhaps useful: ‘stories direct us to what is told, while narratives tell us how stories are told’ (emphasis in original). Stories about prisons and prisoners are usually conveyed as spectacle, observed by ‘the distanced citizen, a penal spectator, secure in [their] place … to exercise exclusionary judgment from afar’ (Brown, 2009, p 8). Narratives about ‘offenders’ getting their ‘just deserts’, for instance, rely on the logic of othering that separates ‘us and them’. Plummer’s (2019) idea of narrative power –​how stories shape power and how power shapes stories –​shows how story provides a conceptual portal between inner and outer worlds, however, ‘both inwards to the dynamics of vulnerable personhood, and outwards, to the tragi-​comedies of risky societies’ (p 5). He hints at the potential for stories to dissolve that separation, to connect people across perceived divides. ‘Behind every story there is a social –​often political –​story waiting’, writes Plummer (2019, p 5), highlighting how stories can connect individual traumas and troubles with structural roots and ruptures, and allow these lineages/​relationships to be witnessed, seen and heard. Teasing these connections apart, in the context of this chapter, we might identify the 60

The Criminalised Other as Storyteller

interplay of four levels of narrative power, involving: (1) individual students and the perspective each brings to their capacity and inclination for learning; (2) the meaning-​making interactions between teacher, storyteller and students in the classroom; (3) the institutional knowledge hierarchies and pedagogical norms and practices that are authorised, circumscribed and valorised by the university structures within which these exchanges take place; and (4) the larger, overarching and underpinning societal (cultural/​political/​ historical) narratives. The promise of bringing lived experience into the classroom is that stories can transform students’ understandings. The question is: can stories bring about transformation at these broader narrative levels? Perhaps the answer is learning how to story it differently (Fawcett, 2009, in Adsit-​Morris, 2017, p 1).

Criminal ‘othering’ Criminology has been charged as a colonial, ‘control-​freak’ science, with criminologists as ‘experts’ in service to the imperialist state (Agozino, 2003; 2010). Narrative criminology, especially, has been criticised for being overly focused on stories about crime that embolden and legitimise penal spectatorship, which relies on criminal othering as its premise. From a critical criminological perspective, social change requires the disruption of the imaginary of the criminal as Other in relation to an imagined ‘non-​ criminal’. In the first instance, this involves challenging notions of crime as an objective thing, a stable legal category. Through a constructionist lens, laws and social norms vary and evolve across time and place and, with them, legal and moral categories of crime and criminality (see Rafter, 1990). Seeing ‘crime’ –​and the vast machinery of crime control –​as socially constructed through political and legal decision-​making processes raises the question: who gets to decide? Such questions bring into view the power relations embedded in mechanisms of social control. For students with lived experience of policing and criminalisation, this view is familiar, this knowledge is intuitive. For the majority, however, whose lives avoid everyday entanglement with the criminal legal system, coming to understand how state power serves the interests of some by oppressing others can be a slow, unfolding process. Talking, thinking and learning about punishment and its function in society –​what it does and does not do –​involves thinking about how human beings in society harm themselves and each other. It means thinking beyond interpersonal harm and seeing how the state and corporations reproduce conditions of inequity and social harm by relying on the threat and exercise of violence to police and enforce structures of inequality and exploitation. It means discerning how we feel about that harm, how it affects the way we live in society, and what we understand justice to mean. 61

Narrative Research Now

This understanding implicates us, it means placing ourselves in the picture, it behoves subjectivity. We are part of the equation. And understanding our part in this demands that we reflect on and challenge our own prejudices, assumptions, biases and beliefs. A common categorisation is the construction of the criminalised ‘other’ as somehow different from and separate to the law-​abiding majority, a division reproduced in the everyday language of ‘offenders’/​‘non-​offenders’. The depersonalised language of ‘criminal justice’ tends to relate offending risk to individual deficits or abnormalities, rather than seeing it as emanating from system failings or frayed safety nets. We imagine prisons to be full of our worst nightmares –​murderers, rapists and paedophiles, all deserving of harsh punishment –​rather than understanding that ordinary people can end up in prison for reasons of inescapable circumstance. Thus, the workings of the so-​called justice system are abstracted from the lives of people affected by its harms, and distance between ‘us and them’ is maintained. Rationally, this binary does not hold: Who among us has never crossed the bounds of the law? Isn’t the student carving words into university furniture committing the crime of property damage? But at an emotional, limbic, cellular level, it persists. It lives through fictional accounts and popular culture and media representations, and through our voyeuristic gaze as penal spectators (Brown, 2009). This spectatorship distances us from the human experience and pain of incarceration. Within Santos’s (2007) ecology of knowledges, subjective and cultural knowledge, myth and story are important sources of information about ourselves and our world, offering powerful insights into social reality. And it is through narrative –​and characters with whom we can connect, identify, empathise –​that we can gain access to these insights, through what Santos (2007) calls radical co-​presence. This notion is based on an understanding of modern Western thinking as characterised by radical lines that divide social reality into two realms, the realm of ‘this side of the line’ and the realm of ‘the other side of the line’. The division is such that ‘the other side of the line’ vanishes as reality, becomes nonexistent, and is indeed produced as nonexistent. … Whatever is produced as nonexistent is radically excluded because it lies beyond the realm of what the accepted conception of inclusion considers to be its other. (Santos, 2007, p 45; emphasis added) Radical co-​presence assumes the co-​existence of ‘the two sides of the line’; that is, that the realities constructed (existent) by the realms of science and law (true/​false, legal/​illegal) and those eliminated as ‘non-​existent’ are recognised as ‘contemporary in equal terms’ (Santos, 2007, p 66). This means breaking down an ‘either/​or’ understanding of the world and radically 62

The Criminalised Other as Storyteller

shifting our place within it. An ‘ecology of knowledges’ is thus ‘a counter-​ epistemology’ (Santos, 2007, p 68) that provides the ground for thinking differently, which is crucial when challenging deeply ingrained assumptions, such as that ‘criminals’ are somehow inherently different to those living law-​abiding lives on ‘this side of the line’. Such logic casts prisoners as less eligible citizens, less worthy ‘others’ who must deserve the dehumanisation that imprisonment entails by virtue of their being in prison. Challenging such powerful, persistent narratives requires treading carefully and sensitively, using concrete examples to guide students’ learning through an experiential process of unfolding, opening, seeing things differently. For educators and storytellers this means taking students with you, engaging together in the act of critical consciousness (Freire, 2005 [1970]; Boronski, 2022). Only then can the possibilities of justice-​making beyond punishment begin to take shape.

Critical pedagogy Critical pedagogy (Giroux, 1992; 2003; Freire, 2005 [1970]) offers an emancipatory framework for teaching and learning that seeks to recognise, resist and transform oppressive relations of power. As Giroux (2003, p 98) explains, this approach emphasises ‘critical reflexivity, bridg[ing] the gap between learning and everyday life, mak[ing] visible the connection between power and knowledge’. This means entwining the theoretical with the practical, encouraging students to engage with uncertainty, in genuine self-​critique, by allowing them to see how their own lives are implicated in the way things are, and what they think, say and do matters. Central to Giroux’s critical pedagogy is the creation of a ‘language of resistance and possibility’ (Giroux, 2003, p 98), grounded in the soil of political imagination and what he calls educated hope –​a form of radical utopianism. Far from impractical, Giroux (drawing on Ernst Bloch) insists that ‘hope must be concrete’ (2003, p 98) –​a practical, optimistic, agentic, realisable agenda for action. The first step is to bear witness to ‘the present state of affairs’ (Giroux, 2003, p 94), to engage critically and reflexively with the dominant societal narrative, and to do so ethically, in solidarity with the struggles of others. To bring ‘the other side of the line’ into view, and therefore into existence (Santos, 2007). For Paulo Freire, ‘witness is not an abstract gesture, but an action –​a confrontation with the world and with people’ (Freire, 2005 [1970], p 177). Solidarity can only arise, therefore, through ‘encounter’ with the other (Freire, 2005 [1970], p 129). Here he implies the need for proximity, warning that by eschewing encounter, we risk perpetuating dehumanising narratives about the Other: ‘when they avoid encounter they become inflexible and treat others as mere objects; instead of nurturing life, they kill life; instead of searching for life, they flee from it’ (Freire, 2005 [1970], p 129). 63

Narrative Research Now

Encounter is the starting point for ethical witnessing, and perhaps even radical co-​presence. It is the beginning of seeing the other. The role of the critical educator then, in seeking transformative learning, is to awaken, inspire and embolden imaginations: ‘to nurture my imagination and the imaginations of my students, so that we don’t reduce the unknown subjectivity of an “other” being to the limited range of our own experiences’ (Fawcett, 2000, p 140). This brings us back to Andrews (2014, p 79), for whom the role of the educator –​in awakening imagination through story –​ is to ‘nourish … the world of “as if ” ’.

Encountering the Other Adsit-​Morris (2017) asks, ‘how do we learn and teach students to encounter the “Other” in all its complexity … (both real and imaginary)?’ (p 5; emphasis added), underlining the dialogic nature of critical pedagogy (Plummer, 2019). In line with its transformative and emancipatory aims, bringing stories of lived/​living experience into the classroom aims to disrupt and dislodge narratives about crime and ‘criminals’ by showing that criminalised people are human beings just like any other, through concrete examples of how criminalising processes manifest structured inequalities such as poverty. More than that, the purpose is to bring students into proximity with their own emotional responses to questions of punishment, justice and social order, and their assumptions about who and what prison is for. Thus, storytelling becomes an act of critical consciousness raising (Freire, 2005 [1970]; Boronski, 2022), a pathway to understanding. As Frank (2009, p 107) puts it: ‘Only observers think much about narratives; people tell stories. Stories are the spoken expression of narratives. (emphasis in original)’ To recall Plummer’s (2019, p 4) distinction, the ‘stories direct us to what is told, while narratives tell us how stories are told’ (emphasis in original). The question then arises: Under what conditions can/​does story become pedagogical, powerful, transformative? The answer is, in part, how the story connects to broader narratives at the interactional, institutional and societal levels. The critical educator’s role –​to nurture imaginations –​highlights that storying narratives of the Other differently requires the valuing of lived experience as expertise, in the first instance, as well as the educator’s own proximity to the Other, in whatever form that takes. Teaching students about the complexities (real and imaginary) of encountering the Other demands an ongoing commitment to raising our own critical consciousness, as educators and co-​producers of knowledge, by modelling and practising critical reflexivity. Asking: What is our story? In whose stories do we participate? In what narratives are we complicit? If, as Shuman asserts, ‘[n]‌arrative describes an aporia between the inexplicable and the meaningful’ (2005, pp 10–​11), then story provides the bridge, the portal, the passage between inexplicability 64

The Criminalised Other as Storyteller

and meaning. We can understand story as border crossing (Shuman, 2005, p 150). This is stories’ narrative power. Thinking about bringing students into proximity with the pain of others, through story, and how this connects to broader societal/​cultural narratives, raises another question, of how to bring about radical co-​presence? Answering these questions demands a degree of tenderness (Tokarczuk, 2019), or gentleness (Dufourmantelle, 2018), since encountering the other relies on listening as ‘the gentlest expression … of encounter’ (p 83). Listening thus demands ‘an openness of mind and heart’ (hooks, 1994, in Andrews, 2014, p 80), to traverse the imaginative space between knowing and not knowing.

Reifying power relations (the perils) ‘Storytelling about personal experience in everyday life has subversive potential’, notes Shuman, ‘but personal narrative is not of itself an antidote to the dominant narrative’ (2005, pp 20–​1). Indeed, she warns, ‘speaking from the margins’ risks reinscribing the speaker’s marginality ‘precisely by calling attention to their marginality’ (Shuman, 2005, p 21). The capacity of the story to subvert or disrupt (or reify) the power relations between the storyteller (as Other) and listener –​prescribed by the dominant cultural and societal narrative –​‘depends upon the existence of a willing, listening audience’ (Andrews, 2014, p 87); we become willing listeners when we are prepared ‘to distance ourselves from ourselves’ (p 79). Arguably, and paradoxically, the logic of reason and rationality that objectifies its subject simultaneously eschews/​precludes objectifying its own subject position. Letting go of one’s own certainty means stepping into vulnerability, with humility and reflexivity. This can be hard work; and ‘the moral imagination’ is ‘often … lazy’ (Nussbaum, 2002, in Andrews, 2014, p 80). We tend to default to the familiar: ‘Knowledge which is “too threatening or too different from the listener’s experience” is suspect’ (Zingaro, 2009, in Andrews, 2014, p 87). We shy away, mistrustful of the suspect storyteller. Frank (2013, p xx, after Kierkegaard, 1987, p 260) asserts that ‘to tell one’s life is to assume responsibility for that life’, implying that readiness to relate one’s experience comes through telling one’s story and thereby reconciling oneself to that experience. Reginald Dwayne Betts is an American poet and lawyer, formerly imprisoned, whose title of his fourth book Felon: Poems (2019) represents acknowledgement of his story: ‘Not “claiming,” not “owning,” but acknowledging – n ​ ot just a crime but also the life that followed, both in and out of prison’ (Czepiel, 2020, p 1). Such re-​storying of personal narrative, rescripting one’s identity, is a powerful path to redemption for stigmatised people (Maruna, 2001). This is the storyteller speaking on their terms, assuming responsibility in Frank’s terms, defining themselves, and thereby resisting definition by those doing the looking. 65

Narrative Research Now

Another way of conceiving this responsibility is in the role of wounded storyteller, one voice enabling others to share their experience: ‘In wounded storytelling … the teller not only recovers her voice; she becomes a witness to the conditions that rob others of their voices. When any person recovers his voice, many people begin to speak through that story’ (Frank, 2013, p xxi). As the following lines in Betts’ poem ‘Behind Yellow Tape’ (2019, pp 7–​8) suggest, sometimes re-​storying necessarily entails editing and redacting parts of a story that remain untellable: All the stories I keep to myself tell how violence broke & made me, turned me into a man. Our criminalised storyteller, however, draws no such lines: Ask me anything! In submitting to the listener, he seeks to ignite insight and imagination, perhaps even empathy. But ‘empathy’, Shuman (2005, p 162) warns, ‘presumes the ability to understand another’s life story’. Narrative power is not guaranteed, nor understanding or reciprocity. We cannot assume the capacity of every listener to let go of their moral indignation, their ‘one side of the line’ thinking, their spectator’s gaze. Stories are not always or inevitably transformative. As Shuman (2005) points out, narrative holds ‘competing promises’ of empathy and entitlement, with the latter shaped by ‘questions of custody and containment’ (Shuman, 2005, p 150). Here Shuman points to the punitive impulse that undergirds penal spectatorship, the fetishising gaze that maintains otherness. From this perspective, there is a risk of the classroom becoming a panopticon: a place of distance, surveillance, spectacle. Recalling the colonial gaze of Merata Mita’s microscope: ‘The ones doing the looking … giving themselves the power to define’ (in Tuhiwai Smith, 2012, p 117), this power can be reinforced by spaces that echo and transmit deep cultural histories. The opening photograph (Figure 4.1) shows a lecture theatre where students look down on the storyteller at the front of the room, the physical arrangement evoking the mid-​19th-​century grandeur of the university as a colonial institution, representing materially and symbolically the era’s rigid hierarchy of knowledge. Even subliminally, inhabitants are reminded of power relations that infer hierarchy and subjugation, inferiority and superiority. Students for whom the story and the storyteller create distance, rather than proximity, tend to reify these dominant narratives by assuming the superior position of knowing and naming what and who the storyteller is. By taking intellectual refuge in their university-​grounded subject position, some students and educators risk becoming Watson’s (2005, p 47) ‘experts’, deployed by colonial institutions to do the naming, the classifying of Others who ‘are left … sifting the sand to find the kernel of our lives’. Clearly, there is an inherent tension in seeking to destabilise power relations within 66

The Criminalised Other as Storyteller

an institutional setting that reinforces and reifies those relations. Perhaps the language of story can be disruptive. Watson’s lyricism here evokes the language of story, the poetics of personal experience, as opposed to the language of incarceration (Cox, 2020), of ‘corrections’ or ‘criminal justice’, which Betts (2019, np) recalls: Why pretend these words don’t seize our breath? Prisoner, inmate, felon, convict. For many teachers and learners, however, the language of story is not reliable; clinical, sanitised, ‘scientific’ labels and words signify an ‘objectivity’ that seems reassuring, safe, knowable. The default narrative is still one where the academic is the expert and the dominant way of knowing is produced through the ‘scientific’ method, from a distance. The perils for the storyteller are many. In storytelling, ‘[d]‌rama is vital –​it brings narrative into performance and performativity, making it a dynamic engagement of words and conduct with power relations’ (Plummer, 2019, p 48). But the storyteller’s knowledge may be exoticised, their drama fetishised. The danger of essentialising the ‘lived experience’ guest lecturer as an ‘ideal subject’ through being an engaging, dramatic speaker –​and one who has crafted an intelligible narrative –​tends to reinforce the binary notion of criminal/​non-​criminal, and thereby reproduces the logic of criminal othering. Some listeners may take one person’s story as representing all lived experience, thereby homogenising markedly heterogeneous experiences and perspectives. Some risk unwittingly being granted authority over the experiences of others, in ways they may not choose to take responsibility. Furthermore, when a person becomes known for telling their story, and becomes expert at doing so, there is a risk of commodification, whereby the storyteller’s pain and trauma, shame and indignity becomes a tradeable knowledge product over which they may lose control. For these reasons, for many formerly imprisoned storytellers, ‘being labelled a professional, credentialled “ex-​offender” risks becoming a pathway out of one form of criminal othering into another’ (Johns et al, 2022, p 133). In this way, re-​storying can become a narrative cul-​de-​sac.

Conclusion (the promise) We take these risks, to share stories in the hope that they can build connection and awaken students to injustice, inequality and the possibilities for social change, because ‘stories are always more generous, more capacious, than ideologies’ (Haraway, 2004, in Adsit-​Morris, 2017, p 6). Stories can help create the conditions for solidarity, reciprocity, mutuality and action, to challenge and destabilise entrenched narratives, and to build new narratives. 67

Narrative Research Now

This may be the process of learning how to story narratives differently (recalling Fawcett), in that the ‘capaciousness’ of story opens up possibilities and sparks imaginings, rather than closing them down. Abolitionist thinking, writing and appetite is burgeoning and consistently points to the need to act, and for action to manifest principles of collective care, compassion and courage. Teaching and learning are similarly action-​oriented –​they are about doing as much as about thinking, writing and theorising. Bringing lived experience into the classroom offers powerful promises: of active, embodied, transformative learning; opportunities to witness and participate in the generosity of stories, and of how to story narratives of the Other differently. Beyond interpersonal interactions, narratives operate at different levels: within and between individuals and social interactions; packaged and promoted by and through institutions; produced and reproduced through societal discourse. These storylines, myths and tropes both shape and reflect our collective and cultural norms and understandings, our sense of how things are. Bringing lived experience into the classroom is a powerful, participatory way of breaking down misperceptions and challenging ‘us/​them’ binaries and othering narratives. It is a way to disrupt hierarchies of knowledge, by valuing first-​person accounts as a source of expertise in the production of criminological knowledge. It can create conditions for reciprocity, mutuality, reflexivity and humility, by giving students an opportunity to encounter the Other and to build empathy and connection, to see the other in oneself. Listening to the voices of lived experience offers a powerful pedagogical opportunity that is never guaranteed but always potentially transformative. Perhaps this story of how lived experience narratives might transform and deepen students understanding is ‘evidence of a possible turning in the world of higher education’ (Hall and Tandon, 2017, p 7). In reflecting on the benefits of lived experience narratives in the classroom, and their potential contribution to the abolitionist project, I am attuned to the risks of reinscribing and reinforcing the carceral logics we seek to challenge, and of reproducing the power relations that shore up the structures we might seek to abolish. But far more enlivening are the possibilities of narrative imagination that stories spark, and the narrative of otherness-​in-​relation as a way of participating in the ongoing re-​storying of our world. Note 1

https://​en.wikipe​dia.org/​wiki/​Super​soni​c_​sp​eed

References Adsit-​Morris, C. (2017) Restorying Environmental Education: Figurations, Fictions, and Feral Subjectivities. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Agozino, B. (2003) Counter-​Colonial Criminology: A Critique of Imperialist Reason. London: Pluto. 68

The Criminalised Other as Storyteller

Agozino, B. (2010) ‘What is criminology? A control-​freak discipline!’. African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies 4(1), pp i–​xx. Andrews, M. (2014) Narrative Imagination and Everyday Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Betts, R.D. (2019) Felon: Poems. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Boronski, T. (2022) Critical Pedagogy: An Exploration of Contemporary Themes and Issues. New York: Routledge. Brown, M. (2009) The Culture of Punishment: Prison, Society, and Spectacle. New York: New York University Press. Cox, A. (2020) ‘The language of incarceration’. Incarceration, 1(1). Czepiel, K. (2020) ‘Acknowledgements’. Daily Nutmeg, 4 August. https://​ dail​ynut​meg.com/​2020/​08/​04/​regin​ald-​dwa​yne-​betts-​featu​red-​aut​hor-​ sum​mer-​read​ing-​month-​ackno​wled​geme​nts/​ Dufourmantelle, A. (2018) Power of Gentleness: Meditations on the Risk of Living. New York: Fordham University Press. Fawcett, L. (2000) ‘Ethical imagining: Ecofeminist possibilities and environmental learning’. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education 5(1), pp 134–​47. Frank, A.W. (2009) ‘Why I wrote … The Wounded Storyteller: A recollection of life and ethics’. Clinical Ethics 4(2), pp 106–​8. Frank, A.W. (2013) The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness & Ethics, 2nd edn. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Freire, P. (2005 [1970]) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Penguin Classics. Giroux, H. (1992) Border Crossings: Cultural Workers and the Politics of Education, 1st edn. New York: Routledge. Giroux, H. (2003) ‘Utopian thinking under the sign of neoliberalism: Towards a critical pedagogy of educated hope’. Democracy and Nature 9(1), pp 91–​105. Hall, B.L. and Tandon, R. (2017) ‘Decolonization of knowledge, epistemicide, participatory research and higher education’. Research for All 1(1), pp 6–​19. Johns, D., Flynn, C., Hall, M., Spivakovsky, C. and Turner, S. (2022) Co-​ production and Criminal Justice. New York: Routledge. Kierkegaard, S. (1987) Either/​Or, Part II. Edited and translated by H.V. Hong and E.H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Maruna, S. (2001) Making Good: How Ex-​Convicts Reform and Rebuild Their Lives. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Plummer, K. (2019) Narrative Power: The Struggle for Human Value. Cambridge: Polity Press. Rafter, N. (1990) ‘The social construction of crime and crime control’. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 27(4), pp 376–​89. Santos, B.d.S. (2007) ‘Beyond abyssal thinking: From global lines to ecologies of knowledge’. Eurozine 33, pp 45–​89.

69

Narrative Research Now

Shuman, A. (2005) Other People’s Stories: Entitlement Claims and the Critique of Empathy. Champaign: University of Illinois Press. Spivak, G. (2010) ‘Can the subaltern speak?’ In R. Morris (ed) Can the Subaltern Speak? Reflections on the History of an Idea. New York: Columbia University Press, pp 21–​80. Tokarczuk, O. (2019) The Tender Narrator. Nobel Lecture in Literature, The Nobel Foundation. https://​www.nob​elpr​ize.org/​pri​zes/​lit​erat​ure/​2018/​ tokarc​zuk/​lect​ure/​ Tuck, E. and Yang, W. (2014) ‘R-​words: Refusing research’. In D. Paris and M.T. Winn (eds) Humanizing Research: Decolonizing Qualitative Inquiry with Youth and Communities. Thousand Oaks: SAGE, pp 223–​48. Tuhiwai Smith, L. (2012) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, 2nd edn. London: Zed Books. Watson, I. (2005) ‘Settled and unsettled spaces: Are we free to roam?’. Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association Journal 1, pp 41–​52.

70

5

Ethical Weaving: Creative Narrations of Family Trauma and Resilience Wajeehah Aayeshah

Introduction ‘They took pappa away. I never saw him again. He was imprisoned and then shot. I don’t know where he was buried. Nobody does. The land he didn’t want to betray, was he buried in it? I shall never find out.’ These are the words of my mother, my amma. I have changed them a little. These words were uttered in Urdu. Some things are lost in translation. I do not believe words can ever show her pain of losing her father. This snippet is a part of a creative, narrative book project about my family experiences of war and migration. In 1971, the East wing of Pakistan became Bangladesh. Both my maternal and paternal family were forced to migrate to West Pakistan due to bloodshed and brutal conflict. I grew up with heart-​ breaking accounts of these events. My mother lost her father in the war. Now orphaned, she and her siblings were taken in by extended family who themselves were struggling in a new city and culture. My book attempts to tell these stories of my mother, my father and a few other relatives; stories that are proving to be somewhat untellable. In this chapter, I reflect on my experiences of telling these untellable stories in the light of scholarship on memory and narrative. By doing so, I want to acknowledge the struggles of working on graphical family memoir. The chapter provides insight into the challenges of developing creative narratives about family stories of trauma, grief and resilience. The process of working on this book has been a journey of discovery for me, and I continue to work my way through my responses, reactions and coping mechanisms. 73

Narrative Research Now

Telling untellable stories I want to tell these stories because my mother never could, at least not in a written or a published form, despite being a writer and a poet. The academic discourse around the ‘Fall of Dhaka’ is mostly about the ‘Independence of Bangladesh’. The event is the same, but the stories are told differently. This often happens with stories. Especially the untellable ones. There are a lot of different kinds of untellable stories. In this particular case, more stories are told from the Bangladeshi point of view because the ones that ought to have come out from Pakistan would have to say, ‘Our leaders were wrong’, ‘Our people committed atrocities’. A group of people who are struggling to survive in a new land, albeit a part of their own country, do not often have the luxury of writing these stories. One reason is that there is an element of shame to these stories. But these are also untellable stories because of grief and trauma. Trauma that never got treated or looked after; trauma that seeped into the next generation through the womb, through tears, through stories. In Other People’s Stories (2005) Amy Shuman explains: Telling untellable stories accomplishes several things for the tellers … sometimes telling the story is a way of reconstructing the category of the event by taking exception to the available stories. In other cases, this recategorization of an event is a way of working against the way the story is understood by creating a new scenario. The issue for these tellers is not just telling the story but telling it in a particular way or in a particular situation. (Shuman, 2005, p 22) For me, both reasons are applicable. There is an imbalance in the stories about the ‘Independence of Bangladesh’ and the ‘Fall of Dhaka’ and I want to tell the stories about the impact of the latter, or rather, the stories about the memories of the impact of the latter. This is me ‘taking exception to the available stories’, as Shuman puts it. I also want to tell these stories in a creative way involving graphic illustrations, short stories, poems and snippets of news from that time. The stories in my creative work are my stories, embedded in my sense of being. I want to talk about my mother’s wound that never fully healed. It is a fascinating story. I want to talk about stories of belonging, identity and patriotism. Perhaps because these have shaped me as an individual. I do not know who I would have been without this. Would I have this intense empathy that often paralyses me and does not allow me to do better for the actual sufferers? Marianne Hirsch (1997) calls this ‘postmemory’ –​the memory of the second generation to an experience. For Hirsch: 74

Ethical Weaving

Postmemory describes the relationship that the generation after those who witnessed cultural or collective trauma bears to the experiences of those who came before, experiences that they ‘remember’ only by means of the stories, images, and behaviors among which they grew up. But these experiences were transmitted to them so deeply and affectively as to seem to constitute memories in their own right. Postmemory’s connection to the past is thus not actually mediated by recall but by imaginative investment, projection, and creation. (Hirsch, 2008, pp 106–​7, emphasis in original) There are a lot of ‘postmemory’ elements at play in my life and in my work. My mind is full of nostalgic memories of places that I have never been to and can never visit as they no longer exist, and probably never did. These places belong to a life in India pre-​1947 and life in East Pakistan pre-​1971. These nostalgic memories and imaginings are created by my interpretation of stories transferred to me. Poignantly, Hirsch (1992) started discussions about the concept of postmemory in her analysis of Art Spiegelman’s Maus, a Pulitzer Prize-​ winning graphic novel about the Holocaust. It tells the story of Spiegelman’s parents and their internment at Auschwitz. The creative narrative approach to the transmission of memory to second generations resonates deeply with my life and those of others within my family, as well as with my writing project. This said, as a South Asian, I identify more so with what Ananya Jahanara Kabir calls post-​amnesia: [P]‌ostcolonial South Asia is marked by a particular congruence of generations and foundational moments. If the generation that experienced 1947 as young adults is ‘generation 1’, the subsequent ‘generation 2’ is that which experienced 1971 as young adults. ‘Generation 3’ experienced neither 1947 nor 1971 personally, but through post-​amnesia. (Kabir, 2017, p 13) Kabir’s in-​depth exploration of contemporary South Asians’ relationship to post-​amnesia, and by association postmemory, provides a very useful frame of reference for my own work. In her book, Partition’s Post-​Amnesias: 1947, 1971 and Modern South Asia (2013), she unpacks her connections with the 1947 ‘partition of Indian subcontinent’, or what I usually call ‘Independence of Pakistan’, and 1971. She recalls what it means to grow up with these stories and how to write about them as a scholar. Importantly, Kabir’s experiences, coming from a Bengali family who moved from Karachi in West Pakistan to East Pakistan, are reflecting the inverse situation of mine, being from an Urdu-​speaking family who moved the other way. As I engage with these stories of the past, I find it incredibly fortunate that my parents 75

Narrative Research Now

never tried to ‘white-​wash’ the history by justifying the atrocities committed by the Pakistani Army or the continued unfairness geared towards the East Pakistanis by non-​Bengali politicians. Instead, they understand what went wrong and why and transferred these insights on to my brother and I. Nevertheless, family memories of this time can still be difficult to narrate for a range of representational and ethical reasons I will detail in the next section, which is why using Kabir’s terminology of amnesia feels more fitting than Hirsch’s focus on memory and memory work. That said, Hirsch has explored postmemory in more detail, so I will also refer back to her work throughout this chapter.

‘Data’ collection from my family, an ethical dilemma It is important to point out that it took me some time and a few conversations to be comfortable accepting my work as a research project. My primary concern is how I can ask questions in formal interviews when I have known the interviewees my whole life? There is also the matter of gaining consent. For any academic research project, data collection for interviews and photo elicitation would require consent from the participants. There are some exemptions to this rule but mostly this is how research with human participants works. For my book, I am obtaining verbally recorded consent because this is what feels most ethical in this context. Making my elders sign a consent form is not something that I or they feel comfortable with; it adds an element of artificiality in the context where a deep level of trust is already assumed. Another key challenge posed by the institutional ethics process is the need for distress protocols. I must make sure that I or my cousins, or someone else, is there for the people whom I speak to, after the interview to provide support. But I also know that talking about these events with family members will always cause some amount of distress and upset. It is inevitable and no distress protocol can resolve this. Then how do I negotiate an ethics application where this limitation is always going to be there? Turning to the bodies of literature on decolonising research and on participatory research helped me navigate these challenges. This allowed me to ask important questions about power and authority, individual versus collective memory, and the potential clash of institutional ethics and decolonial ethics around collecting data from my elders and relatives relying on oral consent to weave creative narrations. My methodological approach draws on what Thambinathan and Kinsella (2021) refer to as ‘critical reflexivity’. Critical reflexivity, for them, allows space and tools to decolonise the praxis of qualitative methods of research. By using reflexivity, I interview my elders and my family members as ‘experts’, and not just ‘witnesses’ or ‘victims’. By doing so I acknowledge that they are individuals with agency. I am using my privileges as a researcher and storyteller to share 76

Ethical Weaving

their voice through creative narratives. In contrast to mainstream research, where data collected after consent is owned by the researcher, the data stemming from my interviews are co-​created and therefore co-​owned. As Datta (2018) points out, traditional ‘Western’ data collection methods rely on specific power dynamics, usually embedded within research processes. By approaching this project from a collaborative, participatory storytelling framework, I have intentionally tried to mitigate these power dynamics. I am very clear about who owns the story, and it is not me. My role is that of a creative scribe, and I only allow myself to make these stories public if I have the permission. In practice, this has meant that when I conduct interviews for my book, I usually get verbal approval from my elders on the recorder and ask them to tell me about particular incidents that I have heard about already. Sometimes I learn about new things as well. This works to some extent. At other times, data collection happens more organically when the conversation naturally turns to a specific event. The richness of this natural flow of conversation and the dynamics of people remembering and talking about experiences and opinions makes this very different from a reflection that is prompted by a question. For me, both types of exchange are equally meaningful. What distinguishes these situations is the difference between individual memory recall and collective memory recall. Siân E. Lindley (2012, p 18) describes how memories are ‘constructed’ rather than ‘retrieved’ in such social interaction. She argues that ‘shared narratives influence how groups define themselves, play a role in reinforcing bonds, and serve as an expression of intimacy’ (Lindley, 2012, p 18). This organic data collection can be considered as an informal group interview. The difference is that it is unplanned and happens rather arbitrarily. The organic family conversation is a space where people are reflecting with others. Here, different recollections of the same event become apparent, arguments arise, mitigation occurs. It is a snapshot of a family discussion. Jones and Ackerman (2018) take this one step further. They explore not just the co-​construction of memories but the co-​construction of family through this intergenerational passing on of stories. They eloquently argue that ‘the practices of sharing family stories, the design challenges and opportunities of this setting generalize more broadly to contexts where sensitive and value-​ laden information is shared through multi-​lifespan information systems’ (Jones and Ackerman, 2018, p 10). This resonates strongly with my work. It is through such social interactions that these stories have been passed on to me my whole life. I record such oral narratives and then ask for permission to use them. I only use it if everyone is comfortable with it. An ongoing dilemma arising from this is that of stories of people who have passed away. How do I tell stories about those who are not alive anymore? Who do their stories belong to? How do I verify different versions of those 77

Narrative Research Now

stories in the first place? This is something that needs further exploration and unpacking. For now, these are the stories that I consider untellable, and cannot be told at all, by me. In time, I may be able to create narratives which would remove any form of association and identifications from these stories. Perhaps, then, I shall be able to tell them.

The challenges of writing creative graphical memoir There are a lot of challenges in the creative process of writing family memoir. For me, three challenges stand out. First, the art of graphic storytelling; second, generating authentic representations of personalities and events; and, third, the emotional toll of working on family memoir.

Graphic storytelling Something interesting happens when you are telling stories of real people. Your imagination works like a muscle, stretching out and pulling in. When you use words from interviews, you pull in; when you want to use your creativity to weave threads of narratives, you stretch out. I am telling stories of other people’s memories. But I am also telling stories through my own memories of how these stories have been passed on to me, meaning that there are two kinds of memory recall at play. Toni Morrison, in an essay about her book Beloved (1987) writes: ‘For imaginative entrance into that territory, I urged memory to metamorphose itself into metaphorical and imagistic associations. But writing is not simply recollecting or reminiscing or even epiphany. It is doing; creating a narrative infused (in my case) with legitimate and authentic characteristics of the culture’ (Morrison, 2019). ‘Metamorphosis’ is exactly what has been happening to my ‘postmemory’. The art and techniques of storytelling, the lived experiences of loved ones, the research into recorded history of events, and my personal association with all of this comes into play. Hirsch (2008) understands that one person’s memory cannot be transferred to another person. That postmemory is ‘post’. However, ‘it approximates memory in its affective force’. The concept of postmemory as force is equally applicable to Kabir’s ‘post-​amnesia’. My own ‘post-​amnesia’ works in a spiral. It shapes how I interpret the world, influencing my being. This affects how I express myself through words and actions. It also defines how I research, approach and narrate events. This in turn reshapes how I interpret the world, and the spiral continues to evolve. The foundation of this spiral is my ‘post-​ amnesia’. The ‘metamorphosis’ of my post-​amnesia continues to affect my persona as a Pakistani Australian storyteller. As a result, it shows up in my creative work that subconsciously connects my immediate experiences to my embedded ones. 78

Ethical Weaving

Converting my creative narratives into graphical format in collaboration with an artist adds another layer of complexity to this process. I do not wish to produce a caricature of loved ones. I also do not wish an illustration that is technically sound but does not capture some essence of my mother, father or family. This is a challenging, but fun, aspect to explore. I return to the idea of authentic representation later in this chapter. The point I am trying to make here is that storytelling through graphical representations is a completely different process than storytelling through words. So much can be said in a mostly empty image. Matt Madden (2005) outlines ‘99 ways to tell a story’, each with its own technique and style, and each with its own set of challenges. Deciding which story I should tell in what way has been a wonderful exercise and is making me stretch my imagination. My background as a comic reader and researcher has been very useful here. For someone who cannot even draw a straight line, gaining an in-​depth understanding of how comics work; the frames, the lettering, the gutters, the colours, the motion and the pauses, has helped me navigate this process (McCloud, 1993). A number of authors, comic and graphic artists, and visual scholars, and their discussions about their creative processes, have helped me think about my own. Malik Sajad (Almeida, 2021) talks about memory not being crystal clear and that ‘consciousness and understanding are products of the experiences we grew up with’ (np). The difficulty of Sajad’s creative process is eloquently described in how he relived those moments when he wrote about them. Similarly, when I write the story about my mother’s lifelong companions –​grief, sense of loss, and pain –​they are not just her companions; they are mine too. I (re-​)discover these through my writing and I discuss this emotional labour further in the section ‘Emotional labour and intergenerational trauma’. Joe Sacco, a Maltese American journalist, has written graphic novels set in different (post-​)conflict settings including Palestine, Bosnia, and Indigenous communities in Canada and Australia. Approaching these communities through respectful listening led to meaningful conversations, and I have been drawing on Sacco’s flexible approach as I listened to the stories of my family. I grew up with most of the stories that I am writing for my book, but for the purposes of writing about them I had to listen differently, and then transform this into graphic form. This sort of understanding of graphic storytelling, the technique, and the creative process, has been useful in my collaboration with the artist Ayesha Hassan. She is a friend’s sister whom I have known for over a decade. While we knew each other before, we were not close, but collaborating on this book has developed a new, closer understanding between us. She has given this book a lot more vibrancy, life and depth than I would have expected or asked for. She has also brought about much more intense self-​reflection on my part due to her queries about my words and creative choices. 79

Narrative Research Now

One such example is that of a scene in the book where my grandfather is having dinner. Ayesha drew this scene with a fish dish on the table. Now, my family enjoys eating fish and it has always been a part of our diet. But when my mother talks about her childhood, she mentions Bengalis eating fish and rice every day. Only after Ayesha had illustrated the dinner table did I realise that my Urdu-​speaking identity does not see fish on that particular table. I clarified very quickly that my family is Urdu-​speaking, not Bengali, as if Urdu-​speaking people do not eat fish. This was an important moment of contemplation for me. Clearly, I was trying hard to dissociate myself from the Bengalis. Is this because of everything my family experienced due to their non-​Bengali origins? Or am I subconsciously a racist person? Self-​reflection has been an ongoing part of my creative process. Malaka Gharib (KCLS, 2022) examines these consequences of naval-​gazing and how it effects our understanding of identity and being. Like her, working on this book has been a process of discovery for me. It unearths feelings and emotions in me that are intricate, powerful and that shake my core.

Authentic representations The second challenge that I have encountered during the creative writing process is that of authentic representations. These include representations of the physicality of the environment where these stories are based: How did my grandfather’s house look back then? How to represent the utensils, the decorations, the clothes, the everyday environment of an era that I was never a part of. There is a very limited number of visual and written references available to understand how this area appeared in the past. There is also lack of access to the actual location. Neither me nor my collaborator have visited this place, and even if we did, it would not look like it did more than 50 years ago. This raises questions about our imagination, what we think looks right, if it is right, and whether this matters? However, this challenge can be overcome. Images can be found. Stories from that era might include descriptions of a particular locality. It is not going to be perfect, but a rough sketch of the environment and ambience can be created. There are historians whom we can consult to get the imagery right as well. So while it is a challenge, it can be overcome with enough time, research and funding. The more difficult challenge is what I want to discuss next. This is the challenge of authentic representations of personalities; the characters in my book. For example, how do I represent stories about my mother’s experiences without making her appear like a helpless victim in this brutal cycle of fate? In particular, how do I do this when I feel her life experiences really are tragic? Where do I create the space for mentioning how witty and funny she is, or in what part do I mention that her IQ is higher than an average individual and she consumes more books than an 80

Ethical Weaving

average social science academic? Similarly, how do I write about my father’s achievements, his awards, his research, his poetry, his kind eyes and smiling face –​when the actual narrative is about him and his friends running away bare feet from a violent crowd, who were out for blood? The question then becomes how, as a storyteller, I might mitigate the risk of presenting a flat image of these multidimensional personalities. This gets more complex when my narrative includes a person I have never met. As an example, I know my grandfather through the memories of my mother. In these memories, he is a strong, tall, well-​built, caramel skin-​toned man. He smokes a pipe and plays billiards and tennis. He is an honest officer of the government, who gets angry at the tiniest possibility of corruption or dishonesty. He loves and pampers his kids. He is a proper legend –​he survived two bombs dropped on his car and shot down an Indian helicopter. My grandfather got ‘Tamgha-​e-​shuja-​at’ –​the highest accolade for bravery –​for his actions. However, this is my mother’s nostalgic recollections of her father, whom she lost as a nine-​year-​old. How was my grandfather outside this nine-​year-​old’s reflection? The only information I can get is from other members of our family. Again, those are reflections and memories of his own family members. I read between the lines and understand some strengths and some flaws of his personality, all based on the availability of these limited memories, reflections and a few monochrome pictures. In my head, my grandfather always smelled of pipe smoke. And so, in my book, I give him this attribute. But did he really? ‘Why is this accuracy important to me?’ is a question that I have been asked repeatedly during the process of writing this chapter. This might seem even more odd given that I have deliberately gone down the path of creative narrative writing instead of more conventional academic writing. But for me these stories are sacred. There is a word in Urdu, ‘amanat’, which roughly translates into ‘something that has been given for you to care’. You don’t own it. You just keep it safe. These stories are ‘amanat’ for me. They have been passed on to me by my elders and I feel it is my duty to tell them properly and accurately. I am very clear that these stories do not belong to me. I am also incredibly grateful to my artist collaborator Ayesha, who understands my relationship with these stories and treats them respectfully. This is also why I do not want this book to be considered a work of fiction. It is creative non-​fiction. Perhaps, it is more accurate to consider this as a form of creative journalism. Sacco (The Nib, 2020) discusses this tension surrounding accurate, creative representation. He mentions the process of collecting information and fact-​checking like any journalist would. But this process is then complemented by the creative interpretation and representation, which will always be subjective. In my work, I interpret the stories transferred to me as best I can from my own subjective point of view, backing up these interpretations through fact-​checking, because I approach 81

Narrative Research Now

them as creative non-​fiction. This approach is taken up closely in the next section of this book on the ethics of representation. I really would like my book to be something people with similar experiences can pick up, read and resonate with, but I also hope that people who have no geographical or emotional connections with the topic may feel that these are real stories of real people. I want to offer an account that is both responsible and creative, and as close to reality as possible. However, to do so with tragic narratives of loved ones comes with its own emotional labour.

Emotional labour and intergenerational trauma Authors who work with untellable stories have repeatedly mentioned the toll it takes on them, describing it as ‘distressing’, ‘emotional’, ‘frustrating’, ‘emotionally drained’ (Ratnam, 2019; Hess, 2021). In their longitudinal research with cancer patients, Pearce et al (2020, pp 382–​383) evocatively talk about the effect this had on them. They mention the ‘emotional transference’ being deeply uncomfortable, and they also refer to delaying or evading the process of writing as a step in making it become ‘unavoidable’. There are a couple of things that stand out for me in their reflection. First is the importance of reflective writing as a coping mechanism for dealing with the emotional toll. Second is the process of procrastination for making it become ‘vital’ and ‘unavoidable’. This highlights the powerful impact of such stories on researchers, who had no personal ties to their participants. Imagine the power of listening to, revisiting and reconstituting such accounts, reshaping the untellable stories into tellable narratives. It is a strange process to go through. This requires additional work of reflection and critical thinking. I grew up listening to most of the stories that I am writing about. However, listening to my loved ones recorded and re-​writing their works creatively have had a completely different impact on me. There is something unique about your mother’s voice talking about a traumatic experience coming out of a digital recorder. For me, it made me scared of losing my parents. The digitally discombobulated voice without their bodies. My lack of ability to hug them or get them water. I know that this intense emotional feeling in my mother’s voice is not live. It isn’t happening ‘now’ and ‘here’. She does not need me to console her. Yet, there is a strange dissociation with these facts. And though it sounds a bit melodramatic, this experience hurts. It is painful. This emotional toll, it lasts. Sometimes a few hours, sometimes days. These stories are untellable because of their intense impact on me. And it is not just these first-​person narratives that I find difficult. Doing background research about 1971 is also a deeply emotional experience as the works of arts, fiction and fact all affect me, strongly. As an example, consider the following quote: ‘[T]‌he bodies of thousands of non-​Bengalis, slain by their 82

Ethical Weaving

captors in an open-​air human abattoir on the bank of the Kanchan river, were dumped in its waters. Hundreds of corpses were incinerated in the houses of non-​Bengalis which were put to the torch after their inmates had been decapitated’ (Aziz, 1974, p 98). The chapter is called ‘Hell in Dinajpur’. Dinajpur is the city my grandfather lived in. Each time I revisit this chapter, I wonder if his was one of these bodies. My mind spirals into a zone of dark imagery, unless I pull myself back. In a way, trying to make this book more accessible and different from a conventional family memoir has also made my project more difficult. Researching these incidents has become a lot harder than just writing creative non-​fiction through stories that are passed on to me. A second layer of the emotional toll relates to the intergenerational trauma or transgenerational trauma, which refers to ‘the potential of exposure to adverse events to carry on from trauma survivors to their offspring through biological, psychological, and social pathways’ (Larez et al, 2022 p 1). Refugees and immigrants have reported experiencing a sense of displacement and cultural bereavement, in addition to the trauma induced by the act of violence and loss of loved ones (Awad et al, 2020; Der Sarkissian and Sharkey, 2021). This in turn causes mental health issues like distress, anxiety and depression (Yang and Mutchler, 2021; Bedaso and Duko, 2022). The next generation experiences the transference of trauma, as well as its impact on their elders (Atkinson et al, 2014; O’Neill et al, 2018). For me, this manifests itself as a strong sense of empathy with refugees, immigrants, war-​affected people, or oppressed populations of any kind. News stories and individual narratives that my friends may read and move on from quickly deeply affect me. This is an unpragmatic form of empathy, quite often debilitating and completely overwhelming. Intergenerational trauma peeks through every now and then, connecting me to my elders, and their stories, and is a key part of telling untellable stories. Meera Atkinson (2018) writes in Traumata about the tenacity of intergenerational transmission which cannot be stopped by beauty or money. She quotes Kathryn Robinson about how trauma writing ‘emerges from the open wound’ and not ‘the closed scar’ and how it opens more wounds. She says, ‘I heal. I bleed. I heal again. One scar seals (thin-​skinned) while other weeps. … We survivors are resilient. We keep coming with the life force. The fire in the belly dims and then rises again to burn bright’ (Atkinson, 2018, p 200). These words could be my mother’s. I can feel her pain. The pain of a Muslim, brown, orphan woman. The language of trauma is the same. The words could be in Urdu, Arabic, Kurdish or Woi Wurrung. The words might not even be words. The trauma could be visible through tears, or body language, restless or stoic. The language of trauma is universal. As is the transference of trauma to the next generation. This intergenerational trauma has shaped me and continues to do so. However, Amani Hyder, in 83

Narrative Research Now

her hauntingly beautiful book The Mother Wound, writes: ‘I read somewhere if trauma can be inherited then so can strength, resilience, and joy. From both Mum and Teta (grandmother) I learned that resilience is not a thing that you are born with but something you do. I think perhaps both are true’ (Hydar, 2021, p 379. I choose to believe that it is both trauma and resilience, inherited and learnt through modelling and action that defines me and shapes me.

Final thoughts In this chapter, I have attempted to share my insights about telling untellable stories creatively. These insights are drawn from my experience researching and writing a creative non-​fiction book about stories from my migrant family. Stories that I grew up with. Stories that were transferred to me in my mother’s womb. In summary, in this chapter I have attempted to weave a narrative thread of my lived experience as an academic storyteller, telling untellable stories. I hope this reflection helps authors with parallel experiences to write beautiful stories of trauma, grief and resilience. I leave the readers with an excerpt from my poem ‘The story of Dinajpur’ in my book: The story of earth and oath The story of joy and tear, The story of blood, and anguish, The story of blade and fear The story of my mother The tale of her father The story of loss The story that gets harder … This story that I got from my mother’s womb The story of East Pakistan The story of Dinajpur The story of a land that is distant –​that is dur [dur =​far away]. References Almeida, R. (2021) ‘A beautiful graphic novel depicts what growing up in Kashmir is really like’. Homegrown, 8 June. https://​homegr​own.co.in/​ homegr​own-​voi​ces/​interv​iew-​a-​beauti​ful-​g rap​hic-​novel-​depi​cts-​what-​ grow​ing-​up-​in-​kash​mir-​is-​rea​lly-​like Atkinson, J., Nelson, J., Brooks, R., Atkinson, C. and Ryan, K. (2014) ‘Addressing individual and community transgenerational trauma’. Working Together: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mental Health and Wellbeing Principles and Practice 2, pp 289–​307. 84

Ethical Weaving

Atkinson, M. (2018) Traumata. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Awad, G.H., Nguyen, H., Castellanos, F., Payne, T. and Hashem, H. (2020) ‘Mental health considerations for immigrants of Arab/​MENA descent’. In G.C.N. Hall (ed) Mental and Behavioral Health of Immigrants in the United States. London: Academic Press, pp 201–​15. Aziz, Q. (1974) Blood and Tears. Karachi: United Press of Pakistan. Bedaso, A. and Duko, B. (2022) ‘Epidemiology of depression among displaced people: A systematic review and meta-​analysis’. Psychiatry Research, 311, Article 114493. Datta, R. (2018) ‘Decolonizing both researcher and research and its effectiveness in Indigenous research’. Research Ethics 14(2), pp 1–​24. Der Sarkissian, A. and Sharkey, J.D. (2021) ‘Transgenerational trauma and mental health needs among Armenian genocide descendants’. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18(19), Article 10554. Hess, J. (2021) ‘When narrative is impossible: Difficult knowledge, storytelling, and ethical practice in narrative research and pedagogy in music education’. Action, Criticism & Theory for Music Education 20(4), pp 79–​113. Hirsch, M. (1992) ‘Family pictures: Maus, mourning, and post-​memory’. Discourse 15(2), pp 3–​29. Hirsch, M. (1997) Family Frames: Photography, Narrative, and Postmemory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hirsch, M. (2008) ‘The generation of postmemory’. Poetics Today 29(1), pp 103–​28. Hydar, A. (2021) The Mother Wound. Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia. Jones, J. and Acker man, M.S. (2018) ‘Co-​c onstructing family memory: Understanding the intergenerational practices of passing on family stories’. In Proceedings of the 2018 Chi Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Montreal. ACM Digital Library, pp 1–​13. Kabir, A.J. (2013) Partition’s Post-​Amnesias: 1947, 1971 and Modern South Asia. New Delhi: Women Unlimited. Kabir, A.J. (2017) ‘From post-​memory to post-​amnesia’. The Daily Star. https://​www.theda​ilys​tar.net/​star-​week​end/​pos​tmem​ory-​post-​amne​sia-​ 1452​601 KCLS (2022) ‘Author voices: Malaka Gharib’. YouTube, 12 May. https://​ www.yout​ube.com/​watch?v=​mPKa1-​ZgwZA Larez, N.A., Yohannan, J., Crossing, A. and Diaz, Y. (2022) ‘Understanding and responding to intergenerational trauma’. Communique 50(5), pp 30–​3. Lindley, S.E. (2012) ‘Before I forget: From personal memory to family history’. Human–​Computer Interaction 27(1–​2), pp 13–​36. Madden, M. (2005) 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style. New York: Penguin. McCloud, S. (1993) Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HarperCollins. 85

Narrative Research Now

Morrison, T. (2019) ‘I wanted to carve out a world both culture specific and race-​free: an essay by Toni Morrison’. The Guardian, 30 August. https://​ www.theg​u ard​ ian.com/​ b ooks/​ 2 019/​ a ug/​08/​toni-​m orri​son-​remem​ ory-​essay The Nib (2020) ‘The Nib interview: Joe Sacco’. The Nib. https://​the​nib. com/​the-​nib-​interv​iew-​joe-​sacco/​ O’Neill, L., Fraser, T., Kitchenham, A. and McDonald, V. (2018) ‘Hidden burdens: A review of intergenerational, historical and complex trauma, implications for indigenous families’. Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma 11(2), pp 173–​86. Pearce, S., Gibson, F., Whelan, J. and Kelly, D. (2020) ‘Untellable tales and uncertain futures: The unfolding narratives of young adults with cancer’. International Journal of Social Research Methodology 23(4), pp 377–​90. Ratnam, C. (2019) ‘Listening to difficult stories: Listening as a research methodology’. Emotion, Space and Society 31, pp 18–​25. Shuman, A. (2005 Other People’s Stories: Entitlement Claims and the Critique of Empathy. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Thambinathan, V. and Kinsella, E.A. (2021) ‘Decolonizing methodologies in qualitative research: Creating spaces for transformative praxis’. International Journal of Qualitative Methods 20, pp 1226–​32. Yang, M.S. and Mutchler, J.E. (2021) ‘A malady with no name: Understanding experiences of depression among older Hmong refugees’. Journal of Cross-​ Cultural Gerontology 36(2), pp 217–​28.

86

6

“I can’t believe how much I’ve done”: Joan and the Evolution of Her Life Story Nikki Henningham

From the moment our application became a funded project, the Invisible Farmer (TIF) research team prioritised recording Joan’s1 life story. Supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC) in 2017, TIF was a national project that ran for three years, collecting stories, records and artefacts of Australian women involved in food and fibre production, especially those that brought the Australian Rural Women’s Movement to life in the 1980s (Henningham, 2014; Henningham and Morgan, 2018). A member of a large, multidisciplinary team of historians, sociologists and heritage specialists, determined to make visible the women who were so often treated as ‘silent partners’ in farming enterprises, my task was to travel around the country recording life history interviews for research purposes and subsequent curation in the National Library of Australia’s (NLA) Oral History Collection, a truly wonderful assignment. Selecting the 30 women we had been funded to interview was a fraught business when there were so many worthy candidates. Joan, however, was unanimously regarded as ‘a must do’ and, being one of the older potential narrators, interviewing her became a priority. Sadly, there is always a touch of ‘ambulance chasing’ when it comes to making these decisions, and by way of underlining the importance of getting these trailblazing women on the record as soon as possible, my first interview was with one of the first women to operate as a commercial fisher, Mary Mitchelson, who passed away aged 91 in 2020 (Mitchelson and Henningham, 2017). Joan, when I interviewed her in 2017, was relatively youthful at 84. In 2022 she is looking forward to her 90th birthday next year but, as the saying goes, ‘it’s complicated’. 87

Narrative Research Now

Not long after I interviewed Joan, she was diagnosed with what was described to me by her designated power of attorney as ‘advanced dementia’. Joan never had the opportunity to listen back to her own recorded interview prior to receiving this diagnosis, although she had that opportunity some months later with members of her extended family. I know that experience, of having a version of her own story told in her own voice presented back to her, was one she enjoyed. On a Monday morning, about six months after we had spoken, I arrived at work and listened to a voicemail message she left me: ‘Hello, this is Joan! Monica and the family came to visit yesterday. I just wanted to thank you for the brilliant little thing that you sent to me! It went for three hours! It was wonderful to listen to! I’m amazed! I can’t believe how much I’ve done! Thank you!’ I think I speak for most oral historians when I say that this sort of feedback is what keeps us coming back for more. Knowing that I have helped someone to curate and create a narrative version of their memories that makes sense to them is one of the most satisfying aspects of my job. That Joan was happy with the output reflected my general experience of the interview itself. She was at ease throughout, even though the story she shared went to some very dark places. When she was 18 years old, travelling in Queensland on a working holiday, Joan was raped by a group of three men. She endured three trials to see the rapists brought to justice, whatever form that might have taken in the early 1950s. Joan’s rape narrative, in her own telling of the story, is dealt with in about four minutes out of over three hours of recorded interview. Those four minutes or, more accurately, the question of who has ‘rights’ over the publication of those four minutes, are the reason why I won’t use Joan’s real name in what follows and why I need to blur some of the details to keep her de-​identified. Given that Joan has shared her story publicly on numerous occasions prior to the recording we made in 2017, why am I choosing to do so? Context is the key; for every telling of a story, there is an audience and genre, there is a time and a place, and they all shape its meaning. Stories about rape –​ how they are told, how they are heard, how they are mobilised for political purposes, how they are contested –​are no different, as Tanya Serisier (2018), in her trailblazing history of women speaking out against rape from the 1970s to today, compellingly demonstrates. These changing contexts create different ethical frameworks for the publication of the narrative. From police station, to courthouse, to feminist speak-​out sessions, to the recorded interview space and to the family living room, Joan’s narrative has been shared multiple times to different audiences, with different rules framing their publication on every occasion. In 2018, when Joan received 88

“I can’t believe how much I’ve done”

her diagnosis, the ethical considerations that pertained to her recorded story sitting with the NLA since 2017 (and therefore my obligations regarding its publication) had changed, yet again. This chapter will chart the many times and ways that Joan has spoken out and consider the different ethical considerations governing how her story could be told and who can listen to it, with a particular focus on what this means for oral historians working with elderly people diagnosed with dementia. What can we do to preserve and respect the memories of people who might be regarded as ‘unreliable narrators’, especially when confronted by family members with good intentions who, nevertheless, have the authority to speak on her behalf and, in so doing, stop her from speaking out? What do we do when family politics overlay this complicated terrain? I will unpick these tangled threads as I describe the before, during and aftermath of my interview with Joan.

Oral history collection and curation and the Invisible Farmer project As already outlined, I interviewed Joan in 2017 to create content for the research team working on the TIF project for inclusion in the NLA Oral History and Folklore Collection for curation in perpetuity. Seeking to redress the ongoing invisibility of Australian farm women in cultural, historical and contemporary narratives, and reframe the narrative identity of rural Australia as a masculine domain, the TIF project team collected written, video and oral life history recordings documenting women’s experiences across rural Australia. The project helped to raise the profile of women in farming, by returning women’s experiences to published histories of rural and regional Australia (Australian Research Council, 2022). As well as providing rich research material for the project team, the interviews have become a source of social history for generations going forward. Created for projects in the here and now, the NLA process also aims to future-​proof the interviews, allowing narrators to feel confident that they can have control over who listens to their story for as long as they wish. Having completed many different ARC-​funded projects for the NLA, I am confident in the protection the process provides narrators who are nervous about putting difficult things on the record, and I applaud the NLA for the online delivery system that takes Australian stories (told by those with the confidence to be fully open) to a global audience (NLA, nd). Narrators are fully informed prior to the interview of their rights and what they can expect throughout the process, including their right to stop if they no longer feel comfortable. They know that they can wait until they have heard their interview before they sign the form assigning conditions of access for future use. As interviewers, we aim for full disclosure. No 89

Narrative Research Now

surprises, but if there are any we adapt accordingly. It benefits no one if the interview space is not open and safe, or not guided by ethical practice; the code I am guided by is that of Oral History Australia (OHA, 2022). Furthermore, each specific project undertaken under the auspices of ARC funding will also be bound by conditions set out by the administering organisation’s Human Research Ethics Committee (University of Melbourne HREC, 2022). This meant that narrators recruited by the TIF team received written advice about the aims of TIF and they completed informed consent forms before they started the interview. They knew, in a general sense, what they were to be asked and how the content of the interview was to be used by the research team.

Interviewing Joan “We need to get her before she’s gone”, advised my colleague in the lead up to my interview with her. “Make sure you get the rape story”, came the follow-​up directive. I was irritated by the instruction. Make no mistake; I am as keenly supportive as the next feminist of making sure that voices of victims of sexual violence are heard and then amplified. As an oral historian who listens for a living to help people tell their life stories, I am in a privileged position to do this. I am aware of the ubiquity of the experience of sexual violence against women; I know a story of sexual violence, abuse, harassment and discrimination will be part of many women’s experiences in any project cohort I record. My objection to the directive did not lie in the subject matter, as much as it proposed a certain framework be enforced. Even though all oral history interviews are co-​curations, based on agreements made between the interviewer and the narrator about what will be included, I felt uncomfortable about the potential of Joan’s life being defined by this type of directive. As Serisier (2018, p 196) observes, for some women who speak out, the experience of sexual violence and the speaking out about it can become ‘one part of a life that has many other facets’. Does Joan continue to, indeed, did she ever, view her life through the prism of the experience of rape, or speaking out about it? Was the primary aim of this interview to record Joan’s account of her life as a farmer, framed on her terms, or was it to actively curate a story of survival and resilience with Joan’s experience of rape as the focal point? Of course, these are not mutually exclusive options. However, Joan might not regard the NLA as the place she wants her rape narrative to permanently rest. Maybe the experience of being raped as an 18-​year-​old is not the narrative frame of choice for this 84-​year-​old, much celebrated woman farmer. Maybe it is not how she wants to be imagined by anyone listening 50 years from now. I made it clear to my colleague that if Joan thinks it is 90

“I can’t believe how much I’ve done”

important, she will tell me. I said I would set things up so that there is space for her to speak about it. I would invite her, but not drag it out of her. My colleague accepted my decision, still trying to convince me with, “She told it to a public audience 20 years ago. She’ll expect you to ask. She’ll be fine.” I reminded my colleague that the occasion was a very different context to the one I was setting up, and we agreed with each other on that score. Joan was a very busy woman, and it took a while to schedule some dates but once we had, she could not wait for it to happen. She was so excited to see me when I arrived that she locked us out of her home when she came down the driveway to meet me (fortunately, a neighbour with a spare key came to the rescue). Her home was cluttered and cosy; piles of books and newspapers everywhere, religious iconography on every wall, a stack of mail waiting to be read and a small stack waiting to be posted. I set up the recording gear and we sat and chatted, drinking cups of tea, eating hard shortbread and corned beef sandwiches for lunch. She was a welcoming hostess, and we had a lot of fun. Over the next two days she told many wonderful tales as she reflected upon eight decades of what was, in the main, a good life. Prioritising the ‘getting’ of Joan was wise, and I am glad her story will be in the national collection. I should also say at this point that, even though I had never met Joan before, I knew members of her extended family very well. About 30 minutes in on the first day, it dawned upon me that I was related (by marriage) to the people from her childhood she was talking about. In 20 years of being a professional oral historian this had never happened to me before. I had gone into interviews knowing and disclosing shared acquaintances, but I had never discovered them during the course of storytelling. I pressed pause and let her know. “That’s lovely,” she said. “They’re coming to visit in the next fortnight. I’ll tell them I met you!” She assured me that it would not make any difference to the way she told her story, so we carried on. I had satisfied my ethical concerns in the here and now, but as will become apparent, this disclosure of our connection created an ethical conundrum for me down the track. Life history interviews can be very tiring, especially for older people, so it is good practice to schedule multiple sessions across a couple of days when possible. By the end of the second day, we had covered a lot of territory, some of it twice or even three times. In truth, we probably could have done another day, but budgets and schedules would not permit. We finished our interview and, as is standard practice, I told her the library would send her a copy of the interview for her own records. She could sign the conditions of access forms after she listened to it. Did I get the rape story? At the 42-​minute mark of her interview, having just traced the course of her working holiday up the east coast of Queensland in 1951, Joan tells me: 91

Narrative Research Now

‘In Charleville, well I had an unfortunate incident there. I was taken by three hooligans out into the bush, and they raped me. And then I had three years going up and down to court cases. [Me: You took them on?] I took them on. The ringleader got 15 years, the next boy was given 12 and the other boy was underage, so was put in his parents’ care. I’ve got the account of it there in the front page of the Brisbane paper [my emphasis]. It took about three years to go through all these court cases. That was a terrible experience. A lot of people said, you know, “You’re never going to get them stopped.” And I thought, well, the only way to stop them is for them to be sentenced. So that’s what happened [my emphasis]. But it took about three years out of my life because I couldn’t take on a permanent job in between all the court cases.’ She continues –​unprompted: ‘Now well … I suppose I was naive; I had only really knocked around with my brother and his friends and I didn’t have any idea. … I was just going to the swimming pool. So, they said they would give me a drive to the pool and instead they took me out into the bush. And I fought so much that they ended up leg roping me in a dairy. It was a horrible experience. And they were terrorising all the young women in the district of Charleville. The police were determined to have the case go to court. So that happened and we ended up having to have a court case in Brisbane because [jurors and witnesses] were being interfered with in Charleville where there were two hung juries. One of the rapists’ fathers offered me £500 to leave and when I refused it, he threatened to shoot me. It was a horrible experience. But I mean, I felt that for the sake of the young women of the district, for the whole of western Queensland really, I had to do it. It had to be stopped.’ In the context of the interview space, Joan barely talks about what happened during the trial process, except to say, “It was a horrible experience.” She points out that the full account can be found in news cuttings she has kept in a file, but she has no interest in the interview space in elaborating upon either what happened the night she was raped or what happened during the three trials she endured. I was invited to use the articles however I liked, because they were “pretty reliable accounts”.2 Piecing together what happened to provide an account to a public audience is memory work Joan no longer chooses to do, but should we choose to, we can follow the testimony presented at the trials as it was published in numerous Queensland newspapers (Brisbane Telegraph, 1952; Charleville Circuit Court, 1952). These are the nuts and bolts. On 1 November 1951, Joan was walking from Corones Hotel, where she worked as a housemaid, 92

“I can’t believe how much I’ve done”

to the swimming pool when three young men offered her a lift. Instead of taking her to the pool they drove her two miles out of town, hog-​tied her and took turns at raping her. After finishing with her, they drove her back into town and dropped her outside the hotel. Joan reported what happened to her employer who then called the police. Placing the narrative within this archival context, we learn that victim blaming as a strategy when cross-​examining rape victims was de rigueur in the 1950s. After Joan reported the rape, the offenders admitted to police that they had picked her up and had sex with her but, led by their legal counsel’s questioning, insisted she was up for an orgy because she did not fight against them hard enough. As it became clear that Joan would not buckle under pressure, the defence counsel introduced other means of questioning Joan’s character. She was way too opinionated and interested in politics, for instance, as evidenced by her sending a letter to Robert Menzies at the height of his campaigning to ban the Communist Party of Australia, urging him to ‘live and let live’. Further, her testimony was not deemed reliable because, rumour had it, she had suffered a nervous breakdown before coming to Queensland. Any number of methods of discrediting her were used, but Joan’s testimony was consistent, and it prevailed. On 30 July 1952, the jury convicted Sydney Richard Saunders, Noel Brown and Malcolm Atkins of rape, receiving sentences of eight years’ hard labour, five years’ hard labour and release to parental care, respectively. At no time in any of the reporting do we learn the name of the woman these men raped, as was the custom of the time. No matter the context, victims needed to be protected from the shame that identification would inevitably bring down upon them. Successfully holding those men to account took an enormous toll on Joan who followed police advice and moved back to Victoria, travelling up and down to Queensland to attend court three times. While it took years out of her life, she says, drawing a line under the “unfortunate incident”, “but I had to do it. I don’t think the local girls could and would they be believed? I had enough education, I suppose, to give evidence that was trustworthy”. Joan understood that her status as an outsider to the community also made it possible to act on behalf of those who did not have her relative privilege. She had a very strong sense of herself as a reliable narrator. This gave her the strength to go through three court cases; knowing that she would inevitably be believed, no matter how corrupted the process was. In terms of Serisier’s historical analysis of rape narratives, Joan’s own account is pre-​feminist, framed in a way that centres the criminal justice system as the legitimating space for understanding and responding to rape. ‘I was a good witness’ (Serisier, 2018, pp 23–​42). By her own account in the interview space, Joan’s story is one where the experience of rape was profound, horrible and harmful, but it is not foundational. “I was always strong,” she says. “I learned that from my mother 93

Narrative Research Now

during the war.” In fact, the whole reason she travelled to Queensland was because she had endured poor health for most of her teenage life and wanted to change her environment to improve it. Her response to trauma was part of a continuum, it was what anyone would have expected of her and asserting her own agency was what she expected of herself. If anything, in her framing of the story, it is what signals her lifelong belief that she is around to contribute to the greater good. “I felt that for the sake of the young women of the district, for the whole of western Queensland really, I had to do it. It had to be stopped.” A line in the sand needed to be drawn and she was the one to do it. And figuratively, that is what happened in her interview, too. After the 47-​minute mark of a three-​hour interview, Joan does not refer to what happened in Queensland in 1951–​2 again. She moves on quickly, describing how hopeless her domestic skills were and how she never ironed her (late) husband’s shirts. Elsewhere in the interview, she claims the main reason she married her husband was because he had a farm. She loved cows and being physically involved with the work on a dairy farm would be perfect for her. She could not afford a farm on her own so, in 1967 at the age of 34, Joan married a farmer and became one herself. Twenty-​two years later, she was a widow. Most of her adult life, she has been a farmer without a husband. The experience of being a rape victim was just one event in a full life. As well as working the family dairy farm, Joan volunteered in her local community, supporting Landcare and the Country Women’s Association, and encouraging other women on farms to develop the skills and confidence to call themselves farmers. There is scarcely a rural organisation she has not been involved with in some way. She is an icon of the Australian Rural Women’s Movement, as a member of the committee of management who organised the first ever international conference of farm women, held in Melbourne in 1994 and as a regular attendee at annual Women on Farm Gatherings (WOFG) (Butler, 2011 and 2018; Henningham, 2014). It was at one of these gatherings that my colleague heard Joan tell her story of being raped ‘to a public audience’ beyond the courtroom.

Joan tells her story at a Woman on Farms Gathering My colleague’s memory of the power of Joan’s storytelling at a WOFG provides another context for her narrative’s many lives. The first WOFG was held in Warragul, Victoria, in 1990. Gatherings have been held annually in different rural locations across the state since then, breaking in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-​19 restrictions. Organisation of the event is handed over to an autonomous committee of local women each year. Women from Queensland, Tasmania and New South Wales attended the fifth gathering in 1993, and the movement spread to Queensland and New South Wales 94

“I can’t believe how much I’ve done”

in 1993, and Tasmania in 1994. Held over a weekend, the gatherings bring together rural women to learn new skills, share stories and, especially in the beginning, to reaffirm their identity as farmers. They were a vital thread in the women in agriculture movement, providing a public collective space for women to build an alternative knowledge about their disadvantaged position in farming and fostering a political voice (Butler, 2011). Although the gatherings are mainly a forum for the exchange of practical knowledge, the story-​sharing aspect is a very significant part of the programme. Modelled on feminist consciousness-​raising meetings of the past (although never labelled as such, because the ‘f ’ word was misunderstood by many farm women), these groups were safe spaces where women could speak freely about their experiences and the ways they feel vulnerable. Joan was a regular attendee at gatherings and decided to open up about her experience of sexual violence, so that others might too. Appropriately, there is no recording of Joan telling her story at the WOFG; it’s supposed to be a safe space. Nevertheless, word of Joan’s powerful presence filtered out and, in Australian farm women circles, the story gained a type of ‘mythical’ quality. Everyone remembers hearing ‘Joan’s rape story’; even those who, likely, were not even there. Joan’s shared story became a political moment, as the voices of farm women around Australia united to assert their rights and stake their claim. And while WOFG attendees rarely called themselves feminists, at the heart of the storytelling circles lay a commitment to ‘the transformative political potential of experiential storytelling’ (Serisier, 2018, p 4). Joan’s ‘speak out moment’ lays on that historical trajectory running from the 1970s until #MeToo and beyond described by Serisier, where anti-​ rape politics were ‘founded on the belief that producing and disseminating a genre of personal experiential narratives can end sexual violence’ (Serisier, 2018, p 4). An important historical and cultural moment comes to some of the most conservative women in Australia in the 1990s and Joan’s story was vital to the politics of that movement. However, although her story might have been an important political story for the farm women of Victoria, it is important to remember that this was not Joan’s first political moment or act. That took place in the police stations and courtrooms of Queensland over 60 years earlier, although I suspect that if she did regard her actions as political, they would have been seen through the lens of class, not gender, politics. As the defence lawyer attempting to smear her observed, letter writing was something she did regularly –​she wrote to Robert Menzies before she had turned 20 and was regularly talking about politics to people. She continues to write letters as a political act into her 80s. She stood for state parliament (unsuccessfully) as a Democratic Labour Party candidate in the 1960s. Throughout her adult life, Joan has had a strong sense of her civic duties and responsibilities. Telling her story at the WOFG was another one of those times when she decided that she 95

Narrative Research Now

would help other women by speaking out, so that they might come forward too. She noted, off the record, that at that point she felt like the story of her experience took on a life beyond her control. This did not concern her so much as it bemused her. “If it’s useful to other people, that’s fine.” Once again, as a reliable narrator, she was happy to see the story of her experience put to effective use.

Joan –​off the record Often when we turn the recorder off, narrators will tell stories that they do not want on the record, but want to tell someone, nonetheless. As Stacey Zembrzycki observes, sometimes it is when we turn the recorder off that ‘the stories beg[i]‌n to flow’ (Sheftel and Zembrzycki, 2013, p 13). Joan was straight up and down on that score –​what you saw was what you got. At her age, she figured there was little she needed to worry about or be ashamed of when it came to telling stories. If anything, she was frustrated by the fact that the absence of her name in contemporary reporting of her rape trial gave the impression that it was something to be ashamed of, something she would prefer to have buried. She wanted to make it clear that just because she is not particularly interested in reliving the details or, indeed, speaking the names of the rapists herself in the interview, it does not mean she wanted the story buried. There are just some forms of memory work that do not bear repeating. Interestingly, even though she did not want to say the names of the men who raped her, she did want to know what happened to them, whether they went on to reoffend or be rehabilitated. Were they deserving, in the long term, of the judge’s mercy? That was a research task I could not follow through on in any detailed way, although I did learn that two of them, once they had left prison, did not move far beyond Charleville. Whether they had ever hurt another woman again, I cannot say. Sydney Richard Saunders died in 2009, so Joan had well and truly outlived him, both in quantity and quality of life. An outcome of the interview programme for the TIF project was to use each interview as source material to write biographical profiles of the women we interviewed for an online, publicly accessible resource. After a while, it became clear that Joan wanted to use this profile as a way of showing the world that shame was never an emotion she had experienced in her long life. She was proud of what she had done, and if the young women of Charleville felt a little bit safer while they walked to the swimming pool afterwards, even if only for a brief period, it was an achievement she wanted to own and be known for. She wanted her name, and those of the rapists, to appear in her profile. She wanted the narrative of her life to focus on her achievements and, in so much as her experience of rape was part of that narrative, she 96

“I can’t believe how much I’ve done”

wanted the men named, to remind people that rapists are central to that part of the story. As we wound up the interview, I committed to write the profile accordingly, and send Joan the copy for review.

Joan, full disclosure, and a roadblock Not long after we had completed the interview, I got a phone call from the family member Joan and I had in common. Monica, who held Joan’s full power of attorney, wanted to let me know that Joan had experienced quick onset dementia. She speculated about the possibility that Joan might have been exhibiting some signs of it during our interview. I could not say for certain but wondered if the high degree of repetition in our conversation might have been an indicator. I suggested that they could listen to the interview with Joan to get a sense. I sent her a copy and they listened to it with Joan the following weekend. Not long afterwards, I received the thank you message that I quoted at the start of the chapter. I called Monica to tell her about the message, pleased that the experience of listening to her own story had been so positive for Joan. Monica’s response was less enthusiastic. “We’ve never heard the rape story before. Are you sure it happened? She has a reputation for being a fantasist.” I was flabbergasted, and pointed to the newspaper archive, none of which, of course, mentioned Joan by name, but also reminded her that she had told the story to a public audience roughly 20 years earlier. If there was doubt about her mental status now, surely there wasn’t then? Monica insisted that family ignorance of the events trumped any other form of narrative knowledge of them. “Why has she never mentioned any of this to anyone in the family before now?” I pointed out that it was over 60 years ago; perhaps anyone who might have known was now dead. We were at an impasse. Monica, due to her position as attorney, had the right to refuse publication. “I don’t think she was of sound mind when she told you that story,” said Monica, repeating, as a separate proof, the claim that “no one else in the family has heard it”. Monica clearly is not aware of how many secrets our parents and grandparents keep; a small sub-​section of which is being revealed daily by people doing Ancestry DNA tests (Wilson, 2020; de Groot, 2022). Perhaps, in the age of social media driving narratives of daily life, we have forgotten there was a time when secrets were kept. Perhaps, in an era before narrative analysis and feminist speaking out circles, stories of gendered violence like Joan’s were not always tellable, except in a police interview room, or a courtroom. As Serisier observes, in an era pre-​dating the second feminist wave, the criminal justice system was the best (only?) legitimating space for many survivors to understand their experiences of rape and frame their narratives. Rape was a crime, not a story to be shared with others in a quest to dismantle the patriarchy (Serisier, 2018, pp 43–​68; Abrams, 2019). 97

Narrative Research Now

The challenge presented by Monica was not one I had not been expecting. Joan’s desire to put her own name to her own story in public was at risk because some members of her family doubted her testimony. Caught in an awkward position, I am, at present, unable to complete the task of writing her story as she would like and as we agreed. Due to a health diagnosis that changes her legal status as it relates to publication of her story (the conditions of our informed consent do not allow me to publish the final copy without her approval), in the eyes of her family she has become an unreliable narrator whose testimony cannot be published. Hearing a story for the first time only served to confirm the family’s belief in her unreliability. Ironically, if Joan had died soon after we completed the interview, none of this would be an issue –​she had committed to making the interview open access upon her death. Once that happens, I will be free to follow the link that she herself provides in the interview, “I’ve got the account of it there in the front page of the Brisbane paper.” I have highlighted this link to Monica; why would Joan have kept a 60-​year-​old newspaper if the story were not about her? Why would she make this up? It is something we just cannot agree on. I must bide my time. I ‘got’ Joan for the interview, but the version of her story that she would like to tell is not free, just yet.

Who owns the rights to Joan’s story? In 1975, around the time oral history began to take off as an historical method, the average life expectancy at birth of an Australian woman was approximately 76 years; in 2022 it is roughly 85 (ABS, 2022). As oral historians, we have a lot more time to ‘get’ people these days, but if my experience with Joan provides any evidence, this might mean that co-​curating an oral narrative with an elderly person becomes even more complicated. There is an increasing amount of literature that discusses the way oral history can help people living with a diagnosis of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease make meaning of their lives (Kingsbury, 2014; Schoepf, 2020; Mayotte, 2022), but none that I am aware of that covers the situation I am in, where the diagnosis came after the interview and Joan’s off-​the-​record agreement that her story be reconfigured, ever so slightly, to include four names; hers and those of the three rapists. I sometimes wonder what would happen if I had not disclosed my connection to her via Monica. If Monica and I had never spoken, I might never have learned she had power of attorney. Would this have meant I could have written the biographical profile, sent it to Joan and had it approved without Monica ever standing at the gate? Who knows? My ethical obligations at the time of interview did not make this an option. I have no doubt that Monica’s gatekeeping comes from a place of care, and she is legally entitled to the role, but I am saddened that Joan (temporarily) is unable to reinterpret her rape narrative for publication as she wished, even 98

“I can’t believe how much I’ve done”

though I suspect she has no knowledge it has been put on hold. The many tellings of Joan’s story are existential proof of how political the personal can be, when speaking out is understood within changing historical contexts. Joan has always made use of the legitimating spaces available to her to narrate her truth and I think the need to name the men in a story she told for publication was part of this ongoing contextualising of her narrative. For the moment, however, the last time she told her truth was in an audience with her family and, for now, that is where her story stays, because they will not legitimate it. Perhaps that is for the best. Monica’s wish for privacy is not at all uncommon, as the literature shows. In a 2020 article published in Oral History Journal Australia, Christeen Schoepf discusses her experiences of recording the life stories and memories of men who have been diagnosed with dementia, finding that each has challenged her understanding of the theoretical and ethical considerations that underpin best practice oral history interviews. While the outcome of most oral history projects is to inform public research projects, the interview output of her project was not for public consumption. They were to be ‘intimate family items to be treasured by the immediate family and future generations’ (Schoepf, 2020, p 140). As the project progressed, family members of Schoepf ’s narrators realised they did not want their loved one’s stories shared and insisted on anonymity if recorded testimony was used in anything Schoepf might publish. There is a loving concern to protect people from themselves and creating content for public consumption does not take precedence over these important and private concerns. I hope that Monica’s protective concern does not spring from an intergenerational ‘hangover’ of shame that made stories of rape untellable for so long, because shame was an emotion that Joan never talked about in any of the accounts I know of. Yvette Taylor has observed that once her grandmother was diagnosed with dementia, she stopped being seen as an ‘active agent’ (Taylor, 2010, p 635). There seem to be elements of this experience in Monica’s relationship with Joan. Indeed, research such as that of Karen A. Stewart (2009, p 201), into the impact on carers of people with Alzheimer’s disease and/​or dementia, demonstrates the drastic ways these illnesses impact upon family relationships. I am reluctant to judge Monica harshly, given the shock that this new relationship has brought with it, but I am concerned that a woman whose identity revolved around a healthy understanding of her own agency is losing the opportunity to express that sense of self to whoever she pleases, however and whenever she pleases. We should all be concerned about this; as carers, as friends, as diagnoses in waiting. As an oral historian, I can only see this ethical concern growing increasingly pressing. The right to own one’s life story is something families should discuss before it is too late, and that right should not be conditional upon 99

Narrative Research Now

being made privy to the content. We need to be incredibly careful not to dismiss the stories of anyone, also not older adults, even if they have impaired cognitive ability, and especially not just because they have not told them to anyone before. We need to honour the memories and stories of people who, by virtue of age, disease or cognitive disability are deemed unable to provide informed consent. Are they automatically unreliable narrators? If people find the courage to tell ‘untellable stories’ later in life, who are we, as their children, to deny them their truth? Because the truth will out, as it should. And in Joan’s case, it will do so when she dies, when she once again owns her story. And then I will be ready to help her tell it. Notes 1 2

Joan and Monica are not their real names. To preserve confidentiality, I will not fully reference Joan’s interview at this time. It is part of the Rural and farm women oral history collection at the NLA. https://​nla.gov.au/​ nla.cat-​vn7463​296

References Abrams, L. (2019) ‘Heroes of their own life stories: Narrating the female self in the feminist age’. The Journal of the Social History Society 16(2), pp 205–​24. ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) (2022) ‘Historical population’. https://​ www.abs.gov.au/​sta​tist​ics/​peo​ple/​pop​ulat​ion/​his​tori​cal-​pop​ulat​ion/​lat​ est-​rele​ase Australian Research Council (ARC) (2022) ‘Shining a light on the Invisible Farmer’. ARC News. https://​www.arc.gov.au/​news-​publi​cati​ons/​media/​ mak​ing-​dif​f ere​nce-​publ​icat​ion/​shin​ing-​light-​invisi​ble-​far​mer Brisbane Telegraph (1952) ‘Youth “like animal”: Rape case judge regrets no power to flog’, 31 July, p 1. Butler, J. (2011) ‘Australian women in agriculture movement (1990s–​)’. The Australian Women’s Register, Australian Women’s Archives Project, 29 April. http://​www.wom​enau​stra​lia.info/​biogs/​PR007​33b.htm Butler, J. (2018) ‘Women on farms gatherings’. The Australian Women’s Register, Australian Women’s Archives Project. http://​www.wom​enau​stra​ lia.info/​biogs/​PR007​27b.htm Charleville Circuit Court (1952) The Charleville Times, 15 May, pp 10–​11. De Groot, J. (2022) Double Helix History: Genetics and the Past. London: Routledge. Henningham, N. (2014) ‘Rural women’. In The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-​Century Australia. http://​www.wom​enau​stra​lia.info/​ lead​ers/​biogs/​WLE04​26b.htm Henningham, N. and Morgan, H. (2018) ‘Update: The Invisible Farmer: Securing Australian farm women’s history’. Archives and Manuscripts 46(1), pp 90–​9. 100

“I can’t believe how much I’ve done”

Kingsbury, A. (2014) ‘Oral history: A palliative for Alzheimer’s afflicted minds’. The Boston Globe, 22 June. https://​www.bost​ongl​obe.com/​opin​ ion/2​ 014/0​ 6/2​ 1/​oral-​hist​ory-​pal​liat​ive-​for-​alzheim ​ er-a​ fflict​ ed-m ​ inds/i​ ty​ kCPU​jeiz​Zr0W​B9Vh​nVO/​story.html Mayotte, C. (2022) ‘Oral history, memory and aging’. The Voice of Witness Project Website. https://​voi​ceof​witn​ess.org/​oral-​hist​ory-​mem​ ory-​and-​aging/​ Mitchelson, M. and Henningham, N. (2017) ‘Mary Mitchelson interviewed by Nikki Henningham in the rural and farm women oral history project’. https://​nla.gov.au/​nla.cat-​vn7462​238 NLA (National Library of Australia) (nd) National Library of Australia’s Oral History and Folklore Collection https://​www.nla.gov.au/​coll​ecti​ ons/​what-​we-​coll​ect/​oral-​hist​ory-​and-​folkl​ore OHA (Oral History Australia) (2022) Guide to Ethical Practice. https://​oralh​ isto​ryau​stra​lia.org.au/​guide-​ethi​cal-​pract​ice/​ Schoepf, C. (2020) ‘Tangled memories: Reflections on the challenge of dementia in oral history interviews’. Oral History Australia Journal, No. 42, pp 140–​4. Serisier, T. (2018) Speaking Out: Feminism, Rape and Narrative Politics. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Sheftel, A. and Zembrzycki, S. (2013) ‘Introduction’. In A. Sheftel and S. Zembrzycki (eds) Oral History Off The Record: Toward an Ethnography of Practice. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 1–​19. Stewart, K.A. (2009) ‘How do I remember you? A narrative of memory, loss and Alzheimer’s disease’. Qualitative Inquiry 15(1), pp 201–​13. Taylor, Y. (2010) ‘Stories to tell? Reflexive (dis)engagements and (de) legitimized selves’. Qualitative Inquiry 16(8), pp 633–​41. University of Melbourne HREC (Human Research Ethics Committee) (2022) https://​resea​rch.unim​elb.edu.au/​work-​with-​us/​eth​ics-​and-​integr​ ity/​our-​eth​ics-​com​mitt​ees Wilson, G. (2020) ‘Here are the family secrets you told us you uncovered after taking a DNA test’. SBS News. https://​www.sbs.com.au/​news/​insi​ ght/a​ rtic​ le/h ​ ere-a​ re-t​ he-f​ ami​ ly-s​ ecre​ ts-y​ ou-t​ old-u ​ s-y​ ou-u ​ ncover​ ed-a​ fter-​ tak​ing-​a-​dna-​test/​lf4w4i​gbd

101

7

Songs as Narratives: Ethical Tensions in Midnight Oil’s Dead Heart (1986) and Gadigal Land (2020) Liz Dean

Introduction As a vehicle for narratives, songs’ generative potential can assist change and record histories, and can shift with time. Popular protests songs’ lyrics often focus on resisting more dominant narratives and subscribe to the ideal of creating social consciousness and social transformation (Haycock, 2015a, p 425). Protest songs’ transmission of ideas are unstable, as is the national messaging which their narratives seek to interrupt (Hall, 1981, p 329). The stories conveyed are shaped by how songs breach their spatial and temporal locations: where and when they are written, recorded, performed, released and listened to. In the spaces between songwriters’ intention and listeners’ reception, songs’ disseminated narratives are re-​made, misheard and can fail in their elicitation (Derrida, 1977). Songs’ meanings and melodious affects also vary with political shifts over time. Being able to replay a song and repeat listens ‘ties repetition to alterity’, its otherness, wherein hearing something new is possible (Derrida, 1977, p 7). This is irrespective of music genre, or how music is being listened to: aurally and/​or visually (with or without video clips) and on which medium –​record player, digital platform or while riding a bicycle replete with headphones –​and whether listening with unwavering focus or wafting in the background or both. How songs’ stories are engaged with is also shaped by space and place: listening from home, at a concert, in a small venue, alone, with others, in a community, nation state, or a specific geographical setting. Moreover, listening across dynamic, intersecting locations –​as they, woman, man, Indigenous, settler, upper or lower socio-​economic position, younger, 105

Narrative Research Now

older, and so forth –​means that songs’ melodies and/​or lyrics can ‘leave an indelible impression’ (Ahmed, 2004, p 14), have unknowable impacts, or leave the listener without a memory of what a song is about. As a young white woman in the 1980s, listening to the Australian ‘political’ pub rock band Midnight Oil (Oils) and driving from ‘the country’ to town with five settler friends to attend their thronging rock concert at the football oval together with a predominantly male drinking and dancing crowd, it was the opportunity to ‘go dancing’, not the stories their songs told, that I was drawn to. Neither before, during nor after the concert did any of ‘us’ young working-​class workers discuss hearing a central theme in some of their songs: the colonial settlers’ harms for Indigenous people.1 For me, this came years later. As demonstrated in this chapter, place, space and temporality shape the narratives of the Oils’ songs, Dead Heart (1986)2 and Gadigal Land (2020),3 and how they are heard and responded to. The Oils, a five-​piece settler band known for their ‘critical’ commentary on Australian and global politics, rose to local and international fame in the late 1980s (Hancock, 2015b). One of their songs, Dead Heart (1986), reports on an Australia where Indigenous rights to their Countries and what happens within them are legislatively superseded by mining companies’ rights.4 This song also calls out corporate profiteering and environment degradation (Steggels, 1992; Bonastre, 2011). Dead Heart was written for Uluru –​an Anangu Story (Wilson, 1986), a documentary tracing the local Anangu peoples’ efforts to have their Country, inclusive of Uluru (Central Australia, Northern Territory), ‘returned’.5 It also tells the story of British colonial impacts. The Oils’ recent song, Gadigal Land (2020), virtually a continuation of Dead Heart (1986), sings of how British ships’ arrival in what became Sydney Harbour brought colonial/​settler laws and culture which Indigenous peoples did not ‘need’. Gadigal Land’s main difference to Dead Heart is its collaboration with musicians who are Indigenous and a sharper focus upon Indigenous sovereignty and agency. A media comment accompanying Gadigal Land’s release (and the later Makarrata Project mini-​album [2020]), states that with this song they seek to support the 2017 Makaratta: Uluru Statement from the Heart (hereafter the Uluru Statement, nd) (Oils cited in Dwyer, 2020).6 Coalescing with a year of ‘dialogues’ with over 200 Indigenous language groups, the Uluru Statement aims for ‘a representative, constitutional, voice to advise federal Australian parliament on policy decisions that affect Indigenous peoples, treaties and truth telling’ (Davis, 2018, np). By telling the story of successive, racist colonial/​settler harms, Gadigal Land can contribute to public understanding of Indigenous peoples’ request for a ‘voice’ where policies concern them. Listening to these two songs’ narratives here and now is complicated by both their delivery and reception, as this chapter shows. When in 1986 the Oils 106

Songs as Narratives

‘stand in for’ –​as place-​holders –​Indigenous peoples to tell their story, this can function to undercut their support for Indigenous sovereignty. While 36 years later Gadigal Land works with Indigenous musicians, ‘listening’ to this song aurally and visually reveals an ethical tension between the narrative ideal –​ the Oils’ stated intention of assisting awareness of ‘our’ Australian colonial/​ Indigenous story (in Dwyer, 2020) –​and what can also be symbolically transported. When listening with the official video (as with Dead Heart), a twofold narrative around how the band controls the audible/​visual space of the song materialises. First, the story of British colonial/​settler impacts and Indigenous peoples as sovereigns is recounted. Second, the difficulty of ethical storytelling is shown in the contradiction between what narrative the Oils hope to convey and how they do so, which subtends both songs’ messages. Beginning with a sketch of the contexts from which first Dead Heart, then Gadigal Land emerge, and with a brief review of their lyrics, this chapter turns to the unwritten stories accompanying these songs’ curations, and how narratives always hold responsibilities for both performers and listeners.

Contextualising the Oils’ songs’ stories The song Dead Heart was written by Rob Hirst (drummer), Peter Garrett (lead singer) and Jim Moginie (guitar/​keyboard) after the burgeoning of 1960s Indigenous and student-​led activism around land rights, sovereignty and self-​determination. This activism occurred in an Australia that, in 1969, suspended The Protectionist Legislation Act where many Indigenous people were taken off Country and ‘relocated’ into underfunded ‘missions’ (Kidd, 1997; Watson, 2018),7 and, in 1973, officially dismantled the White Australia Policy (Tavan, 2005).8 Political mobilisation included the Indigenous-​ organised 1972 Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra and protests at the Brisbane 1982 Commonwealth Games (Foley, 2010, pp 10, 19, 22). These actions highlighted discrimination and sovereignty while demanding treaty and placed Indigenous rights into the Australian political and public consciousness more generally (Foley, 2010, p 20). The slowly altering settler racism and Indigenous activism are reflected in the Australian music scene. This meant that Indigenous bands writing ‘protest songs’ like that of No Fixed Address’ We Have Survived (1981), Mop and the Dropouts’ Brisbane Blacks (1982) and Coloured Stone’s Black Boy (1984) (Gibson, 2006) were well known in Indigenous communities while receiving little mainstream airplay.9 Circulating through community radio stations, these songs expanded their non-​Indigenous audiences with some bands, like No Fixed Address, being popular in niche settings such as university campuses (Hurley, 2014). Around this time, the 1980s, more Indigenous musicians were recording and given airplay due to Indigenous communities opening radio stations and recording studios with federal 107

Narrative Research Now

government funding (Breen, 1989, p 98). Some Indigenous people also fostered collaborations with settler musicians, many of whom stepped back in the process of Indigenous peoples recording and performing their stories.10 Furthermore, non-​Indigenous musicians, such as Shane Howard in his song Solid Rock (1981), named colonial/​settler violence, ‘genocide’, acknowledged Indigenous rights and turned to significant Indigenous places like Uluru (McCredden, 2007, p 220), to show allegiance. From this abridged, racialised context, Midnight Oils’ popular 1986 ‘protest rock’ song, Dead Heart, rests on their ‘power to represent and the power to effect’ political discourse and public knowledge (Street, 2013, p 245; Hancock, 2015a). The Anangu request for a song to be written for them about their eventually successful struggles for Country can be seen as legitimising Midnight Oils’ ‘power to represent’. In singing this song, the interrelated granting and occupying an authorial voice –​as ‘the Oils’ –​is attached to their settler male locations and growing popularity and can also operate to take over this story. As Cheryl Harris (1993) argues, power (founded in slavery) produces whiteness as an unquestionably occupiable identity and ‘ protected property’ tied to racialised privileges. This view maps onto Midnight Oils’ status. Their settler whiteness, marketability and attendant commercial success had the potential ‘power to effect’ a larger audience, specifically given the various racist exclusions still at work at this time. Both songs’ (Dead Heart and Gadigal Land) narratives strive to ‘represent’ and support Indigenous peoples’ rights and sovereignty, and to build public knowledge about Indigenous peoples negotiating racist governing forces (see Watson, 2018). In what follows, I explore how in practice these songs can destabilise their support for Indigenous sovereignty.

Dead Heart Dead Heart’s lyrics relay how Indigenous peoples ‘follow ancestors’, and in doing so, connections with place ‘cannot’ be severed (Midnight Oil, 1986; see also Gilbert, 1972). Beginning with ‘[w]‌e don’t serve your country … [or] King’, this song establishes that Indigenous peoples are not subjects of the British crown (Midnight Oil, 1986). They are sovereigns who have their own law and have ‘been here forever’ (Watson, 2018, p 7). As the Uluru Statement (nd) emphasises: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands and possessed it under our own laws and customs. … s‌overeignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’. … This [60,000 year] link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, 108

Songs as Narratives

or better, of sovereignty. It has never been ceded. (https://​fromt​hehe​ art.com.au/​) Implicated, circular-​obligatory-​relational and place-​based temporality, not linear time (Adams, 2009), establishes and sustains Indigenous sovereignty. This is despite, Dead Heart’s narration continues, British colonial settlement being founded upon the spurious claim of terra nullius: that nobody possessed property in ways that British colonisers could understand (Moreton-​Robinson, 2015, p 6). 11 This erroneous colonial precept informed interventionist governing policies including, this song notes, the ‘protectionist era’. Garrett (Midnight Oil, 1986) sings, ‘white man come and took everything [and] … everyone’. Sovereignty survives, the song continues, as it ‘lives’ in the ‘heart’: with Indigenous peoples wherever they are (Midnight Oil, 1986).12 In this song, the ‘heart’ is both Indigenous peoples’ relation with Country (see Wright, 2016) and what is figuratively called the ‘red centre’, which Uluru has come to symbolise: the (tourist) heart of Australia (Paschen, 2010; Cummins, 2019). Naming the multiple violences Indigenous people in Australia have been subjected to and resisted, and their enduring sovereignty, Dead Heart and Gadigal Land’s lyrics capture a generalisable account of colonial effects for Indigenous people globally (albeit with specific manifestations in each nation state) and the erosion of their rights. They sing of dispossession of land, wars, community and family disruption, and abuse and neglect in ‘settlements’. When heard, this alerts listeners to the protracted reluctance of the state to recognise such colonial/​settler harms, Indigenous agency and Indigenous relations with land, regardless of colonial regulations and laws (Watson, 2009; 2018). Singing of this colonial regime and Indigenous sovereignty also, in part, explains the Oils’ appeal in Australia, America, Europe and elsewhere with settler and Indigenous peoples (Hancock, 2015a, p 112). The success of the Oils in many Australian ‘remote’ Indigenous communities in the central desert regions was assisted by their 1986 Blackfella/​Whitefella tour with the revered Warumpi Band (Hurley, 2014).13 This joint tour offered the Oils validity and an introduction to ‘outback’ audiences (Hancock, 2015a). While many Indigenous people were dubious of the Oils –​White men –​ singing their story, there was also recognition that this song was articulating their story to broader urban audiences (Vellutini, 2003). Archie Roach (in McFadyen, 2012), a Gunditjmara and Bundjalung musician, tells of a group of friends listening to settler band Goanna singing the song Solid Rock (Howard, 1981) on the popular music television series Countdown (Roach in McFadyen, 2012). Roach describes how they were asking each other: ‘Who does this fella think he is, singing about Aboriginal people?’ And the old uncle said, ‘When was the last time you heard a young 109

Narrative Research Now

whitefella stick up for Aboriginal people?’ … ‘We can’t remember’. He said, ‘You just heard it then.’ … [Roach continues,] ‘It made us aware that we weren’t alone’. (Roach in McFadyen, 2012, np) From this perspective and at the time, Dead Heart can be seen to support the circulation of knowledge of Indigenous sovereignty and agency, despite settler colonialism.

Gadigal Land Released in 2020 and co-​written by Hirst (from Midnight Oil), Mirning musician Bunna Lawrie and Gadigal poet Joel Davison, Gadigal Land also narrates well-​known realities of Britain importing ‘convicts and disease’ and the more recent acknowledgement of the violence that underpinned invasion and settlement, including the ‘frontier wars’ (Ryan, 2013). Justified through an elevated idea of civilised British colonial cultural holders, this ‘taking’ of land endeavours to show listeners why a ‘voice’ to parliament is central when policy is made specifically for Indigenous people, without their involvement. As Irene Watson, a Tanganekald, Meintangk Boandik academic, argues, ‘we have been deemed culturally deficient and poor managers of our own affairs’ (2007, p 23). This song was released after the Uluru Statement was presented to the conservative Australian federal government and the subsequent four years of federal, political inaction.14 Gadigal Land’s strong instrumental beginning is followed by Garrett singing: ‘Welcome to Gadigal land.’ He is joined by Lawrie, Arrernte and Gurindji musician Dan Sultan and Yorta Yorta and Wiradjuri singer Kaleena Briggs, to harmonise the ‘[w]‌elcomes’ and then ask, ‘do you know our histories?’ (Midnight Oil, 2020). This question is followed by naming ‘our’ differentially ‘shared’ national colonial story grounded in ‘death, incarceration, discrimination, violence, alcohol, guns, and destruction of land and sea’ that Indigenous people ‘don’t … need’ (Midnight Oil, 2020). Such commentary is how this song’s support for ‘awareness of ’ Indigenous demands for ‘voice, treaty and truth telling’ is asserted. In demanding that listeners remember ‘our’ intersecting colonial/​settler/​ Indigenous and Indigenous specific story (Midnight Oil, 2020), this song shows that in fluid ways governmental impacts specific to curbing Indigenous rights stretch to the present (see Watson, 2018). In doing so, they discontinuously impede ‘ways of being and becoming’ informed by 60,000 years of law (Watson, 2007; Davis, 2016). As such, Sultan and Garrett sing about how, since British occupation and settler arrival, ‘rage’ accompanies every day (Midnight Oil, 2020). Here anger becomes a form of resistance (see Lorde, 1984), reiterating Indigenous peoples’ agency as declarative sovereignty. 110

Songs as Narratives

Overlapping and shifting elements, including what knowledge a listener has of ‘our history’, alters both the meaning taken from and imputed into the lyrics of both Dead Heart and Gadigal Land. What story is communicated and how a song’s political intent is harnessed and answered by its diverse audiences cannot be foretold. Despite understanding their politics, Grazyn Zadjow (2018, pp 55–​56; original emphasis) writes, ‘I never really got Midnight Oil’ but was eventually drawn in by their performances, while Matt Okie (2008, np) comments that because of the stories, rhythms and performance, ‘I owe my political education … to … Midnight Oil’. A song’s communicable possibility then, is dynamic and tied to an impossibility (Derrida, 1977). Without a universal reception, a fixed audience, static political context and ideology, a stable shared location, time and place of hearing, or a predetermined overarching meaning attached to songs’ words and rhythms, how these songs’ stories are told and heard ensures their meanings can be arbitrary. Their socio-​political narratives, if consumed, might not ‘arrive’ in a way that ushers in political awareness and action (Steggels, 1992), the specified motivations behind the Oils’ ‘protest songs’ (Dwyer, 2020). The ethics of storytelling relate to how their songs narratives are delivered and the role that listeners play in ‘hearing’ the Oils’ two songs and are informed by the contexts in which they are heard, the manifold locations of listeners and the responsibilities which can flow out of these songs for listeners. This will be considered in the following sections.

Who sings for whom and what can be heard? Waanji writer Alexis Wright’s article ‘What happens when you tell somebody else’s story?’ (2016, np) provides another way to consider how Dead Heart and Gadigal Land’s narratives can be responded to. Wright’s (2016, np) ethical questions of who writes what story when, where, and for whom, pertains to responsibility attached to telling other peoples’ stories. It also poses a question about how listeners respond ethically to how narratives are performed, and what is heard. Wright (2016, np) describes how Indigenous people have always been narrating their stories through ‘collaborative story-​making and collective memory’ which nourishes connections to communities, place and Country. Demonstrating collective agency through ‘story-​making’, Indigenous Australians are witness to their lives, documenting their emplacement in land, their relational worldviews, and resist their framing by others including in the media and politics (Wright, 2016) or by anthropologists discussing, for instance, ‘exotic desert people and their tribal music’ (Breen, 1989). In telling their stories through diverse mediums such as ‘unbroken song lines’ (which orate specific knowledge of place and establish relationality with Country among other things) (Breen, 1989; Wright, 2016), in literature 111

Narrative Research Now

(Heiss, 2008), plays (for example, Davies, 1976), and news and social media (Carlson and Frazer, 2021), ‘negative storytelling about Aboriginal people’ can be altered (Wright, 2016, np). Addressing mostly Australian settlers, Wright (2016, np) establishes how narrative construction, authorship, who becomes authoritative, who is published and therefore have their stories authorised and disseminated for specific audiences, can result in many Indigenous peoples having to continue to forge ways to respond to being written about (see also Langton, 1993). When ‘other people are telling stories on behalf of Indigenous people in Australia’ that can control the narrative, Indigenous voices are largely ignored (Wright, 2016, np). Tony Birch describes the ‘humiliation of having our stories appropriated … while witnessing our own voices … be overlooked, or discredited’ (2019, p 26). The ethical difficulty for a listener now, if not in 1986, can be how Dead Heart’s narrative sings of Indigenous rights and sovereignty, while contributing to Indigenous people’s ‘voicelessness’: having their story sung without their inclusion in some way. What once might have been largely unremarked, to sing as if Indigenous or like a ‘ventriloquist’ about the colonial project and sovereignty, can now be seen as an appropriation of Indigenous place and voice (Vellutini, 2003, p 131). This complicates the narrative of the song, and how it can be responded to. If this absence in Dead Heart is noted, the political purpose of the Oils’ ‘protest rock’ becomes tenuous or even contestable, and listeners can become implicated in its erasures. This is neither to dismiss the significance of this song at the time it was written, nor negate the agency of the Anangu request of the Oils. Rather, it is to show that at play in the making of this song’s official video (as with Gadigal Land) is how the Oils retain their dominant position (Vellutini, 2003) aurally and visually, and how this can subvert their stated support for Indigenous sovereignty and inform what message can be ‘heard’. The Oils appear to unquestioningly inhabit every element of this song’s space –​vocally, lyrically, instrumentally and visually, in the video15 –​while purportedly sharing it in Gadigal Land (I return to this point later). The ethics surrounding who can narrate specific stories, or the problem of speaking for others (Spivak, 1983; Alcoff, 1995; Wright, 2016), cannot be separated from the complexities involved in how stories are narrated (Shuman, 2005) and how malleable they become when viewed through time from multiple locations. Other stories, then, accompany each song’s lyrical narratives. The propagation of a ‘possessive logic’ (Harris, 1993) as the unacknowledged properties of whiteness, and ‘white supremacy as white ignorance’, which means not having to know or think about how this centring (Mills, 2017, p 20) of themselves in the official Dead Heart video, can be seen. The responsibilities which accompany the telling of other peoples’ stories can be neglected by these types of ‘norms of whiteness’ (Yancy, 2014, p 2) in the 112

Songs as Narratives

process, wherein this ‘property’ and ignorance becomes part of the song’s narrative that some listeners see/​hear. Listeners complicate what story is ‘heard’ when listening through watching Dead Heart and Gadigal Land (as do writers, musicians, producers and video makers involved in these songs). Had this song’s video been made otherwise, with the inclusion of Indigenous musicians or singers, for example, a more ethical mode of storytelling would support Dead Heart’s narrative and withstand the political shifts in Australia since its release. When this absence is observed, listeners are to respond ethically to the Oils’ seemingly visible possessiveness of the space of this song or become complicit in some way. It can become incumbent on listeners to find ways to respond to these songs telling of ‘our’ differentially shared colonial/​Indigenous stories. As settlers, ‘we’ can be called on to consider what norms and perspectives shape such ‘shared’ narrative meaning-​making and how to respond.

The imbrications of narrative openings to difference and more of the same Listening to Gadigal Land’s narration with and without the video can interrupt listening in three interconnected ways. First, this song’s ‘Welcome to Gadigal Land’ (Midnight Oil, 2020) concurrently performs, announces and enacts who the sovereigns of this Country are. Hearing ‘Gadigal’ can entice listeners to discover this area of (now) Sydney from Berowra Point to Paramatta (Steele, 2015) as Eora and Dharug Country (Attenbrow, 2002, p 35). Concurrently, if an awareness of whose Country a settler/​listener lives in follows, it can mean engaging with an unfolding historical/​contemporary narrative, which transports Gadigal people (and, by extension, Indigenous people) from being racialised (colonial) subjects of the crown to sovereign subjects (Watson, 2009; Moreton-​Robinson, 2015; Wright, 2016). Hence, this song’s ‘Welcome’ creates an opening to other stories: the who –​Gadigal peoples –​and the what does this mean –​signifying Indigenous belonging to Country that has ‘never been ceded’ (Uluru Statement). Another potential effect of this song’s beginning is to disrupt ‘revisionist’ national narratives that seek to uphold Imperial/​colonial/​settler accounts of sovereignty and belonging (Gilroy, 2004, p 3). Second and related, as listeners ‘we’ are ‘Welcomed to Country’ by the Oils, visually. Indigenous relational belonging means Indigenous people ‘Welcome’ people to their specific Country. A cursory knowledge of Indigenous protocol in Australia means settlers and Indigenous people who are from elsewhere in Australia can acknowledge whose Country they are speaking from, but they cannot conduct a ‘Welcome’.16 Knowing this protocol, the Oils might have sought and been granted permission to sing this opening ‘Welcome’ (with harmonies supplied by invisible Indigenous 113

Narrative Research Now

singers). Regardless, a more ethical storytelling practise would be enacted if an Indigenous person from Gadigal Country were to sing these welcomes, or the Indigenous musicians involved in this song (who also could have been granted permission to sing the Welcomes), were also visible. Then a demonstration of support for sovereignty would match the lyrics and the Oils’ stated intent. Instead, those who ‘hear’ this contradiction are left to negotiate this potential opening to the other when ‘hearing’ Gadigal forestalled due to the focus upon the Oils lead singer, Garrett, singing this opening Welcome. Third, time, space and placement in Gadigal Land’s official video centres the Oils. The opening rousing rhythms and ‘Welcome’ presents ‘the Oils’, instrumentally, vocally and visually. We then glimpse Sultan, Lawrie and Briggs for approximately three seconds before they visually disappear until the second half of the song. Sultan re-​emerges to contribute soaring vocals (at 2:04 to 2:21) with lead singer Garrett, who is in view when they sing of ‘rage’, until Sultan reappears and his upper harmony breaks from Garrett’s vocal (Midnight Oil, 2020). Lawrie is reintroduced singing welcome in Mirning language, and in the third verse Davison begins by reciting a poem in Gadigal language (Midnight Oil, 2020, 2:42). This dramatic narrative arc again creates the possibility for listeners to consider whose Country they reside in or contemplate what this verse is about. This effective opening towards difference emphasises Indigenous sovereignty and sharpens the problem of Garrett visibly singing the opening ‘Welcome’. Why the Gadigal poet is not performing and visually attending all ‘Welcomes’ throughout the song is particularly puzzling, given the Oils’ ideal of supporting the Uluru Statement’s demand for ‘voice, treaties and truth telling’. Likewise, when Davison sings with Briggs in the final verse, listeners can see but are barely able to hear her. The effect of the placement of singers visually and vocally is that while they are seen performing on their own in this song, Indigenous musicians apart from Sultan largely appear in vocal support roles until the end of the song. Here they briefly sing on their own to ‘Welcome’ listeners from each of their Countries, before Garrett completes the song, by welcoming everyone. The Oils’ visible and aural occupation of nearly two-​thirds of this song undermines the effectiveness of this collaborative effort and its intended possible impact, including the opening to Indigenous sovereignty that can occur in this song’s narration, as discussed previously. For instance, Garrett is also visible singing about the vehicles mobilised to ‘kill our mob’ (Midnight Oil, 2020) (again, with off-​camera harmonies from Indigenous singers). As ‘mob’ is how many Indigenous peoples refer to family, community connections and place, a more ethical outcome could be achieved if all musicians were to be seen singing this part of the song’s narrative. Instead, this vocal and visual control over the space of the song can look as if the Oils decide who can tell this story and when they can contribute, exposing 114

Songs as Narratives

a competing tension between collaborating with Indigenous musicians, while moderating their placement in this song. The Oils give voice, an authorising and authoritative position revolving around an assumed ‘I who can give’ (see Derrida, 1992), while providing Indigenous singer-​songwriters and a poet a platform from which to write about, and sing, their/​‘our’ story. Despite this and the focus of the tale sung, it appears that Indigenous sovereignty remains largely contingent on settler ‘generosity’ (see Chapter 9 for another argument on ‘giving’ voice). This regulatory stance supports a position in Australia which the Uluru Statement, like various Indigenous rights activism before this, seeks to change. What listeners can ‘hear’ alongside the lyrics and inclusion of Indigenous musicians and a poet is an enactment of not needing to know the operations of whiteness (Mills, 2017). This can give settler listeners a perspective on how whiteness relates to controlling space and social interactions, even when striving for ethical sharing of the space in which stories are told. The critical engagement with these songs does not diminish the significance of being invited to work with the Oils articulated by Davison (in Hocking, 2020, np), when he received the invitation to co-​write this song, which validates his poetry and ‘language revitalisation’. Briggs (in Lysaght and Pedler, 2020, np) also notes that to sing with the Oils ‘was a surreal opportunity’. This shows the ‘iconic status’ of Midnight Oil and their commercial success (Hancock, 2015a, p 98) and their support for Indigenous rights. Their lyrical messages of sovereignty, and their collaborative efforts which can legitimate what they are singing about, nevertheless compete with the slippages on display including the proprietorial vocal and visual positioning in these songs. Despite the songs’ capacity to elevate ‘our [differential] history’ (Midnight Oil, 2020), I argue that this can be thwarted by the Oils’ retention of the ‘centre stage’. If the Oils were to retreat and foreground Sultan, Lawrie and Briggs more, this would resituate Indigenous place in the performance of these songs. In this way, a verifiable and symbolic enactment of the recognition of sovereignty through what is narrated and practised would meet, relaying a stronger message. When Garrett sings a taunting are ‘we’ –​Australia and England –​ever going to talk about ‘invasion’ (Midnight Oil, 2020), he occupies a settler ‘we’. When he sings of ‘our mob’ with Sultan, Lawrie and Briggs off-​camera, this positioning can be read as overbearing: taking over the story. In not needing to consider the ethics and politics of being seen singing ‘Welcome’, the video structure and the vocal dominance, both the performance of racialisation processes and ‘embodied spaces of social transaction’ privileging Whiteness (Yancy, 2014, p 1), are reasserted. What can be ‘heard’ in Gadigal Land are the fraught aspects of collaboration wherein specific histories pertaining to ‘property’ (Harris, 1993) inform the difficulty of ‘hearing across difference’ or not listening (Dreher, 2009) (see also Chapter 4 for the challenges involved 115

Narrative Research Now

in hearing the Other). In being unable to hear Indigenous peoples tell/​sing their stories, this type of transubstantiation or ‘sharing’ enacted by the Oils can silence their voice. Rather than navigating their colonial/​settler and Indigenous intersecting ‘histories’, what also emerges is the struggle for Indigenous people to have the stories that they tell heard (Wright, 2016). It includes how in shaping a narrative, the intersections of space, place and temporality are political. That Indigenous people are absent from their story in Dead Heart can be considered as reflective of Australia in 1986, slowly beginning to acknowledge Indigenous peoples’ rights. What can be seen/​heard as sung and filmed in Gadigal Land is more of the same –​the more general colonising of the space of Indigenous narratives. Each song reflects the difficulty of telling another’s story and how some voices are centred, which pushes beyond simply retelling tales, even when it also is ‘our’ colonial/​settler/​Indigenous story to narrate. Being able to ‘listen’ could be better shown in practice if all aspects of this song –​lyrics, vocal, film and collaboration –​privileged Indigenous musicians in Australia at this juncture. If the competing narratives that arise from Gadigal Land are ‘heard’, the responsibility to respond well becomes the work of the listener. ‘Hearing’ these songs’ conflicting narratives at a time when Australia is once again being offered an opportunity to recognise that this country ‘always was and always will be Aboriginal land’ (which Davison’s verse points to), can call listeners to act precisely due to what can be ‘seen’ as problematic in these songs’ curation.

Conclusion In Dead Heart Midnight Oil occupies the voice of Indigenous people to disseminate a colonial/​settler/​Indigenous narrative through song. In Gadigal Land, nearly four decades later, they switch back and forth between singing positions as Indigenous, as settler, with singer/​songwriters and a poet who are Indigenous, to sing of ‘our’ story. While Gadigal Land was created to support ‘voice, treaty and truth’, the Oils appear to have overlooked an opportunity to stand to the side while standing with and becoming a vehicle for circulating awareness of the message of the Uluru Statement. As articulated in the Uluru Statement: ‘In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard.’ If the Oils were to play a less authorial role in this song’s narrative execution, a demonstrated ethical response born out of listening could be performed. As argued in this chapter, to practice ethical narrating requires breaking with habits of location and ‘property’. How these songs ‘give’ voice to ‘our’ stories shows that an ethical approach to listening has not yet occurred. The responsibility attending telling other peoples’ stories that are also in different ways ‘ours’ is then transferred to 116

Songs as Narratives

listeners, who are to find ways to respond to such narrative oversights. Responding ethically as an ongoing endeavour to move beyond habitual embodied actions can, perhaps unwittingly, reproduce the possessive, knowing White settler as the central re-​teller of all narratives and –​still –​ requires listening ‘otherwise’. This is also a gift emerging from how these songs’ narratives are told and can be heard over time. The unintentional opening to their other stories can remind White settler listeners that to respond well to intersecting colonial settler and Indigenous narratives is to continuously learn, unlearn and relearn ‘listening’. Acknowledgements Thanks to the editors and other contributors for their generous advice, and to Joseph Daffy and Felicity Miles for their research assistance. Notes 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

I use ‘Indigenous’ throughout this chapter recognising the problems with this general term, as there is with ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander’, ‘Aboriginal’, and ‘First Nations’. Listen to Dead Heart’s official film clip here: https://w ​ ww.ygoutu ​ be.com/w ​ atch?v=1​ 6bF​ Bzx7​I_​0 Listen to Gadigal Land with the official clip here: https://​www.yout​ube.com/​watch?v=​ wuWgE-​u4keg Country is how Indigenous people ‘explain ancestral connection to place and philosophical views on creation’ (Carlson, 2016, p 499). Each Indigenous person or place are identified where possible by their specific Country, when first mentioned in this chapter. According to the Oils, Aṉangu invited them to represent their fight for Country in song and, presented with three songs, chose Dead Heart. See Midnight Oils, News, https://​ www.midn​ight​oil.com/​news/​ The Oils’ profits from this song are to be given to organisations building ‘awareness’ of the Uluru Statement’s (2017), see Midnight Oils, News, https://​www.midn​ight​oil.com/​ news/​. For a discussion of this Uluru Statement (2017) see Davis (2018). This policy introduced to every state and territory of Australia through the early 1900s, was to protect Indigenous people from legislated and unsanctioned colonial harms. It oversaw Indigenous peoples’ placement into settlements with inadequate housing, food, care and schooling (Kidd, 1997; Watson, 2018). See Bortz, in this book’s discussion of policy as narrative. For an analysis of how this 1901 policy reflected and shaped Australia’s racist migration policies and began its decline with the 1960s rights movement see Tavan (2005). These three songs remain anthems for many Indigenous people (see Dunbar-​Hall and Gibson, 2004). Brisbane Blacks, for example, was written by Denis ‘Mop’ Conlon to support Indigenous protests at the 1982 Commonwealth Games. For example, Gurindji Blues (Egan, 1971) sung by Galarrwuy Yunupingu, Yolngu, a country blues Indigenous protest song, written by settler Ted Egan with Vincent Lingiari (in 1967), a famous Gurindji spokesperson for the 1966 Wave Hill strike by Indigenous people who worked for little or nothing for pastoral ‘landowners’, is featured in this song. See Attwood (2003). See Nonie Sharp (1996) for an account of Eddie Mabo’s 1992 legal case for ‘Native Title’ and for the problems of Native Title for Indigenous people, see Watson (2007; 2009). See the last line of this song for this detail (Midnight Oil, 1986). 117

Narrative Research Now 13

14

15 16

Vellutini’s (2003) discusses the Oils learning to play quieter when Indigenous audiences mostly left when they began playing after the Warumpi Band (George Rrurrambu Burrawanga, Yolgnu, Sammy and Gordon Butcher, Pitjantjatjara-​Warlpiri, and settler Neil Murray), early in this tour (Hawley, in Vellutini, 2003, p 131). A 2022 change of federal government saw Prime Minister Anthony Albanese commit to the Uluru Statement (ABC News, 2022). For how Uluru Indigenises the band’s video see Cummins (2019). See Indigenous welcome and acknowledgement protocol, here: https://​www.ind​igen​ ous.gov.au/​cont​act-​us/​welc​ome_​ackn​owle​dgem​ent-​coun​try

References ABC News (2022) ‘Anthony Albanese acceptance speech’. https://​www. abc.net.au/​news/​2022-​05-​22/​anth​ony-​alban​ese-​acc​epta​nce-​spe​ech-​full-​ tra​nscr​ipt/​101088​736 Adams, K. (2009) ‘The perseverance of Aboriginal Australian time philosophy and its impact on integration into the mainstream labor force’. Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection, 618. https://​dig​ital​coll​ecti​ons.sit. edu/​isp​_​col​lect​ion/​618 Ahmed, S. (2004) The Cultural Politics of Emotions. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Press. Alcoff, L. (1995) ‘Who can speak?’. In J. Roof and R. Wiegman (eds) Authority and Critical Identity. Illinois: University of Illinois Press. Attenbrow, V. (2002) Sydney’s Aboriginal Past, Investigating the Archaeological and Historical Records. Sydney: UNSW Press. Attwood, B. (2003) Rights for Aborigines. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin. Australian Government (nd) ‘Welcome to country or acknowledgement of country’. https://​www.ind​igen​ous.gov.au/​cont​act-​us/​welc​ome_​ackn​ owle​dgem​ent-​coun​try Birch, T. (2019) ‘“There is no axe”: Identity, story, and a sombrero’. Meanjin 78(1), pp 26–​32. Bonastre, R. (2011) ‘Beyond rock: Social commitment and political conscience through popular music in Australia 1976–​2002. The case of Midnight Oil’. Coolabah 5, pp 54–​61. Breen, M. (1989) Our Place, Our Music: Aboriginal Music, Vol 2. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press. Carlson, B. (2016) ‘Striking the right chord: Indigenous people and the love of country’. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples 12(5), pp 498–​512. Carlson, B. and Frazer, R. (2021) Indigenous Digital Life: The Practice and Politics of Being Indigenous in Social Media. Palgrave Macmillan. Conlon, D. and The Magpies (1982) Mop and the Dropouts, Brisbane Blacks, Don’t Give In [Single]. SUN0019. Sundown Records. Cummins, J. (2019) The ‘Imagined Sound’ of Australian Literature and Music. London: Anthem Press. Davis, J. (1984) Kullark/​The Dreamers. Sydney: Australia Currency Press. 118

Songs as Narratives

Davis, M. (2016) ‘Listening but not hearing: When process trumps substance’. Griffith Review 51.np https://​www.gri​ffit​hrev​iew.com/​artic​ les/​listen​ing-​but-​not-​hear​ing/​ Davis, M. (2018) ‘The long road to Uluru: Walking together –​truth before justice’. Griffith Review 60, np https://​www.gri​ffit​hrev​iew.com/​artic​les/​ long-​road-​uluru-​walk​ing-​toget​her-​truth-​bef​ore-​just​ice-​meg​anda​vis/​ Derrida, J. (1977) Of Grammatology. Translated by G.C. Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Derrida, J. (1992) Given Time. Translated by P. Kamus. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Dreher, T. (2009) ‘Listening across difference: Media and multiculturalism beyond the politics of voice’. Continuum 23(4), pp 445–​58. Dunbar-​H all, P. and Gibson, C. (2004) Deadly Sounds, Deadly Places: Contemporary Aboriginal Music in Australia. Sydney: UNSW Press. Dwyer, M. (2020) ‘Midnight Oil back on the black rights track’. Sydney Morning Herald, 8 August. https://w ​ ww.smh.com.au/​cult​ure/​music/​midni​ ght-​oil-​back-​on-​black-​r ig​hts-​track-​20200​807-​p55​jlj.html Egan, T. (1971) Gurindji Blues. RCA Records. https://w ​ ww.youtu ​ be.com/​ watch?v=​afcV​pLbD​aVs Foley, G. (2010) ‘A short history of the Australian Indigenous Resistance 1950–​1990’. Koori Web. http://​www.koori​web.org/f​ oley/r​ esourc​ es/p​ dfs/​ 229.pdf Gibson, C.R. (2006) ‘Decolonizing the production of geographical knowledges? Reflections on research with indigenous musicians’. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 88(3), pp 277–​84. Gilbert, K. (1972) Because a White Man’ll Never Do It. Sydney: Angus and Robertson. Gilroy, P. (2004) After Empire: Melancholia or Convivial Culture? Oxford: Routledge. Hall, S. (1981) ‘Notes on deconstructing “the popular” ’. In R. Samuel (ed) People’s History and Sociality Theory. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp 277–​39. Harris, C.I. (1993) ‘Whiteness as property’. Harvard Law Review 106(8), pp 1707–​791. Hancock, J. (2015a) ‘ “No one goes outback and that’s that”: Bringing the dead heart to the city and the world with Midnight Oil’s public pedagogy of protest music’. Unpublished PhD, Monash University. Hancock, J. (2015b) ‘Protest music as adult education and learning for social change: A theorisation of a public pedagogy of protest music’. Australian Journal of Adult Learning 55(3), pp 424–​40. Heis, A. Minter, P. (2008) Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature. Montreal: McGill, Queen’s University Press.

119

Narrative Research Now

Hocking, R. (2020) ‘The story behind the Gadigal poetry on Midnight Oil’s latest track’. NITV, SBS, 7 August. https://w ​ ww.sbs.com.au/n ​ itv/a​ rti​ cle/​the-​story-​beh​ind-​the-​gadi​gal-​poe​try-​on-​midni​ght-​oils-​lat​est-​track/​ b0mxmh​ah3 Hurley, A. (2014) ‘No Fixed Address, but currently in East Berlin’. Perfect Beat 15(2), pp 129–​48. Kidd, R. (1997) The Way We Civilise: Aboriginal affairs –​the untold story. St Lucia. University of Queensland Press. Langton, M. (1993) ‘Well, I heard it on the radio and I saw it on the television’: An Essay for the Australian Film Commission on the Politics and Aesthetics of Filmmaking by and about Aboriginal People and Things. Sydney: Australian Film Commission. Lawrie, B (1984) Coloured Stone, Black Boy, Imparja Records, [Single] IMP 001. Lorde, A. (1984) Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Trumansburg: Crossing Press. Lysaght, G.J. and Pedler, E. (2020) ‘Aboriginal artists relish opportunity to sing with Midnight Oil in new single Gadigal Land’. ABC News. https://​ www.abc.net.au/​news/​2020-​08-​13/​abo​r igi​nal-a​ rtis​ ts-r​ eli​ sh-o ​ ppor​ tuni​ ty-​ to-​sing-​with-​midni​ght-​oil/​12549​350 Makarrata: Uluru Statement from the Heart (nd) https://​fromt​hehe​art.com.au/​ McCredden, L. (2007) ‘It’s a hungry home: Postcolonial displacements, popular music and the sacred’. Journal of Postcolonial Writing 43(2), pp 216–​31. McFadyen, W. (2012) ‘Rock revival’. Sydney Morning Herald. https://​www. smh.com.au/​entert​ainm​ent/​music/​rock-​revi​val-​20120​921-​26ap0.html McKinnon, C. (2010) ‘Indigenous music as a space of resistance’. In T.B. Mar and P. Edmonds (eds) Making Settler Colonial Space: Perspectives on Race, Place and Identity. London: Palgrave, pp 225–​72. Midnight Oil (1986) Dead Heart [song], composed by R. Hirst, P. Garrett and J. Moginie. In Diesel and Dust. CBS, Australia. Midnight Oil (2020) Gadigal Land [song], composed by R. Hirst, B. Lawrie and J. Davison. In Makarrata Project [LP]. Sony Music Entertainment Midnight Oil (nd) ‘News’. https://​www.midn​ight​oil.com/​news/​ Moreton-​Robinson, A. (2015) The White Possessive: Property, Power, and Indigenous Sovereignty. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Mills, C. W. (2017) Black Rights/​White Wrongs: The Critique of Liberalism. New York: Oxford University Press. Okie, M. (2008) ‘“Oz captain, my captain”: An ode to Midnight Oil & interview with Midnight Oil’s Jim Moginie’. Identity Theory. https://w ​ ww. iden ​ tity​ theo ​ ry.com/​oz-​capt​ain-​capt​ain-​ode-​midni​ght-​oil-​interv​iew-​midni​ ght-​oils-​jim-​mogi​nie/​ Paschen, J.A. (2010) ‘Decolonising the gaze at Uluru (Ayers Rock)’. In C. Burns, C. Palmer and J.A. Lester (eds) Tourism and Visual Culture, Vol 1. CAB International, pp 64–​73.

120

Songs as Narratives

Roberts, D. (1986) Uluru –​An Anangu Story. https://​www.scre​enau​stra​lia. gov.au/​the-​scr​een-​guide/​t/​uluru-​-​-​an-​ana​ngu-​story-​1986/​531/​ Ryan, L. (2013) ‘The Black Line in Van Dieman’s Land: Success or failure?’. The Journal of Aboriginal Studies 37(1), pp 3–​18. Sharp, N. (1996) No Ordinary Judgment: Mabo, the Murray Islanders Land Case. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press. Shuman, A. (2005) Other People’s Stories: Entitlements Claims and the Critiques of Empathy. University of Illinois Press. Spivak, G. (1993) ‘Can the subaltern speak’. In P. Williams and L. Chrisman (eds) Colonial Discourse and Post-​Colonial Theory: A Reader. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, pp 66–​105. Steele, J. (2015) ‘Eora map of Sydney Harbour’. Decolonial Atlas [blog]. https://​ deco​loni​alat​las.wordpr​ess.com/​2015/​05/​16/​eora-​map-​of-​syd​ney-​harb​our/​ Steggels, S. (1992) ‘Midnight Oil and the politics of rock’. In P. Hayward (ed) From Punk to Postmodernism Popular Music and Australian Culture from the 1960s to the 1990s. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, pp 139–​48. Street, J. (2013) Music and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tavan, G. (2005) The Long Slow Death of White Australia. Carlton North: Scribe Publication. Vellutini, L. (2003) ‘Finding a voice on Indigenous issues: Midnight Oil’s inappropriate appropriations’. Journal of Australian Studies 27(79), pp 127–​33. Watson, I. (2007) ‘Settled and unsettled spaces: Are we free to roam?’. In I. Moreton-​Robinson (ed) Sovereign Subjects. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, pp 15–​32. Watson, I. (2009) ‘Sovereign spaces, caring for country, and the homeless position of Aboriginal peoples’. South Atlantic Quarterly 108(1), pp 27–​51. Watson, I. (2018) ‘Aboriginal recognition: Treaties and colonial constitutions, we have been here forever’. Bond Law Review 30(1), pp 7–​18. Willoughby, B. (1982) We Have Survived, From My Eyes. Rough Diamond Records RDM 8804. Wright, A. (2016) ‘What happens when you tell somebody else’s stories?’ Meanjin. https://​mean​jin.com.au/​ess​ays/​what-​happ​ens-​when-​you-​tell-​ someb​ody-​elses-​story/​ Yancy, G. (ed) (2014) White Self-​criticality Beyond Anti-​racism: How Does it Feel to be a White Problem? Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Press. Zadjow, G. (2018) ‘The temper of the time’. Arena Magazine 155, pp 55–​6.

121

8

Reading Back as a Way to Give Back? A Narrative Practice-​Informed Method for Interview-​Based Research Sarah Strauven

Introduction Henri was listening to me as I was reading out a narrative crafted from the words he had shared with me a couple of months earlier during a long interview. It was a hot summer day and I had travelled to a Melburnian suburb to visit 90-​year old Henri, one of my research participants, and his wife. After he showed me personal archival mementos and shared memories that had resurfaced, I handed a hard copy of the interview transcript to him. I also explained that I had written a first-​person account from this interview and that I was keen to know if it would be okay for me to include it in my work. As it would have been awkward to watch him read it, I suggested I could read it out to him. Realising I had already spent quite some time at Henri’s and that I had to read aloud six pages, I started off reading at a relatively high pace. At one point, I looked up … and I was struck. I saw Henri resting against the back of his chair, with his eyes closed, his hands folded in front of him, a peaceful yet concentrated look across his face, almost imperceptibly acquiescing with his head. I felt out of sync. A ceremonial atmosphere was called for to match Henri’s sense of reverence in listening back to his story. I slowed down and read with a different intention, one of honouring instead of checking. ‘It was special for me to listen to you talk about what I had told you’, Henri said afterwards. ‘Remember, you were 122

Reading Back as a Way to Give Back?

talking about me. About my past. About a part of my past life. It’s really incredible, you know. I was listening to you talk about things that I lived through 80 years ago.’ I met Henri as I was studying grassroots community initiatives across Australia in which people with refugee experiences share their stories with established members of the community (Strauven, 2021). More specifically, I was interested in exploring what narrative practices people find most meaningful to their preferred sense of self and their ways of being and relating in the world. In this I took inspiration from Saunders (2018), who expands on Hannah Arendt’s analysis that refugees are at risk of experiencing a worldless and superfluous existence as a result of their legal-​political status, and further argues that grassroots initiatives in which ordinary people –​refugees and allies –​share their stories, feel a sense of connection and build relationships with each other can become spaces to create a shared world and embody worldly existences. For my study, I conducted semi-​structured interviews with 20 people. Ten had refugee backgrounds and could tell me about their experiences of sharing their stories in community settings, while the other ten were people involved in grassroots community responses that invited people with refugee experience to share their stories or who otherwise engaged established community members in conversations about the problems refugees face. Henri, quoted at the beginning of this chapter, is of Jewish background and had escaped Nazi Germany and since settled in Australia. His comments about listening to his narrative and my experience of watching him listen left a significant impression on me and I kept reflecting on what exactly had taken place and whether other participants in my research would experience something similar. As a result, I extended the offer to read back the first-​person narratives that I had constructed to each participant and ended up doing so 13 more times. These unexpected relational encounters turned out to be some of the most significant and moving events in my research. In this chapter I reflect on the effects that reading back people’s words shared in a research interview had on them, and on the ethics and politics that have informed the process of enabling and investigating these effects. Issues of representation, reciprocity and accountability animate the relational responsibilities I sought to enact by attending closely to the process of research. I have done so by engaging in two key practices: witnessing and deconstruction. A focus on the process has enriched the co-​production of knowledge grounded in relational ethics, however, I also hope to highlight that some research contributions, namely those to the lives of participants, are generated collaboratively in the midst of ‘doing’ research, specifically in the reading back of resonant narratives. 123

Narrative Research Now

One-​dimensional stories and the problem of representation Stories are intrinsic to human existence (Cavarero, 2000; Schiffrin et al, 2010). They are sometimes the most precious belongings of those seeking refuge on distant shores. When displaced and dispossessed, stories often become vital as they are repositories of legacies and memories, enactments of traditions and rituals, connections to people and symbols, sanctuaries for the past and beacons for the future. However, the production of stories from and about refugees are fraught with risks. Malkki (1996) discusses ‘the constitution of the archetypal refugee’ (p 385) in the international imagination and considers the standardised discursive and representational practices that are deployed to this effect, whether it is at the level of humanitarian aid agencies, governments or journalism. These discursive and representational practices silence people with refugee experience and detract ‘narrative authority, historical agency, and political memory’ from their stories (Malkki, 1996, p 398). Indeed, people with refugee experience have told me that their stories were taken from them, distorted or co-​opted by others. And even if they remain the tellers of their own stories, the contexts in which these stories are shared and received can be problematic. Considering the consequences of problematic storytelling for people’s sense of self has been at the centre of my interests. Issues arise when people start to live by one-​dimensional stories, especially when they are problem-​saturated and fuelled by dominant discourses that are difficult to question because of their strong currency in society (White, 2007). In community settings, these issues can be exacerbated by the expectations held by those who organise and invite people with refugee experience to share their stories. This may, for instance, be the case when people are asked to share only a certain part of their story or to tell their story in a specific way, for example, emotional accounts of suffering and loss during their flight or experiences of hardship and struggle as they resettle. Those who set up such events generally do so because they believe that people with refugee experiences need to be heard and that their stories need to be known. Most often, they are driven by a sense of social justice to soften public opinion, to humanise politics and policies and to improve refugees’ life conditions. However noble these intentions, a narrow focus on suffering-​saturated stories is hazardous. Eve Tuck’s (2009) work on damage-​centred research is valuable in thinking critically about the effects of such storytelling approaches. Tuck exposes the ‘flawed theory of change’ at work in such approaches: ‘it is often used to leverage reparations or resources for marginalised communities yet simultaneously reinforces and reinscribes a one-​dimensional notion of these people as depleted, ruined, and hopeless’ (p 409). In the case I am addressing here, the one-​dimensional description of people sharing their stories could 124

Reading Back as a Way to Give Back?

be summarised as eternal refugees, victims, suffering, lost and in need of help and assistance. However, another dynamic is sometimes operating in storytelling events; one that is equally driven to portray people with refugee experience in a particular way. Only, this time, the image is painted monochromatically with the stroke of heroism, which includes notions of refugees as super resilient, ever adaptable and positively minded, deserving of admiration and inclusion. Although this might look like a more dignified construction of identity, the problem of the one-​dimensional story remains and its consequences can be equally unforeseen and fraught. Dominant views of people with refugee experience not only continuously reinscribe the expression of single stories but also limit the very possibility of constructing other types of stories. Concerned with ‘what narratives can do’ (see Chapter 1, this volume) to people’s sense of self, I focus, like other authors in this book, on how stories are told and, more specifically, on interview-​based inquiry. Interviewing people who experience their stories being appropriated, subjugated or diminished by dominant, one-​dimensional descriptions of their lives and personhood requires researchers to consider the constitutive power they have when eliciting and representing stories. In the present study I developed my own approach for working with stories of people with refugee experience, informed by principles of narrative practice.

Narrative practice-​informed ethics and politics My research, much like my therapeutic work, was shaped by ‘narrative practice’ –​the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings, ethics, politics and relational practices of Narrative Therapy and Community Work. Lainson (2020b) has outlined some of the ways narrative practice can inform research methodologies, including through ‘its emphasis on local, contextualized knowledge; its interest in the usefulness and effects of specific practices; its heritage of critical awareness and thinking; and its particular forms of attention to ethics’ (p 342). Developed by Michael White and David Epston in the 1980s, Narrative Therapy and Community Work is a therapeutic and social practice grounded in poststructural and feminist thought. It centres people as experts of their own lives by elevating people’s own knowledge of their struggles and their resourcefulness in dealing with them. It requires practitioners to consistently examine the power dynamics at play, including their complicity in ‘the reproduction of dominant culture in therapy’ (White, 2011, p 45). This is in relation to the politics of gender, race and class, White (2011) argues, and, particularly relevant for my research, to ‘the politics associated with the hierarchies of knowledge and the politics of marginalization in this culture’ (p 49). Through a narrative practice lens, I consider research, like therapy, to be a social arena of meaning-​making 125

Narrative Research Now

and a cultural location in which the dominant social order can be produced and maintained. Consequently, in analogy of White (2011), researchers need ‘to acknowledge the political dimensions and dilemmas of this work as a given’ (p 52). From this ethical standpoint the process of the research matters as much as, or arguably even more than, its outcomes. It is not just about what stories are told through research but how they are produced and represented. In my case, I was mindful not to create occasions for the endorsement of discursive, representational and performative aspects of dominant descriptions of people with refugee experiences. Two narrative practices, witnessing and deconstruction, assisted me to reflect critically on methodological processes and to pursue their alignment with the relational ethics I sought to uphold. First, stepping into a ‘researcher-​witness position’ affected how I grappled with matters of representation and reciprocity, and how I worked with the interview transcripts and crafted them into first-​person narratives that I ended up reading back to participants. Second, a ‘deconstructing method’ with participants allowed me to examine the effects my methods had on the identities and lives of those I interviewed and, by doing so, to stay accountable to them. The next sections discuss these key practices in more detail.

A practice of witnessing through reading back resonant accounts The rich traditions of feminist (for example, Oakley, 1981; Devault, 1990; Richardson, 1990; St. Pierre et al, 1999), critical (for example, Madison, 2011; Cannella et al, 2015; Denzin and Giardina, 2015) and Indigenous (for example, Chilisa, 2012; Smith, 2012) methodology literature bring front of mind a critique of research that does not centre participants and that easily overlooks the effects research has on a participant and the community around them. Working from a congruent field of thought as a narrative practice-​informed researcher, I sought to take into account this critique when analysing research interviews and representing participants’ narratives. Breaking from logics of extraction (Kuntz, 2015), I wanted to document participants’ contributions and render visible and honour their understanding and knowledges on the topic. By representing people’s descriptions of their life and knowledge in their own right, I hoped that readers could be mobilised to imagine forms of ‘justice-​doing’ (Reynolds, 2019, p 5) in their own contexts in response to the social change that participants had told me they aspired to through their actions. The outcome of these considerations was the construction of 20 narratives in the first person, drawn from each verbatim interview transcript. Although the content was exclusively sourced from the participants’ own words, they were deliberately crafted, from a witness position; grounded in and seeking 126

Reading Back as a Way to Give Back?

to elicit resonance. White (2007) has coined ‘resonance’ to describe the retellings in narrative practice that are powerfully resonant with what people give value to in life as well as to characterise the personal experiences of a witness when a story resonates with them. The experience of resonance, felt by both the participant and the researcher-​witness, often engenders a moment of pause and a personal reflection of why or how something is reverberating. It often evokes new perspectives on an issue or enlivens particular understandings of life. I looked for resonances because they can generate new ways of thinking and being (Strauven, 2021), which are essential to processes of meaning-​making and knowledge production. Inspired by narrative practice, my approach in writing these first-​person accounts was ‘decentred and influential’ (White, 2007). This means that I attempted to address issues of power by centring the participants and leaving out my contributions to the interview in the narratives, employing a format and rhetorical devices that emphasise their person, constructing the narratives only with their own words. However, it is clear that what was included and excluded in the narratives and how they were arranged was very much shaped by my subjectivity and the result of active decisions. I recognise that this influential practice was equally political as I hoped to have some impact on those who told the stories and those reading them. I sought to keep myself accountable for the tensions that my ‘influential’ witness position brought to bear on my ‘decentred’ intentions by sharing the first-​person narratives with each participant to make sure they agreed with the proposed representation of their words and ideas. Aside from attending to the issue of representation, I wondered whether there could be some form of reciprocal benefit for participants to receive a resonant account of their interview with me. Narrative practitioners have demonstrated the possible therapeutic effects people have experienced when receiving a written, resonant account of a conversation they had with an engaged listener (for example, Epston and White, 1990; Newman, 2008). Although I did not have a therapeutic intent in crafting these narratives, I was curious to know whether their narrative practice-​informed goal to ‘resurrect subjugated knowledges’ (Epston and White, 1990, p 31) could have beneficial effects for participants and, as such, be a way for them to gain something from participating in my research.

Deconstruction as a practice of accountability White (1995) cautioned about the power and risks of therapeutic practice to serve as a platform for the discourses of pathology that objectify and marginalise people, to impose truth claims of professional knowledges at the detriment of alternative claims and to reproduce some of the negative aspects of dominant culture. A result of acknowledging this power, Epston 127

Narrative Research Now

and White (White, 1997) committed themselves to consulting people about the effects of their work and, for this purpose, co-​researched their experiences and deconstructed therapy sessions. This form of action research into people’s therapy experiences (Denborough in McLeod, 2014) became a central element of therapists’ accountability in narrative practice. I understand such accountability practice in the context of research as a sort of ‘meta-​research’, that is, research with participants about the research itself. One way I have attempted to do this in my own research is by inviting participants to reflect on the first-​person narrative that I read to them and their experience of it. The follow-​up interview became the opportunity to deconstruct my method and to understand its effect on people. In addition to including another iteration of negotiating consent (that is, whether people agreed with how their words had been represented), deconstructing the reading back was centred around one main question: what was it like for participants to have their words captured by a witness and, more specifically, hearing me read their words back to them as opposed to reading the written version themselves? A few participants took this opportunity to gravitate back to the original interview. Some had wondered whether they had adequately responded to my questions and whether their interview had been of any value to me. One participant, for example, shared that the interview had gone well for him, yet he had been dissecting his performance afterwards. His perceived failure to answer my questions in a concise and coherent way had led him to think he had “ended up in a dreadful mess”. Engaging in this sort of deconstructing conversation gave me the chance to dispel his concerns by describing my experience of his nuanced responses and by pointing out some of the ways the interview with him had contributed to my understanding of the topic. Such doubts and self-​critique may arise in the aftermath of an interview even though participants’ immediate feedback is neutral or positive. Although post-​interview reflections and residual feelings are perhaps quite common and not necessarily problematic, in the context of being accountable for the effects of research acts on participants it could be significant to actively provide opportunities for such issues to be addressed and unpacked. While I acknowledge that other researchers have asked interviewees about their experiences of participation (for example, Westlake and Forrester, 2016; Gibbs et al, 2018), I wish to emphasise how this is congruent with narrative practice-​informed research and to demonstrate how a narrative practice approach can assist researchers to deconstruct methods with participants. Aside from the opportunities to learn from deconstruction to improve research practices, it can also illuminate the relevance of particular methods or practices. Gillam (2013) argues that researchers in the field of refugee studies have a responsibility ‘to be involved in the generation of evidence of the impact of participating in research on refugees and asylum seekers’ (p 36). 128

Reading Back as a Way to Give Back?

As such, attending to a practice of deconstruction not only allows researchers to be accountable for the effects their methods have on participants, but can also produce evidence of relevant and safe methods for researchers and ethics committees alike. In what follows, I offer a brief description of the most salient effects participants have reported about their experience of hearing resonant first-​person accounts read back to them. I conclude with a discussion of the possibilities and limitations of the method.

Reading back: effects, possibilities and limitations The acts of reading back and facilitating conversations about this experience furthers meaning-​making processes. In their reflections, participants often spontaneously expanded on the ideas and experiences that were most important to them. This was sometimes related to the consistency they had observed in their own thinking and acting. At other times, though, they reflected on how their ideas had continued to develop since the initial interview, on how their ideas had gained clarity or sparked new realisations. This led some to distil a core message to be taken from their narrative. In addition, the method allowed people to actually engage with the research material, which was important in relation to the poststructural premise of co-​producing knowledge. It was also critical in the context of my responsibility to ensure participants’ consent was informed and sought iteratively, a process deemed necessary for research with people with refugee experience (Mackenzie et al, 2007). An example of this is when a participant, who had recently resettled in Australia, and I started thinking aloud together, experimenting with different words, until he was entirely satisfied with the implied meaning of words that he had spoken in the interview but that sounded too harsh for him upon hearing them. This process of negotiation and clarification would not have been possible through a written approach. This suggests that reading back research documents could be one way of responding to issues of consent and representation in multilingual research contexts. The diverse feedback in regard to hearing read-​back narratives questions whether the heavy reliance on asking participants to read transcripts and other documents in interview-​based inquiries –​in order to check meanings and provide further reflection –​does in fact facilitate their engagement and feedback. Many confided that they would probably not have read the written version of it or that they would only have read parts of it. Moreover, all participants preferred this approach to being sent a copy of the written version. Some people referred to their weak reading skills. Others mentioned that reading would have been a bland experience as opposed to listening to embodied speech. Sarjoh explained that rather than reading “from a colonial mindset”, hearing his narrative read back to him provided a cultural fit with 129

Narrative Research Now

the oral tradition of his community, clarifying “this is who we are”. He described the impact as “it’s going directly to my heart, you’re talking to my soul, it’s a different thing”. The auditory modality and the storytelling format seemed to have rubbed against imperialist and colonial codes (Smith, 2012) that loom over my inquiry as a White, Western researcher and could assist me in imagining research methods more removed from White logics (Zuberi and Bonilla-​Silva, 2008). Participants reported being deeply impacted by hearing resonant renditions of their interview accounts read back to them. First, participants relived parts of their stories as they heard them being related to them in their own words. Some participants smiled and chuckled as I was reading. They described feeling pride, joy or gratitude to be reminded of those who had been important to them or of the ways they had responded to hardship. Sitting back and listening to their own story afforded them the opportunity to pause the busyness of everyday life to reminisce about the meaning of certain life events, to acknowledge what life had been so far or to take stock of the flow of life. Second, people commented on how strongly the first-​person narratives resonated with them. Hearing me recount them enhanced the affective and embodied dimension of resonance through my tonality, emphases and personal reading style as I conveyed their stories. It grabbed their attention and piqued their curiosity about their own stories. According to Michael, my rendition demonstrated an understanding of his account which added “more meaning” to the narrative. More importantly, this understanding was not random or generalised, it was specific. As a witness, I had crafted a narrative that captured the particularities of his story. He explained, “You have witnessed me wrestling with the meaning of it … you’re witnessing my effort and my attempt to be open and honest … and so the fact that you’re reading it out does add emotion to it for me.” Enacting my witness position when I read back in an affective and embodied way seems to have imparted recognition for the effort that participants have made to articulate their thoughts and experiences and to engage in sophisticated meaning-​ making processes. Third, reading back their own words demonstrated to some the quality of my listening. Careful listening and resonant documenting seemed to be significant for participants. That this may be the case especially for those who have experienced their stories being misrepresented before is exemplified in one participant’s observation, “It is the first time that someone gives me back whatever I gave them.” His stories had been distorted and oversimplified by the need of reporters, students and journalists to edit and display stories in particular ways, due to liability concerns or hidden agendas. In my research, the ethical imperative lay with honouring participants’ stories in a way that fit with their intentions of sharing them. Reading them back 130

Reading Back as a Way to Give Back?

seemed to provide reassurance and joy when this had been met. Kane analysed that he felt “being justified” when he listened to the first-​person narrative. Having just studied contracts at university, he used the analogy of a transaction. Conceptualising the interview as an exchange of promises, he felt justified because I had held my part of the promise. According to Kane, the interviewee agrees and promises to tell their story in return for the promise of “being at least understood” by the interviewer. He elaborated on the “quite unique experience” of hearing his first-​person narrative read back to him and described the feeling of being understood and justified as being therapeutic. Lastly, I want to note the effect of enhancing reflective consciousness as people heard their own understandings and meanings of life read back to them. Reflexive consciousness refers to a reflexivity that allows people to become conscious of their consciousness. Myerhoff (1992) made the case that reflexive consciousness can give people greater knowledge about themselves, more clarity in what they understand about life, and joy in knowing what they know. In the conversation deconstructing the method, participants demonstrated having become highly reflexive and conscious of specific parts of themselves and knowledge they had accrued through their life experiences. Participants seemed to take great pleasure and delight in realising what they knew and had articulated. Their surprise about the coherence, eloquence and depth of their meaning-​making and knowledge was powerful. The following comment illustrates the significance for participants to witness narratives about their own consciousness: ‘That’s my philosophy of life summed up in such a succinct and elegant way and how you have put that together, that’s why it’s emotional for me. You kind of cut out the in-​between bits, like the fuzz and all of that, and you joined all the great pieces together. It’s not an image that I see of myself.’ Some participants were not only reflexive about the ways the first-​person narratives attested to their meaning-​making, but also gained a greater awareness of who they are based on how they saw themselves represented in the narratives, such as Dr Stanikzai: ‘It made me very proud and at the same time it made me sad. … With “sad” I mean that I realised how much I went through and how far I have come. It then also made me happy and proud to see how I got out of those struggles and how I managed it.’ The reflexive consciousness generated through the reading back sparked some people’s imagination about future possibilities and actions, showcasing the 131

Narrative Research Now

ripple effects participation can have beyond the research. Sarjoh described it this way: ‘You know, it gives that sense of confidence that, afterwards, “you know what, this is challenging but I can do this, we can do this together”. … I guess it really, really gives you that sense of ownership again. … For me it’s like, I have all those things that I wanted to do but I didn’t have the vehicle to do this. And this is the vehicle now.’ Becoming conscious of their own consciousness was made possible because reading back people’s meaning-​making and knowledge afforded them the experience of witnessing their own stories. My witnessing was key to this; from listening for particular stories in the interviews, to looking for resonant moments in transcripts and crafting resonant documents to reading back those documents in affective and embodied ways. It cannot be understated that the value of my role at this stage was not to create or add to participants’ knowledge but to document it in resonant ways. When this is achieved, participants seem to derive great significance, pride and rapture from becoming more aware of how they have learned from struggles and challenges, understand themselves and give meaning to life. Di said: “In terms of the process, I think it was really different to hear, to be a witness to your own story. None of it was a surprise to me ’cause it is who I am but just to witness it in that package I think was quite empowering really.” By reading back the first-​person narrative, I created distance between the participant and their own stories. Because the person is not directly engaging with the material by reading it themselves, space is created and they are turned into witnesses of their own stories. This was evident when some participants likened their experience to watching a movie about their life or going through a photo album. Another participant reflected this sentiment too when he said it provided him “the chance to think outside of [him] self ”. It is the distance from experiences and events in life that facilitates reflection on them. As White (2004b) described, ‘reflexivity is a capacity to achieve distance in relation to the immediacy of life’ (p 91). According to him, understanding our lives through narrative structures is what allows people to experience this distance and to reflect on their meaning, which in turns fosters a sense of narrative authority. Understood this way, a narrative practice approach that documents and reads back stories seems to be conducive to creating the distance needed to build reflexive consciousness. More so, as reading back enhances reflexive consciousness, it also cultivates the narrative authority that is so often curtailed in discursive, representational and performative aspects of refugees’ stories (Malkki, 1996). Even though I was influential in crafting the resonant 132

Reading Back as a Way to Give Back?

documents, I was led by participants’ narrative authority in rewriting them after the reading back.

Discussion My analysis of the participants’ experiences of hearing resonant accounts of interview contributions read back shows a diverse range of effects. Those pertaining to processes of meaning-​making and knowledge production are of evident interest to research projects. Opportunities to refine, reflect or elaborate on meanings has the potential to progress knowledge on a topic, and facilitating engagement with research material is a must for co-​produced knowledge as is iterative, informed consent and considerations of cultural fit. The pertinence of reported ontological effects are perhaps less obvious for researchers. However, when participants have changed just a little bit from who they were before on account of hearing back resonant first-​person narratives, there is the potential for research to give back in meaningful ways to participants. The opportunity to feel justified by a researcher through reading back resonant narratives was critical and even therapeutic for some. Reflexive consciousness is a particularly compelling return as it speaks to a greater awareness of what people know and a sense of clarity and joy they gain through the process. As observed by a few participants, reflexive consciousness is a rare experience and I believe research, as knowledge projects, are platforms par excellence to enable reflexive consciousness to emerge. It is important to emphasise that the method of reading back hinges on carefully crafted resonant narratives. If, as White (2011) has argued, resonance is essentially about representing back what is valued or valuable, this is exactly what the first-​person narratives are meant to do. The narratives give prominence to participants as producers and holders of knowledge. This knowledge is particular, historical, relational, embodied and often hard-​won. By virtue of tuning into resonances, the narratives get rid of interferences (trivial, distracting or superficial elements) and capture what seemed most critical and consequential, giving them a high degree of clarity and precision. To witness their own meaning-​making in this way proved to be a profound experience for participants. A form of reciprocity was thus enacted by returning the knowledges I was gathering for my project, in a form devoid of triviality and distraction and instead demonstrating how this knowledge is constitutive of people’s sense of self and place in the world. Based on the historical background of the concept of witnessing in narrative practice, both in Myerhoff’s (1992) ethnographic descriptions of marginalised Jewish elders and in White’s (1995; 1997; 2000; 2007) applications in therapeutic and community contexts, it stands to reason that the method would be particularly significant in research projects that involve participants 133

Narrative Research Now

whose identities, lives or struggles are subjugated by the dominant social order. Grounded in a narrative practice-​informed perspective that academia should unsettle the dominant social order, I echo Kuntz’s (2015) assertion that qualitative research should aim to intervene on multiple material levels and not satisfy itself to merely describe a phenomenon. Resonant first-​person narratives elevate the knowledges of those who are not generally attributed prominence in the public domain; we hear their understanding of their lives as well as their insight into individual and collective responses to the social wrongs they face. These particular knowledges are bestowed with a certain degree of legitimacy by virtue of being sought and documented in academic pursuit. Reading these narratives back creates opportunities for such knowledges to be elaborated on and refined by their producers. According to participants, the ensuing reflexive consciousness allowed these knowledges to gain more traction as they thought about future actions against social injustices and inequities. Considered from this viewpoint, qualitative research can intervene in a way that is meaningful to the participants themselves, causing ripple effects beyond the imagination of the researcher. In fact, consistent with the historical origins and narrative developments of witnessing, this method seems to go some way in supporting people’s narrative authority and to influence the parameters of how their stories are described, understood and theorised in academia. Although participants reported profound effects of hearing resonant first-​person narratives read back to them and described the reverberations this would have on their personal and activist lives, it is important to not overestimate the material effects of this form of reciprocity. Enhancing reflexive consciousness and authenticating people’s identity as producers of valuable knowledge is a relatively small contribution to resisting or challenging the dominant social order that plays a role in the social injustices and inequities that participants face. In fact, solely depending on this form of reciprocity might be grossly insufficient in research projects that call for greater and/​or more direct contributions of research to the lives of participants (Pittaway et al, 2010). This method should be considered as part of a process of continuous reflexivity and accountability and other acts of reciprocity might be called for in conjunction with it. In addition, a warning is required when considering the effect that reading back resonant documents can authenticate and amplify the knowledges and identity claims of participants. The witnesses Myerhoff (1992) observed were ‘broadcasting, re-​presenting what they had been shown, and thus enlarging the people’s original interpretations and giving them a greater public and factual character than they had in their primary form’ (p 258). This description alerts us to the danger that could reside in deploying this method when participants’ intellectual contributions harm, diminish or deny the humanity of others or put in peril the preservation of the world. 134

Reading Back as a Way to Give Back?

What personal and collective knowledges, ideas and beliefs are we prepared to centre and validate through our research methods? There are strong commitments to social justice informing this practice (Denborough, 2008). Therefore, it is incumbent upon researchers to honour the traditions in which this practice emerged and evolved and to take social responsibility when considering this method. From a narrative practice point of view, the method of reading back is limited by the sort of documents that are crafted. It is important to listen for and document multi-​storied accounts in order to avoid the re-​inscription of single stories, especially those saturated with descriptions of trauma and harms (White, 2004a; Denborough, 2008). When working with vulnerable groups who have gone through traumatic experiences it is an ethical imperative to ensure the documented narratives are not retraumatising. Narrative practices like ‘double listening’ are transferrable to the research context (Marlowe, 2010; Lainson, 2020a) and can support the interview framework as well as the writing of documents from a trauma-​informed perspective (Denborough, 2005). As I invited participants into conversations deconstructing the method of reading back to them, I sought to examine the effects that participants have experienced. Although this work is based on the responses of a small number of participants, I hope to have laid convincing groundwork for further explorations of this method while acknowledging that its possibilities and limitations warrant more study. However, discussing the approach I developed as a research method carries a risk of portraying it as a clear-​cut tool that can be easily replicated and implemented in any other project. Key for researchers interested in experimenting with reading back resonant documents is to keep centring the people they are collaborating with in their specific projects so that the method never outranks the interests of participants. This is to avoid the risk described by Kuntz (2015) of a method being ossified into a rigid tool of methodological technocrats and jeopardising potential social change. The thorny territory of working with narratives in support of the social imagination of change pursued by those sharing their stories is real (see also Chapter 1). No method can ever escape the risk of the unforeseen effects it can have on people and their cause. Co-​deconstructing one’s method and approach with participants as part of the research process is a practice that researchers can adopt to help navigate parts of that territory. With promise there is also risk and so I have sought to start the conversation on the possibility and limitations of the method of reading back resonant narratives, in the hope that other researchers can also explore and expand upon my narrative practice-​informed method of reading back. References Cannella, G.S., Pérez, M.S. and Pasque, P.A. (eds) (2015) Critical Qualitative Inquiry: Foundations and Futures. London: Routledge. 135

Narrative Research Now

Cavarero, A. (2000) Relating Narratives: Storytelling and Selfhood. Translated by P.A. Kottman. London: Routledge. Chilisa, B. (2012) Indigenous Research Methodologies. SAGE. Denborough, D. (2005) ‘A framework for receiving and documenting testimonies of trauma’. The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work 3–​4, pp 34–​42. Denborough, D. (2008) Collective Narrative Practice: Responding to Individuals, Groups, and Communities Who Have Experienced Trauma. Adelaide: Dulwich Centre Publications. Denzin, N.K. and Giardina, M.D. (eds) (2015) Qualitative Inquiry and the Politics of Research. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press Inc. Devault, M.L. (1990) ‘Talking and listening from women’s standpoint: Feminist strategies for interviewing and analysis’. Social Problems 37(1), pp 96–​116. Epston, D. and White, M. (1990) Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends, 1st edn. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Gibbs, L., Molyneaux, R., Whiteley, S., Block, K., Harms, L., Bryant, R.A., Forbes, D., Gallagher, H.C., MacDougall, C. and Ireton, G. (2018) ‘Distress and satisfaction with research participation: Impact on retention in longitudinal disaster research’. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 27, pp 68–​74. Gillam, L. (2013) ‘Ethical considerations in refugee research: What guidance do formal research ethics documents offer?’. In K. Block, E. Riggs and N. Haslam (eds) Values and Vulnerabilities: The Ethics of Research with Refugees and Asylum Seekers. QLD: Australian Academic Press, pp 21–​39. Kuntz, A.M. (2015) Responsible Methodologist: Inquiry, Truth-​Telling, and Social Justice. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press. Lainson, K. (2020a) Enduring Anorexia: A Multi-​Storied Counter Document of Living and Coping with Anorexia over Time. University of Melbourne. Lainson, K. (2020b) ‘Narrative practice and­practice-​based research’. In L. Joubert and M. Webber (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Social Work Practice Research. London: Routledge, pp 342–​52. Mackenzie, C., McDowell, C. and Pittaway, E. (2007) ‘Beyond “do no harm”: The challenge of constructing ethical relationships in refugee research’. Journal of Refugee Studies 20(2), pp 299–​319. Madison, D.S. (2011) Critical Ethnography: Method, Ethics, and Performance. Thousand Oaks: SAGE. Malkki, L.H. (1996) ‘Speechless emissaries: Refugees, humanitarianism, and dehistoricization’. Cultural Anthropology 11(3), pp 377–​404. Marlowe, J. (2010) ‘Using a narrative approach of double-​listening in research contexts’. The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work 3, pp 41–​51.

136

Reading Back as a Way to Give Back?

McLeod, J. (2014) ‘So many possibilities: Psychotherapy research and narrative therapy’. The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work 2, pp 31–​5. Myerhoff, B. (1992) Remembered Lives: The Work of Ritual, Storytelling, and Growing Older. Edited by M. Kaminsky. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Newman, D. (2008) ‘Rescuing the said from the saying of it’. The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work 3, pp 24–​34. Oakley, A. (1981) ‘Interviewing women: A contradiction in terms’. In H. Roberts (ed) Doing Feminist Research. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp 30–​61. Pittaway, E., Bartolomei, L. and Hugman, R. (2010) ‘ “Stop stealing our stories”: The ethics of research with vulnerable groups’. Journal of Human Rights Practice 2(2), pp 229–​51. Reynolds, V. (2019) Justice-​Doing at the Intersections of Power. Adelaide: Dulwich Centre Publications. Richardson, L. (1990) ‘Narrative and sociology’. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 19(1), pp 116–​35. Saunders, N. (2018) International Political Theory and the Refugee Problem. London: Routledge. Schiffrin, D., De Fina, A. and Nylund, A. (eds) (2010) Telling Stories: Language, Narrative, and Social Life. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press. Smith, L.T. (2012) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, 2nd edn. London: Bloomsbury. St. Pierre, E.A., Pillow, W. and Pierre, E.S. (1999) Working the Ruins: Feminist Poststructural Theory and Methods in Education. London: Routledge. Strauven, S. (2021) People with and without Refugee Experience Co-​creating a Shared World through Narrative Practices. Melbourne: University of Melbourne. Tuck, E. (2009) ‘Suspending damage: A letter to communities’. Harvard Educational Review 79(3), pp 409–​28. Westlake, D. and Forrester, D. (2016) ‘Adding evidence to the ethics debate: Investigating parents’ experiences of their participation in research’. British Journal of Social Work 46(6), pp 1537–​52. White, M. (1995) Re-​authoring Lives: Interviews & Essays. Adelaide: Dulwich Centre Publications. White, M. (1997) Narratives of Therapists’ Lives. Adelaide: Dulwich Centre Publications. White, M. (2000) Reflections on Narrative Practice: Essays & Interviews. Adelaide: Dulwich Centre Publications. White, M. (2004a) ‘Working with people who are suffering the consequences of multiple trauma: A narrative perspective’. The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work 1, pp 44–​75.

137

Narrative Research Now

White, M. (2004b) Narrative Practice and Exotic Lives: Resurrecting Diversity in Everyday Life. Adelaide: Dulwich Centre Publications. White, M. (2007) Maps of Narrative Practice. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. White, M. (2011) Narrative Practice: Continuing the Conversations. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Zuberi, T. and Bonilla-​Silva, E. (2008) White Logic, White Methods: Racism and Methodology. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.

138

9

Narrating Women’s Life Histories: Voice, Audience, Ethics Rachael Diprose

Introduction In both scholarly and applied research on marginalised groups, there is a prominent focus on capturing and communicating life histories to illustrate the affective and other dimensions of people’s lived experiences and how agency is exercised and constrained. This is as much the case in anthropology, history and sociology as it is in critical gender and development studies concerned with identifying barriers around, and strategies women use for, improving their wellbeing and reducing gender inequity (Miller and Bell, 2012; Ellis, 2016). However, constructing and communicating such narrative forms carries an inherent tension for the feminist researcher when making ethical choices on minimising potential harms and sometimes unknown risks for research participants, honouring their desires on how their information is used, and adhering to open access principles. Open access research is not only important for participants in feminist research in owning and accessing the knowledge they have contributed to, but it is also frequently demanded by funding agencies and research institutions (Miller, 2012; Miller and Bell, 2012; Jones and De Breo, 2017). How best to make ethical choices when conducting research and publishing analysis in the life history narrative form is not always easily foreshadowed, nor a process constrained to following the steps surmised in institutional ethics applications. Researchers need to respond to the ‘ethically important moments’ they encounter in practice, and not all risks may be known (Guillemin and Gillam, 2004; Mauthner, 2012). This is often the case when working with highly personalised information of interlocuters from vulnerable groups (Liamputtong, 2007). Choices are 139

Narrative Research Now

also increasingly complex in a digital age in which open access principles are lauded, and published analysis is available in multiple, more accessible forms rather than being behind paywalls (Mauthner, 2012; Miller, 2012). Despite this complex ethical landscape, as feminist researchers so frequently highlight, it is unethical to abandon attempts to conduct research with vulnerable groups to avoid the possible risks, as it inevitably silences the voices and experiences that are often the very subject of concern in tackling perennial issues such as gender inequity (Liamputtong, 2007; Ojermark, 2007). To explore the tensions for feminist researchers in making ethical choices when constructing and sharing women’s life histories, this chapter draws from the experience of conducting research between 2019 and 2020 into how women from marginal groups in rural Indonesia might influence structures of power and development decision-​making. In the research, multiple qualitative research methods were used to collect data, including open-​ended interviews, oral histories, informal conversations and focus group discussions conducted in villages with people from a range of backgrounds, especially with women from marginalised groups. To collect this information, pairs of women researchers lived in 14 villages across nine provinces and 12 districts. As the researcher leading the large study, I also collected data while traversing multiple sites to coordinate the project. As part of the multi-​method, comparative research, both oral histories and other qualitative data were used to construct the life histories of several women in each locality in order to understand and communicate their experiences of participating in public life and seeking to influence change in villages. Many of these women lived in communities with deeply patriarchal social norms where there was little representation of women in social or political authority structures. As such, the life histories sought to illustrate the challenges the women from these vulnerable groups encountered, and demonstrate if and how they were able to overcome such challenges to better exercise voice and influence. Excerpts from 21 of these life histories were also published in open access form. This chapter begins by examining the importance of life histories and stories as an analytical method for foregrounding the experiences of hard to reach and often ‘silent’ women –​in this case, rural women from economically poor backgrounds in Indonesia, whose voices and experiences are often under-​researched, backgrounded in analysis, or less understood in terms of women’s collective action. The chapter then explains how and why this narrative form was used in our study of women’s collective action, and subsequently discusses some of the ethical choices made at multiple points in presenting women’s stories and the challenges this entailed. Through the life history excerpt on the experience of Lasinem, a woman who grew from never voicing her opinion or participating in public life to taking on 140

Narrating Women’s Life Histories

leadership roles in her community, the chapter illustrates the key tensions encountered in the project. The discussion highlights that narrative research in the field of gender and development entails balancing the interests and express wishes of protagonists with the short-​and long-​term risks to these participants. The chapter argues that such risks may not always be fully predictable at the onset of research in the rapidly evolving digital era, thereby requiring continued reflection and iterative (and sometimes revised) decision-​making processes. It also illustrates that it is not always ethical to rest decisions to publish information solely on the shoulders of interlocuters, as might be implied through institutional ethics processes, even when following informed consent procedures, but rather this should constitute an ongoing conversation between the researcher and interlocuters.

Why life histories? The life story as a narrative form has ‘evolved from the oral history, life history, and other ethnographic and field approaches … as a way of carrying out an in-​depth study of individual lives … in understanding single lives in detail and how the individual plays various roles in society’ (Atkinson, 1998, p 3). Through these narrative forms we can ‘explore the multiple ways in which our subjective perceptions and representations relate to our understandings and our actions’ (Goodson, 2016, p 3). While terms like oral history, life story, life history, narrative inquiry and biographical research are often used interchangeably (Ojermark, 2007), researchers using life histories and stories tend to be interested in narrative and narrative identity, both in the form of the full details of a life as it is recollected, or in more topical ways, focusing on only one segmented portion of a life (Atkinson, 2002; Ojermark, 2007; Jackson and Russell, 2010). A common distinction between the ‘life story’ and ‘life history’ is that the former is predominantly narrated by the interlocuter, and the latter is a more interpretive narration, representing the work of the researcher, although the distinction is blurred as in reality the researcher influences the process from the onset in directing the interview (Roberts, 2002). Indeed, narrative involves ‘ “writerly” (authorial) and “readerly” (co-​participant, audience) dynamics’, and which include but are not reduced to stories (Woodiwiss et al, 2017, p x). In international development research –​the focus in this ­chapter –​ the ‘narrative turn’ solidified in the mid-​1990s, with the work of Slim and Thompson (1993) advocating for using this research approach as a method and philosophy of political action with, and on behalf of, vulnerable groups, since life history research can privilege the voices of more marginalised peoples who might otherwise be excluded in other methods (Liamputtong, 2007; Ojermark, 2007). Life histories provide 141

Narrative Research Now

rich information on the life course, developments and changes across the life cycle, and are a way to examine the relationships between cause and effect, and agency and structure, also privileging subjectivity and positionality (Riessman, 2002; Goodson, 2016). Analysis of themes in this narrative form can also illuminate particular developmental paths a life has followed and the important influences on this path. People’s reflections and experiences of social life are ‘not unmediated’ but are communicated to audiences by the researcher who collected the material (Riessman, 1993). The mediated analysis becomes an ‘individual case study’ that, along with other forms of analysis, can help both the interlocuter and audiences understand individuals’ affective and material experiences of inequality, how these change over time, the structures that shape inequality, and the strategies used to both overcome and shift these structures (Riessman, 1993; Atkinson, 2002). Drawing attention to and addressing gender inequalities and understanding the power relations that shape and sustain these inequalities are key concerns of feminist researchers across disciplines (Riessman, 1993; Woodiwiss et al, 2017), including in the multidisciplinary field of international development. Feminist researchers are not only concerned with understanding and ‘showing the importance and significance of (acknowledging and accounting for) gender and intersectionality in the telling and hearing of contemporary stories’ but also improving the lives of interlocuters (Woodiwiss et al, 2017, p 5).1 In analysing individual and multiple women’s life histories on specific themes or issues, and at particular points in time, emerging patterns can be ascertained, for example in the ways gender, class and culture underpin narratives, as well as how differences in background, family situation and socio-​economic position affect individual circumstances and outlooks (Bertaux, 1981; Geiger, 1986; Atkinson, 1998; Jackson and Russell, 2010). It is for the aforementioned reasons and ethical reasons discussed further in what follows that women’s life histories constituted one of the analytical methods used in our large-​scale, comparative research in rural Indonesia. We sought to investigate the ways the most marginalised women might collectively influence structures of power and authority in their communities, what contributed to and shaped such influence, and how this changed over time and varied across different settings and communities across the country. At an analytical level, we wanted to understand the intersection between agency and women’s power, and the different structural constraints and inequalities women encountered and how this varied across space and time. Life histories provided information about the particularities of women’s experiences under different localised conditions within specific cultural settings, and they permitted comparative cross-​cultural studies of women’s responses to such conditions.

142

Narrating Women’s Life Histories

Pairs of women researchers initially spent nearly a month living in each village, and returned for later follow-​up work. They got to know local women, developed relationships with them (or what Darling [2014] would refer to as emotional entanglements), undertook observation, and conducted semi-​structured and life story interviews with women and all manner of other villagers from different backgrounds and with different degrees of ‘authority’ and influence on village development processes and projects. Through multiple interviews, and informal conversations and exchanges with women from marginalised groups, we aimed to listen to and understand women’s (changing) positions in life, descriptions of themselves and their relation to others and ‘to let their voices be heard, to let them speak for and about themselves first’ (see Atkinson, 2002, p 4). We chose this approach to establish trust with and provide security for the women we interviewed, especially those who had hitherto been extremely stigmatised in their societies as widows or the female heads of households, due to their poverty and minority group status. From this data we constructed life histories for three or four women in each of the 15 research sites; a volume of excerpts from these life histories were later published (Setiawan et al, 2020). We also incorporated parts of these life histories into our per-​site and comparative analysis of case studies tracing broader processes of change in women’s power and influence in villages.

The role of the researcher in constructing the published narrative: our methodology The extent to which the researcher or analyst intervenes in the way the life history narrative is constructed and published varies across disciplines and projects –​life history work is as variable as the ‘life histories themselves’ (Goodson, 2016, p 8). Indeed, many argue that the best way to present life histories varies depending largely on the audience for whom they are intended (Riessman, 1993; Atkinson, 1998; Roberts, 2002; Ojermark, 2007; Jackson and Russell, 2010). Often, life histories are edited by the researcher to focus on particular moments within life stories, themes or with particular audiences in mind so that analysis and narrative are clear. Atkinson (2002; see also Roberts, 2002), emphasises that in telling life stories it is imperative to have a clear plot for audiences to follow, with a strong role for the researcher in: [pulling] together the central elements, events, and beliefs in a person’s life, integrate them into a whole, make sense of them, learn from them, teach the younger generation, and remind the rest of one’s community what is most important in life. When a life story is told in this way, it puts in narrative form not only a series of events that are important to

143

Narrative Research Now

the teller but a story with a plot. … Such a plot is essential for ordering the events and circumstances of a life and being able to make sense of them. (Atkinson, 2002, p 12) Scholars whose work is aimed at an academic community tend to rely on smaller (and longer) samples that are more likely to focus in depth on the experiences of the individual and the meanings they construct through the telling of their personal testimony, whereas those concerned with influencing policy or practice will present shorter, more targeted narratives (Miller, 2000; Ojermark, 2007). It is important, however, not to represent the lives of interlocuters in an idealised light or without context, but to include socio-​ historical context of the life history to safeguard against decontextualisation (Goodson, 1998; 2016) or treating the life history as ‘a disposable commodity of information’ (Behar, 1990). Drawing on these considerations, in our research we took a combined approach, which involved publishing our research and analysis in multiple forms and different lengths suitable for, and targeted at, different audiences. This was an ethical choice of making information as widely available and accessible as possible in pursuit of feminist goals. These forms included excerpts of life histories mapping key moments in women’s individual journeys of change, whole-​of-​site specific case studies mapping processes of change in addressing gender inequity in communities, and comparative analysis mapping out the pathways of change for women that were common across sites. These outputs, published in Bahasa Indonesia and in English, were important for identifying and better understanding how change happens even in the most difficult circumstances at individual, community and institutional levels (Savirani et al, 2020). Such findings also constitute important learning, not just for individual women in finding inspiration in the journey of their peers, but also for the women’s movement, civil society organisations (CSOs), policy makers and others concerned with tackling the perennial challenges of gender inequality and unequal power relations (see Kabeer, 2011; Woodiwiss et al, 2017). To learn from their experiences so as to benefit other women, we wanted to capture the views and experiences of the role of women’s groups and leaders in achieving change, how views of women as leaders in their communities had changed over time, and to identify any setbacks, challenges and strategies used to address these –​personally, in groups, and at the community level. We were also interested in their experiences of being part of the group and external support it may have received, including from the state or non-​government organisations or CSOs. Women’s CSOs and the women’s movement have expended significant time and resources to bring women together through groups in Indonesia and other countries, and to increasingly ensure spaces are safe and supportive for women from diverse backgrounds 144

Narrating Women’s Life Histories

(Kabeer, 2011; Diprose et al, 2020). As such, we deemed it important to understand if and how these spaces and activities were experienced and perceived by participants from a range of backgrounds and for what reasons they did or didn’t get involved. In essence, we used life histories to chronicle lives and themes of overcoming difficulties and making what the women themselves deemed to be change and achievements, and the characters, events, key turning points and important influences central to this process (Coffey and Atkinson, 1996). We focused on particular subsets of sequences of events and women’s experiences of these, also triangulating women’s own accounts with other sources (such as from other women family members and friends). This helped to better understand their experiences, and situate these life histories historically and in the present –​an important part of what Goodson (2016) considers as best practice, that being a story of action within a theory of context. We also drew on these life history documents and other qualitative data for our large-​scale comparative analysis of different sites as well as our understanding of the degree and changes in women’s local influence on village structures of power and decision-​making that involved multiple sources of data (Diprose et al, 2020). But in this analysis, we had little scope for reproducing the life history documents in their entirety given the scale of data under analysis involving more than 800 participants. Instead, to ensure that more complete, contextualised accounts of women’s experiences were made available for interlocuters and many other audiences, four-​to-​six-​page excerpts from these life histories were published as a compilation available on our digital platform (Diprose et al, 2021). In the abridged version of Lasinem’s life history in the next section, we see aspects of her life path, the challenges she encountered, her experience of the women’s group, encountering setbacks, and growing her knowledge and awareness. We also see how Lasinem and her peers pursued change in their village through a newly established informal ‘Women’s School’ group supported by a local CSO to bring together women who were poor, stigmatised or isolated. Their goal was to foster networks of support and solidarity, grow the critical gender consciousness of group members, and help strengthen different kinds of skills, enabling them, if they wanted, to support each other to grow their participation and influence in public life (Setiawan et al, 2020).

Lasinem’s experience Thirty-​one-​year-​old Lasinem is the second of three children and her parents’ only daughter. When she was young, her family could not afford for Lasinem to continue her schooling after primary school –​it was not deemed to offer a valuable livelihood skill. Lasinem explained that “if it 145

Narrative Research Now

wasn’t [offering] sewing, there was no point going to school”. She instead sought to look for options for generating income, married young and now has twin daughters and a son. After getting married, Lasinem managed the household and did not join any village-​level organisations. She explained that marriage established a barrier between domestic and outside spheres; domestic tasks belonged to the woman’s sphere while tasks outside the house were for men. ‘You could say that I was a “true housewife” because before I really did think that if a woman already had their own household to run then she didn’t have anything to do with matters outside that household. … You know the saying, “on the mattress, at the well, in the kitchen” –​it’s like that. And if we want to do something outside the home, like charity, we do it through our husbands. Our devotion is to our husbands.’ Staff from a local CSO visited Lasinem’s home, inviting her to the first meeting of an informal ‘Women’s School’ group they were in the process of establishing. Lasinem had never been invited to an event at the village hall before and explained: “That’s why the first time I participated in the Women’s School, I thought I was going to get financial assistance. Usually, when I go to the village hall that’s what I get. … I thought that I would go home with basic food supplies or money, and I was excited.” Although she was surprised not to receive material benefits of some kind, after the meeting Lasinem kept thinking about the information she had been given about women’s issues and the difference between what had been discussed and her own lived experiences. “I was curious about Women’s School activities. Why are there meetings? I was curious. … I am so grateful that I went.” The following year, one of Lasinem’s friends who had become more active in the Women’s School invited her to attend a rally for diversity in a big city in their province. Drawn by her curiosity, for the first time she took part in a march with other women to celebrate Indonesian ethnic and religious diversity. Lasinem explained that she felt uncomfortable and embarrassed during the march because she associated a rally with a protest, which in her view always ended in chaos. So later that year, when the Women’s School held an initial training course on Women’s Leadership and Social Protection, Lasinem decided not to take part, partly because of her prior experience and because social norms portray hotels as the location of unsuitable and unsavoury activities: ‘I was still confused. Why was I invited to a hotel? I thought it was weird. … When I asked his permission, my husband said, “Don’t 146

Narrating Women’s Life Histories

go –​you’ll see later what your friends do.” Alright [I thought], I’ll see what happens first. So, I didn’t attend the first training course.’ After the training, Lasinem went to a meeting of the Women’s School and saw that her friends who had attended the training appeared happy. Lasinem asked what the activities had been like and her friends’ responses were all similar: “They said that the training had been like learning at school” and there was no mention of the unsavoury activities associated with hotels that often give local women the reputation of being ‘of ill repute’. Lasinem felt intrigued by her friends’ experiences, and this made her more determined to participate in future Women’s School activities. A year later Lasinem participated in the second training session on Women’s Leadership and Social Protection in the province capital, which concentrated on the concepts of sex and gender. Lasinem highlighted that she felt conflicted about what she learned. Since she was a child, her parents and social environment had taught her that she had to obey and not speak back to her husband, but the materials presented at this training session were different. Gradually, Lasinem realised how much women work and how domestic labour should be shared between men and women. ‘It turns out that all this time I was not told what my rights actually were. I didn’t know. And then I started to ask questions? Why do I always cook? Why doesn’t my husband sweep? Or cook? Sweeping doesn’t have a sex. For instance, if my husband holds a broom, can the broom get pregnant? Does it have a vagina? I was thinking like that, even though if you really think about it, women do more work than men and the work takes a lot of energy and time.’ As her knowledge and consciousness grew, slowly she endeavoured to influence her husband’s behaviour at home, drawing on negotiating skills she had developed; he now does housework. As well as gaining knowledge, Lasinem credits the trainings and activities she attended through the Women’s School for enhancing her confidence to speak in public. Previously Lasinem never spoke in public, but she no longer feels scared, and is more willing to share her opinion, even in large forums like village meetings. The insights gained from her Women’s School training awakened Lasinem’s concern for women’s issues and she began to hear and understand the problems experienced by other women, such as unequal social rights, violence and health issues. Before this awakening at the Women’s School, Lasinem was someone who often blamed women. ‘It’s like what you hear, before I blamed women. Why did they wear a mini skirt, why didn’t they wear a hijab? They were asking for male 147

Narrative Research Now

lust. But it turns out, lots of older women are raped. What did they do wrong? [I am really aware now that] there are lots of problems.’ While there are still people in the village who believe that the Women’s School teaches women to ‘speak back to their husbands’, Lasinem continues to try to share what she has learned and experienced with her neighbours. Usually, she explained, women who live in the neighbourhood gathered to gossip, but since Lasinem joined the Women’s School, their discussions have become more serious and include women’s issues and rights, including issues that are normally considered cultural taboos such as reproductive health and experiences of violence. This dedication to championing women’s rights is what led to Lasinem being selected as a Women’s School Coordinator in her village. Many Women’s School members now regard her as an influential village leader. As the Education Division Coordinator for the whole district, Lasinem also plays an important role in finding ways to increase women’s participation in and influence over decisions made in village forums. For years the village government sought to sideline women, but while this has begun to change with Women’s School members attending village forums, it still prioritises infrastructure development over women’s empowerment. The Women’s School is now allocated funds from the village budget after the Women’s School members, with a supporting CSO, drew on their new networks with the higher-​level district government and lobbied them to put pressure on village leaders to better support the Women’s School. Lasinem thinks that women have not yet achieved equity in education and are still marginalised in the village, but things are improving. She believes that some women in her village continue to trivialise reproductive health issues and other illnesses and she often gives advice to local women to love themselves more and prioritise their own health. Lasinem hopes that the Women’s School’s advocacy efforts to prevent child marriage will improve women’s welfare, as these marriages limit young women’s life chances and harm them. To realise these dreams, Lasinem hopes that every woman in her village can have the same opportunity she has had to gain new perspectives and information at the Women’s School.

Ethical considerations: benefits and risks of life histories for the interlocuter Benefits Life history research allows interlocuters to increase their knowledge of themselves and discover deeper meaning through a process of reflection on events and experiences (Atkinson, 2002; Woodiwiss et al, 2017). It facilitates greater self-​knowledge, stronger self-​image and self-​esteem, 148

Narrating Women’s Life Histories

sharing and releasing burdens and validating personal experiences, which are important for people from vulnerable groups and in feminist research (Liamputtong, 2007; Woodiwiss et al, 2017). Sharing one’s story can facilitate change by helping to create community and revealing that we have more in common with others than we thought, and allowing people to see their lives more clearly or differently (Geiger, 1986). Indeed, in telling her story to researchers, Lasinem was extremely proud of her achievements and that she had grown her knowledge and made changes in her life that she did not think was possible. Her voice in practice, and through the research, was no longer silenced (see Jones and De Breo, 2017). Feminist researchers emphasise the ethical importance of co-​production of knowledge with participants, and the importance of sharing data, transcripts and draft products as a form of iterative analysis and for the benefit of participants (Miller and Bell, 2012; Jones and De Breo, 2017). Such an approach reverses extractive logics in research, ensuring knowledge generated is shared in ways that participants can access the data and analysis they have contributed to (Smith, 2012; Kuntz, 2015). Pursuing such an approach, however, requires significant human and other resources and adds significant time and layers of complexity to research and analysis. It is all the more difficult when researchers are located at some distance from research sites. Nonetheless, such research processes in and of themselves help spur change for women. As such, for this research we not only used informed consent procedures to explain how we would share information at the onset of developing life histories with people like Lasinem, but we planned for consultative processes from the start. Prior to publishing the life histories (and other forms of analysis) in this research, researchers were in constant conversation (checking and re-​checking) and iteratively developing the individual life histories and village-​level case studies of women’s collective action and influence with protagonists. We were supported by our partner CSOs and ensured there was sufficient funding for these iterative and consultative processes. After an early iteration of her life history was compiled in written form, Lasinem was almost teary with excitement when the draft was shared and read back to her as a part of the co-​production and ownership of knowledge with our participants. Reading back the life history as a relational practice gave Lasinem even greater consciousness and validation of her achievements as the researchers constituted witnesses to the changes that she had described and been involved in (see Chapter 8 in this volume).

Managing risks However, as Hoppe (1993, p 623) has long illustrated, life narrative texts can be ‘complex multi-​dimensional discourses between the … narrator and the 149

Narrative Research Now

oral story, between the Western scholar and the narrator, and between the reader and all voices of the text’. As researchers, we need to be cognisant of power imbalances between the researcher and the interlocuter (Miller and Bell, 2012). This is especially the case when working with vulnerable groups, in which ethical dilemmas are most likely to emerge during the research process, especially in studies of traumatic and sensitive topics (Miller and Bell, 2012; Ellis, 2016). In life history research and related narrative formats, the researcher should constantly take stock of their actions and their role in the research process and subject these to the same critical scrutiny as the rest of their ‘data’ (Mason, 1996, p 6). Such relational ‘ethics of care’ are, in Ellis’ (2016) view, ongoing and uncertain processes. These processes are different to the ethics procedures often reviewed by ethics boards during the design phase of research for which committees need to be convinced that participants are not exposed to excessive or unnecessary risks (Guillemin and Gillam, 2004; Ellis, 2016). We sought to identify potential risks for participants and developed strategies to manage them in our ethics application. This included, for example, among many steps, ensuring that researchers were women and spoke the language of interlocuters so participants felt as comfortable as possible in sharing their experiences. As is common in qualitative research and ethics applications, informed consent processes offered options of confidentiality and anonymity if desired, and the potential risks of sharing their names were identified and explained; they could withdraw consent and prevent their data from being used at any time. In many ways, these institutionalised informed consent processes assume that all risks can be predicted at the onset and sufficiently explained to participants, and that after informed consent processes have been followed and risks outlined, decisions then rest solely with interlocuters on whether they want to proceed, rather than with both the researcher and interlocuter dually to take responsibility for decisions. However, such formal processes of explaining and seeking written, informed consent can be disruptive to developing rapport with villagers in remote Indonesia who are often wary of forms and signatures, as they bear the hallmarks of the authoritarian state, through military and other forms of surveillance that once controlled community life and expression (Diprose et al, 2019). In practice, however, there are many ‘ethically important moments’ or micro-​ethics, that emerge during and after data collection (Guillemin and Gillam, 2004). Some, but not all of these, might be predictable and planned for in ethics applications and it is not always clear when the research process begins and ends. In such situations, continued processes of renegotiating informed consent might therefore be needed (Miller and Bell, 2012). The researcher must be reflexive in the practice of micro-​ethics, considering their own power in the researcher–​participant relationship in balancing 150

Narrating Women’s Life Histories

the tensions between protecting interlocuters, advocating for marginalised and vulnerable groups, and ensuring the voices of those who are normally silent are heard. For this research, then, as a higher order priority, we did not begin with the assumption that if participants potentially expressed emotion or discomfort in sharing their stories, including on sensitive subjects or trauma, that this meant that they did not want to proceed with the interview or that conducting the interview introduced present or future harms; such assumptions would take away their agency and silence their voices (see Miller and Bell, 2012; Jones and De Breo, 2017). Instead, deliberate decisions were made to ensure that experienced researchers conducted interviews with vulnerable group members, and even with this experience, we undertook additional training on making frequent ethical considerations during research, including responding to emerging discomfort. Strategies were developed for supporting participants if they encountered distress while telling their stories –​ranging from taking breaks, to ceasing the interview, or providing follow-​up or local institutional support, many of which were outlined in the institutional ethics applications but others were developed in situ. Many interviewees explained that this was the first time they had shared difficult experiences and it was cathartic to do so, even if they became emotional or experienced discomfort. Clandinin et al (2016, p 420) illustrate the relational responsibilities that researchers have to their participants, both in, during and after narrative inquiries, arguing that ‘because the study of personal practical knowledge requires intensive close working relationships with practitioners, fundamental ethical issues come close to the surface throughout the research, from negotiation of entry to the preparation of results’. Ellis too contends that while some ethical issues can be anticipated, it is impossible to anticipate all the moral conundrums that might arise in any research project, and researchers and interlocuters need to negotiate and resolve misunderstandings and disagreements; ‘The main concern is asking, “What do we do now?” ’ (Ellis, 2016, p 438). While the project presented here sought to make the initial, higher order ethical choice to foreground the most marginalised women’s voices in the research and to find ways to conduct this research as carefully, sensitively and safely as possible, a number of ethical considerations arose later in conversation with interlocuters and supporting CSOs around publishing results and anonymisation. Through long discussions with the CSO partners in collaborative workshops, and women in informed consent processes, it was collectively decided with the 15 collaborating women’s organisations that we would not use the names of villages or participants so that discussion could be more focused on gendered social norms, cultural taboos and the ways women challenged structures of power and decision-​making. 151

Narrative Research Now

However, when iterative drafts of analysis were shared with partners and interlocuters, many women whose life histories we told, including Lasinem, were confused as to why their names were not used, despite having been through informed consent processes and many opting for anonymity. In seeing the results, they wanted to illustrate the fruits of their struggles in which they took great pride. They wanted to share the published stories, which were going to be openly available in both English and Bahasa Indonesia on interactive digital platforms accessible via any web platform and by anyone with a smartphone, with their friends. As such, on pursuing open access ethics principles and the feminist principles of making as much research and analysis available in multiple forms to different audiences, the research approach opened up a new range of issues in relation to managing risks involved in digital storytelling in which information is easily and readily available to all manner of audiences, including the very authorities women in our research have sought to challenge. Managing such risks are important considerations in a post-​ authoritarian state such as Indonesia in which information, criticism of the state and grassroots collective action was tightly controlled and created significant risks for communities. While there have been some fundamental changes with democratisation there is a degree of continuity between past and present. Diprose et al explain that: [T]‌hough opportunities to challenge entrenched interests have occurred during the reform era and changes have emerged when there has been alignment between a range of sub-​national, national and even international interests, some of these have resulted in new networks of predation and patronage rather than cohesive alliances that are able to push reforms in a politically liberal direction. In other words, though it has been two decades since the fall of Suharto, the legacy of the regime he created continues to shape the contours of state and society relations in Indonesia. This is because the New Order had so thoroughly disorganized and fragmented any threatening set of social interests, whether premised on a putative liberal middle class, working-​class militancy or even on reactionary Islamic petty bourgeois politics. Such an outcome was achieved through outright repression by a pervasive security apparatus as well as through a web of state-​ sponsored corporatist organisations that co-​opted much of civil society. (Diprose et al, 2019, p 707) As such, there are heightened risks to name places and participants in regions with such a history. Highlighting how such structures of power have been circumvented by interlocuters can attract the attention of those with the authority and influence to threaten these women. At the same time, women’s 152

Narrating Women’s Life Histories

organisations and others have an advocacy goal in highlighting that they can and do challenge these structures. In the present project, these tensions became particularly pronounced due to the uses of digital storytelling, where research translation shifts from communicating findings to narrower academic audiences to communicating to multiple publics. We can see aspects of potential risks and challenges to authority structures in Lasinem’s story. She touched on the cultural taboos of domestic violence and women’s reproductive health. She told of how she participated in protests and other processes of collective action that countered the power of the state. She challenged social norms on women’s roles in public life and with other women found ways to pressure state actors and essentially circumvent established structures of power. In other life histories, women recounted facing threats and intimidation for standing up to powerful elites but found creative ways to slowly instigate social change nonetheless. In some cases they were socially ostracised. As researchers, at the outset, we did not know the kinds of information participants would share and could not necessarily anticipate all the possible scenarios of risk that this might produce. It sat uncomfortably to possibly override interlocuters’ desires to put their names to their actions. When a life history interviewee shares private, personal or sensitive information, the interviewer finds themselves in a position of trust which may well make it incumbent on researchers to withhold material from a wider audience, given their delicate and sensitive understanding of the potential ethical issues at stake in sharing or disseminating their findings (see Jackson and Russell, 2010). The research team had to have extended discussions and weigh up how to respect protagonists’ express wishes to reveal their identities, but also to try to foresee potential risks of which they might not be fully cognisant, including threats, intimidation, social, and other sanctions and stigma (cf Brannen, 1988). Further, there is growing surveillance of citizens in Indonesia and countering emerging social movements, including online. There are differences in publishing research through digital platforms that provide easily accessible information and the more minimal risk of adhering to protagonists’ wishes when their information predominantly sits behind a paywall (Birch et al, 2012). Indonesia has nearly 200 million smartphone users and anyone could easily access the information we published. After extensive discussions with participants and partners, we eventually agreed not to share their names; while some women were disappointed, they understood, but this still sits as an uneasy choice with the research team. On the one hand, we were concerned that we were taking away our participants’ agency. On the other hand, we recognised that taking responsibilities as researchers through negotiated and consultative processes in research is not the same as making paternalistic decisions not to consult interlocuters regardless of whether institutionalised informed consent processes have 153

Narrative Research Now

been followed. The conundrums encountered in this research highlight the importance of building continued processes into research that create the space to continue to ask ‘What do we do now?’ and to revisit past decisions. This may not be easily accommodated in institutional ethics applications that demand a greater degree of certainty. Our extended discussions with partners and participants, however, facilitated trust and continued collaboration and the research has evolved into a longitudinal project in which we will continue to trace developments in our participants’ lives with their full support.

Conclusion While our interlocuters detailed many aspects of their lives in the interviews –​ which were important for gaining a more complete picture of each women’s journey in life as she perceived it –​our individual life history analysis honed in on women’s recounted experiences of changing the ways they exercised voice and influence in their communities, the challenges they encountered, and the factors which led to and shaped these experiences and the consequences in the life course for these women. Sharing excerpts of these narratives was an important higher order ethical choice, both from the feminist perspective of making research and analysis more readily available to participants, but also so that other women could potentially find meaning and inspiration in the journeys of their peers. Yet, the discussion highlights the tensions encountered by feminist researchers in representing narratives in ways that accommodate protagonists’ express wishes, such as to reveal their identities and highlight their struggles, and the ethical responsibilities of the researcher to do no harm in research. In the present project, these tensions became particularly pronounced in digital storytelling, in which research translation shifts from narrower academic audiences to communicating women’s voices to multiple publics. Risks are further heightened for open access research on experiences of vulnerable groups in regions with a history of authoritarianism –​sharing stories on women’s success in challenging power structures fulfils an advocacy goal, but honouring requests to showcase the real people who had such successes, even if this is their preference, risks attracting the attention of those with the authority and influence to do them harm. As such, ethical life history and related research in gender and international development in the digital age entails (short-​and) long-​term risks to participants when conducting and communicating both wider ‘research narratives’ that illustrate causal pathways and processes of change, as well as more discrete ‘individual narratives’ of women from marginalised groups. Such risks may not always be fully predictable at the outset of research in a rapidly evolving digital era, and given different experiences and knowledges, interlocuters may not always be fully aware of the implications of risks highlighted by researchers 154

Narrating Women’s Life Histories

in consent processes. Leaving decisions about risk solely with interlocuters may not always be the most ethical choice for researchers as might be implied through institutional ethics processes. Instead, continued reflection, iterative consultation and collaborative decision-​making involving both researchers and interlocuters can go some way to balancing risks. Note 1

Feminist research includes the study of masculinities, intersectionality and men. The focus for this research project, however, was predominantly focused on those who self-​identify as women and experience intersecting forms of vulnerability, disadvantage and inequality.

References Atkinson, R. (1998) The Life Story Interview. Thousand Oaks: SAGE. Atkinson, R. (2002) ‘The life story interview’. In J.F. Gubrium and J.A. Holstein (eds) Handbook of Interview Research: Context and Method. London: SAGE, pp 121–​40. Behar, R. (1990) ‘Rage and redemption: Reading the life story of a Mexican marketing woman’. Feminist Studies 16(2), pp 223–​58. Bertaux, D. (ed) (1981) Biography and Society: The Life History Approach in the Social Sciences. London: SAGE. Birch, M., Miller, T., Mauthner, M. and Jessop, J. (2012) ‘Introduction to the second edition’. In T. Miller, M. Birch, M. Mauthner and J. Jessup (eds) Ethics in Qualitative Research. London: SAGE, pp 1–​13. Brannen, J. (1988) ‘Research note: The study of sensitive subjects: Notes on interviewing’. Sociological Review 36(3), pp 552–​63. Clandinin, D.J., Caine, V. and Huber, J. (2016) Ethical considerations entailed by a relational ontology in narrative inquiry. In I. Goodson (ed) The Routledge International Handbook on Narrative and Life History. London: Routledge, pp 418–​30. Coffey, A. and Atkinson, P. (1996) Making Sense of Qualitative Data: Complimentary Research Designs. Thousand Oaks: SAGE. Darling, J. (2014) ‘Emotions, encounters and expectations: The uncertain ethics of “the field” ’. Journal of Human Rights Practice 6(2), pp 201–​12. Diprose, R., McRae, D. and Hadiz, V.R. (2019) ‘Two decades of Reformasi: Indonesia and its illiberal turn’. Journal of Contemporary Asia 49(5), pp 691–​712. Diprose, R., Savirani, A., Setiawan, K.M.P. and Francis, N. (2020) Women’s Collective Action and the Village Law: How Women are Driving Change and Shaping Pathways for Gender-​inclusive Development in Rural Indonesia. Parkville: University of Melbourne, Universitas Gadjah Mada and MAMPU. Diprose, R., Setiawan, K.M.P. and Savirani, A. (2021) Gender, Collective Action and Governance in Rural Indonesia. University of Melbourne. https://​ doi.org/​10.26188/​13413​071.v1 155

Narrative Research Now

Ellis, C. (2016) ‘Compassionate research: Interviewing and storytelling from a relational ethics of care’. In I. Goodson, A. Antikainen, P. Sikes and M. Andrews (eds) The Routledge International Handbook on Narrative and Life History. London: Routledge, pp 431–​45. Geiger, S.N.G. (1986) ‘Women’s life histories: Method and content’. Signs 11(2), pp 334–​51. Goodson, I. (1998) ‘Storying the self: Life politics and the study of the teacher’s life and work’. In W.F. Pinar (ed) Curriculum: Towards New Identities. New York: Garland, pp 89–​98. Goodson, I. (ed) (2016) The Routledge International Handbook on Narrative and Life History. Abingdon: Routledge. Guillemin, M. and Gillam, L. (2004) ‘Ethics, reflexivity, and “ethically important moments” in research’. Qualitative Inquiry 10(2), pp 261–​80. Hoppe, K. (1993) ‘Whose life is it anyway? Issues of representation in life narrative texts of African women’. International Journal of African Historical Studies 26(3), pp 623–​36. Jackson, P. and Russell, P. (2010) ‘Life history interviewing’. In D. DeLyser, S. Herbert, S. Aitken, M. Crang and L. McDowell (eds) The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Geography. London: SAGE, pp 172–​92. Jones, A.D. and De Breo, H. (2017) ‘It’s my party, I’ll cry if I want to: Interpreting narratives of sexual abuse in childhood’. In J. Woodiwiss, K. Smith and K. Lockwood (eds) Feminist Narrative Research: Opportunities and Challenges. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 151–​78. Kabeer, N. (2011) ‘Between affiliation and autonomy: Navigating pathways of women’s empowerment and gender justice in rural Bangladesh’. Development and Change 42(2), pp 499–​528. Kuntz, A.M. (2015) Responsible Methodologist: Inquiry, Truth Telling and Social Justice. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press. Liamputtong, P. (2007) Researching the Vulnerable. London: SAGE. Mason, J. (1996) Qualitative Researching. London: SAGE. Mauthner, N.S. (2012) ‘‘Accounting for our part of the entangled webs we weave’: Ethical and moral issues in digital data sharing’. In In T. Miller, M. Birch, M. Mauthner and J. Jessup (eds) Ethics in Qualitative Research. London: SAGE, pp 157–​75. Miller, R.L. (2000) Researching Life Stories and Family Histories. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Miller, T. (2012) ‘Reconfiguring research relationships: Regulation, new technologies and doing ethical research’. In T. Miller, M. Birch, M. Mauthner and J. Jessup (eds) Ethics in Qualitative Research. London: SAGE, pp 29–​42. Miller, T. and Bell, L. (2012) ‘Consenting to what? Issues of access, gate-​ keeping and informed consent’. In T. Miller, M. Birch, M. Mauthner and J. Jessup (eds) Ethics in Qualitative Research. London: SAGE, pp 61–​75. 156

Narrating Women’s Life Histories

Ojermark, A. (2007) Presenting Life Histories: A Literature Review and Annotated Bibliography. Chronic Poverty Research Centre Working Paper No. 101. London: ODI. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.2139/​ssrn.1629​210 Riessman, C.K. (1993) Narrative Analysis. London: SAGE. Riessman, C.K. (2002) ‘Analysis of personal narratives’. In J.F. Gubrium and J.A. Holstein (eds) Handbook of Interview Research: Context and Method. London: SAGE, pp 695–​710. Roberts, B. (2002) Biographical Research. Buckingham: Open University Press. Savirani, A., Diprose, R., Hartoto, A.S. and Setiawan, K.M.P. (eds) (2020) Forging Pathways for Gender-​inclusive Development in Rural Indonesia: Case Studies of Women’s Collective Action and Influence on Village Law Implementation. Parkville: The University of Melbourne, Universitas Gadjah Mada and MAMPU. DOI:10.46580/​124328 Setiawan, K.M.P., Beech Jones, B.A., Diprose, R. and Savirani, A. (eds) (2020) Women’s Journeys in Driving Change: Women’s Collective Action and Village Law Implementation in Indonesia. Parkville: The University of Melbourne and Universitas Gadjah Mada. DOI:10.46580/​124331 Slim, H. and Thompson, P. (1993) Listening for a Change: Oral Testimony and Development. London: Panos. Smith, L.T. (2012) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. New York: Bloomsbury. Woodiwiss, J., Smith, K. and Lockwood, K. (eds) (2017) Feminist Narrative Research: Opportunities and Challenges. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

157

10

Narrative Next: Ways Forward for Narrative Research Ashley Barnwell and Signe Ravn

In narrative research, various disciplines use the same terms to describe different things, and different terms to describe the same things. Yet, a common commitment to particular critical questions cuts across boundaries. As with this collection –​which draws scholars from sociology, oral history, criminology, development studies, cultural studies, creative writing, social work and social policy –​issues of story ownership, ethics, representation, authenticity and authority sit at the core of such discussions. As we noted in our introductory chapter, this book was inspired by years of such conversations within the Narrative Network, as we heard members grappling with shared questions about what our analysis of narrative in new times demands. The chapters in this book showcase some of narrative’s diverse forms and scales –​the authors analyse oral histories and interview data, lyrics and visual displays, and the contested stories that unfurl in policy debates, families, classrooms and community spaces. While the authors have employed different methodologies and frameworks, they come together to ask crucial questions about the politics of storytelling in a social world. At the outset of this book, we located the collection within critical concerns about the instrumentalisation of narrative and the enlisting of lived experience into polemic political debates and dubious corporate strategy (Patterson, 2002; Salmon, 2010; Mäkelä et al, 2021; Brooks, 2022). In this context, the volume extends vital conversations about how narrative can be approached in critical and ethical ways from a range of disciplinary perspectives. The book is structured into three themes which emerged as important topics for narrative research now –​‘Institutional Authority and Counter-​stories’; ‘Tellable and Untellable Stories’; and ‘The Ethics of Representation’. In this concluding chapter, we summarise the contributions 158

Narrative Next

to draw out their connections and foreground the insights that are collectively built across the volume. We then reflect on how this collection opens critical paths forward for narrative research.

Institutional authority and counter-​stories The three chapters in the first section of the book all explored how narratives are part of driving social change. First, Dave McDonald showed how experiences of institutional abuse were commemorated via the colourful ribbons that became known as Loud Fence, and how these ribbons –​and the stories they evoked –​came to play a key role in persistent calls for justice. In Chapter 3, Martin Bortz took a comparative, narrative approach to analysing policy change. Using drug policy as a case, Bortz showed how the emergence and increasing strength of a counter-​narrative focused on harm reduction was vital to understanding policy change in New Zealand/​ Aotearoa, while the lack of subscription to this counter-​narrative among powerful actors explained the lack of change in New South Wales, Australia. Lastly, Diana Johns offered a critical reflection on the use of personal stories in the classroom to facilitate change in student attitudes towards imprisonment, problematising a straightforward assumption that bringing lived experience into the classroom can automatically affect change. Across these three chapters, a number of points come to stand out. Foremost, to understand how stories may or may not drive social change we need to attend to questions of power. This means paying attention to which narratives are dominant or hegemonic at a given time, and which are relegated to the margins, as well as who is able to tell which stories (see also Woodiwiss et al, 2017). In the chapters within this section, these questions are closely tied to the power of institutions and the institutionalisation of stories. This was perhaps most visible in Bortz’s case, where policy change became possible when powerful actors started subscribing to a specific political narrative. For proponents of harm reduction approaches to drug use, this institutionalisation of what started out as a counter-​narrative was a positive social change. But in such processes of social change we often also see stories that started out as ‘bottom-​up’ stories –​lived experience, grassroots organising or individuals propelled to ‘do something’ –​change or morph as they become institutionalised, potentially losing their original meanings. For instance, McDonald showed how the Catholic Church co-​opted the colourful ribbons as it tried to create its own closure to the visual story of Loud Fence. In this way, analysing how stories play into social change also requires us to pay careful attention to how the stories themselves may change in this process. This points to the need for a longitudinal perspective that allows us to unpack the dynamics of these processes over time. 159

Narrative Research Now

Tellable and untellable stories The second section of the book deals with various social censorships and rules around which stories can be told, when, and by whom. The two chapters in this section, by Wajeehah Aayeshah and Nikki Henningham, both looked at the intergenerational or life course nature of stories, exploring how notions of tellability and un-​tellability need to be situated socio-​historically. Stories are tellable or untellable for different reasons across time (see also Polletta, 2006, p 7). Silences can be sustained due to trauma, political risk, social stigma and many other reasons (Ryan-​Flood and Gill, 2010). But what might be silenced or too difficult to tell can change. In some cases, unspoken stories can finally be spoken, whereas in other cases, they can remain or become untellable for the same reasons, or indeed for different ones. In both chapters the authors deal closely with how the ethics around story ownership and voice can vary or be contested by people with different stakes in the story and its telling. What does it mean to tell your own story, when all stories are necessarily implicated in the lives of others? In addition, both chapters offered nuanced considerations about the nature and ethics of working with memory and trauma. Aayeshah charted the emotional experience of creating a graphic novel about her family history. The graphic novel takes its premise from both her maternal and paternal families’ forced migration in 1971, when the East wing of Pakistan became Bangladesh. Aayeshah’s poetic chapter described the ethics of telling a family story, where memory and trauma differ across the generations, and shape differing capacities to speak about the past. Henningham’s chapter similarly unpacked the complex ethics of family intervention into individual biography and the vicissitudes of memory. She described the ethical dilemmas that unfolded when recording an oral history interview with a farmer, here called Joan. In the context of the unfolding #MeToo movement, Joan’s account of being raped as a young woman and her efforts to pursue justice at a time when the court system was heavily stacked against victims became an important part of her story. However, Joan’s desire to tell her story was halted by her family who claimed that she had dementia and had fabulated this story; a key part of their rationale was that they had never heard the story before. Henningham therefore also asked who can tell their own story, and who decides if this story can be heard? What especially are the ethical implications of working with people in later life to record their stories (see also Taylor, 2010)? Aayeshah and Henningham showed the risks of storytelling in the intimate and sometimes censoring contexts of family and community (see also Brannen, 2021). Both chapters in this section provoke important questions about the ethics of working with personal stories, when the social currency and censorship around these stories is always changing. What was untellable can become 160

Narrative Next

tellable, but sometimes once told, can be silenced again. Together they offer a rich and reflective meditation on the sensitivities of working with memory, yet also the potential for healing and justice in making stories known.

The ethics of representation The third section of the book shed light on the complex ethical questions involved in telling other people’s stories and ‘giving voice’ to groups who may not have a platform. This section started out with Liz Dean’s chapter, which innovatively explored questions of representation in two songs by popular Australian pub rock band Midnight Oil. Here we saw how the band’s attempts to give voice to Indigenous musicians and advocate for Indigenous self-​determination was somewhat undermined by the lack of respect for cultural protocols and instances of ‘speaking for’ Indigenous peoples. In the section’s second chapter, Sarah Strauven showcased a method for ‘reading back’ interviews to research participants with refugee backgrounds. Strauven drew inspiration from narrative therapy and curated a narrative based on the interview transcript, which was then read to participants, serving as a positive appraisal and acknowledgement of participants’ life experiences and achievements. Lastly, Rachael Diprose took us to Indonesia to explore the ethical considerations of doing feminist life narrative research with rural women. Diprose described the experiences of working with stories in rural communities, where the sharing of testimonies can be a powerful driver of gender consciousness and social change. Diprose also raised thorny questions about the ethics of providing anonymity in life history research, especially when research participants may want to be named, and the researcher foresees, or is responsible for foreseeing, future risks. Speaking out in the community poses one set of risks, but having biographies published online as an output of the research project opens another set of questions about the unknown audience of digital spaces. Across these chapters, we saw how telling someone else’s story entails specific risks and requires very careful balancing acts. In Dean’s chapter, these risks include not acknowledging the sovereignty of Indigenous peoples when settler musicians hold centre stage while Indigenous musicians co-​star; risks that Dean argues the band fails to manage as times have changed and which therefore taint even the best of intentions. With its focus on changing politics, this chapter also demonstrates how paying attention to the socio-​ cultural and historic context is crucial for analysing and understanding the ethics of representation. It is by unpacking political debates and discourses at the time of each song that Dean is able to show how broader social change has made the stance and practices of Midnight Oil visibly problematic. In Strauven’s chapter, the ‘reading back’ method must balance the therapeutic interest in curating a positive life narrative against the scholarly interest in 161

Narrative Research Now

critical, analytical scrutiny of people’s stories. This also means scrutinising the researcher’s role in this process and navigating the risks of co-​opting participant stories. And finally, in Diprose’s case, the ethics of representation include also thinking beyond the research process to consider where research narratives might travel to, who might encounter them and what the risks of that might be, particularly in an authoritarian regime where voicing critique can have severe consequences. Powerfully, Diprose reveals how the decision to represent people anonymously, which was not taken lightly, is still something she ponders. This also highlights how research ethics are an ongoing matter to attend to; these questions often do not have easy answers, but involve weighing up different, complex scenarios again and again (see also Guillemin and Gillam, 2004).

What is next for narrative research? Reflecting on the chapters in this collection brings both excitement and concern. Excitement as the field is by no means ‘running dry’ of challenging, critical and ethical questions to address. As the chapters in this volume demonstrate, we continue to rethink what we deem to be ‘a narrative’ as well as how we approach these forms. McDonald, for example, explored the visual narrative of the Loud Fence, where colourful ribbons show a story which powerfully vindicates the survivors of abuse and calls institutions to account for wrongdoing. Dean encouraged us to look at popular culture and consider songs as another medium for exploring storytelling and narrative meaning-​making. And Bortz turned our attention to symbiotic narratives in political culture, social movements and policy. Other authors show their innovation in how they approach and reimagine traditional research materials such as interviews. Strauven seeks to decentre the interviewer in changing up who is speaker and who is listener with her ‘reading back’ method, while Aayeshah transformed interviews with family members into a graphic novel documenting the tellable and untellable aspects of their family history. This list is not exhaustive but can hopefully serve as inspiration for other scholars to be creative in terms of where we look and which questions we ask of ‘stories’. But taken together the chapters also raise a number of important concerns that must be tackled if narrative research is to remain relevant. Apart from the issues already raised –​authority, tellability and the ethics of representation –​ a critical issue that goes across all three sections is ownership. We noted in the Introduction how ‘telling other people’s stories’ is not a straightforward exercise, and multiple chapters in this volume exemplify this in practice. While this is not a new question, nor one that is specific to narrative research, it is nevertheless a question that requires the keen attention of narrative scholars. This became visible in a number of chapters in this volume, perhaps 162

Narrative Next

most poignantly in Diprose’s discussion of whether to follow her participants’ wishes to appear as the named owners of their narratives in public outputs or to take a more cautious approach to protect those participants from potential future sanctions. These potential risks are amplified when using digital storytelling or other online formats, as it becomes impossible for the researcher to predict how far the research narratives will travel. In addition to this query about who tells a story, and the act of storytelling, we can reflect on who listens and what is heard. Dean’s chapter on the songs of Midnight Oil forcefully opened this question, considering the role of the listener and their power to shape the narrative and its meaning in the act of hearing or not hearing. Listening was also at the centre of Johns’ reflection on how lived experience may facilitate change in the classroom with Johns pointing out that listening to the Other’s story requires an openness and willingness to put oneself in the position of the unknowing. Further, Strauven played with the dynamics of speaker and listener; and Henningham demonstrated the power of some listeners over others (the oral historian versus Joan’s family) to make judgements about what can be shared. These examples open the door for further attention to the role of the listener in narrative research, where our focus has been primarily with the teller. Taking a closer look at the role of narrative in social change, several chapters in this volume draw our attention to time and temporality. While ‘narrative’ may be having a hey-​day as a buzzword in political and business discourses, our authors keep a long view in focus, considering how stories –​and the rules around their telling –​can change over time, across generations, as social conventions and genres transform. Polletta writes about the way that we can ‘trace the careers of particular stories’ (2006, p 7), and several of our chapters gesture to both the past and potential futures of narratives, in ways that embrace the reality of being open to change, even for their own conclusions. This comes into Henningham’s consideration about what will be the fate of Joan’s oral history, as it sits in wait, not included in the wider collection of women farmers’ stories. It also arises in Diprose’s open question about having to make an ethical judgement about anonymity, yet also not being sure if it was the right choice, or will remain the right choice as contexts change. It is present too in Dean’s chapter when she looks at how a song is heard can change over time, taking on a different politics altogether. Aayeshah similarly reflects on the silences that may remain within her own generation, even in the process of trying to represent the untellable past, and how stories that cannot yet be shared may become tellable in the future. In this sense, the structure of narratives remains open, with the final act or ending less set –​in both the narratives we write and write about. Moving forward as a field, we must reflect on the role of the narrative scholar in new times. With the proliferation of digital and polemicised platforms, we can both celebrate and critique the democratisation of 163

Narrative Research Now

storytelling into realms where, for better and worse, facts and emotions often go unchecked. In this ‘narrative takeover’ (Brooks, 2022), how can we bring critical perspectives to the promise of stories, without becoming too cynical about the power of narrating lived experience? Facing this question is important if narrative research is to keep up with developments in how the term ‘narrative’ is used within and especially beyond the academy, and to respond to these changes. This will allow for lively innovations in how we engage with narrative and where we look to learn about how stories work. As this volume attests, narrative scholars are well placed to engage with these questions and to move beyond the elevation of stories towards a critical yet generative engagement with the pressing demands of storytelling in a new era. References Brannen, J. (2021) Social Research Matters: A Life in Family Sociology. Bristol: Bristol University Press. Brooks, P. (2022) Seduced by Story: Use and Abuse of Narrative. New York: New York Review Books. Guillemin, M. and Gillam, L. (2004) ‘Ethics, reflexivity, and “ethically important moments” in research’. Qualitative Inquiry 10(2), pp 261–​80. Mäkelä, M., Björninen, S., Karttunen, L., Nurminen, M., Raipola, J. and Rantanen, T. (2021) ‘Dangers of narrative: A critical approach to narratives of personal experience in contemporary story economy’. Narrative 29(2), pp 139–​59. Patterson, W. (2002) Strategic Narrative: New Perspectives on the Power of Personal and Cultural Stories. London: Lexington Books. Polletta, F. (2006) It Was Like a Fever: Storytelling in Protest and Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ryan-​Flood, R. and Gill, R. (eds) (2010) Secrecy and Silence in the Research Process: Feminist Reflections. London: Routledge. Salmon, C. (2010) Storytelling: Bewitching the Modern Mind. London: Verso Books. Taylor, Y. (2010) ‘Stories to tell? Reflexive (dis)engagements and (de) legitimized selves’. Qualitative Inquiry 16(8), pp 633–​41. Woodiwiss, J., Smith, K. and Lockwood, K. (eds) (2017) Feminist Narrative Research: Opportunities and Challenges. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

164

Index References to figures appear in italic type. References to endnotes show both the page number and the note number (35n2).

A accountability practice  127–​9 Andrews, M.  3, 60 Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse  23, 24–​5 authentic representations  80–​2 B #BlackLivesMatter  6 boundary objects  4 C censorship  6; see also social censorship child sexual abuse  20–​4, 33–​5 cities  20 civil society organisations (CSOs)  144, 146, 151 collective agency  111 collective narratives  6 communication  40 consent  76–​7, 129, 150, 151–​2; see also ethics conspiracy theories  5 criminology  criminal ‘othering’  61–​3 criminalised storytellers  57–​8, 59, 67–​8 critical pedagogy  58, 63–​4 critical reflexivity  76 D Dangers of Narrative project  5 deconstruction  127–​9 dementia  88, 97, 98, 99 digital platforms  153 discourse  40–​1, 42, 43 drug checking  44–​6, 159 E ecology of knowledges  59, 62, 63 emotional labour  82–​4

empathy  57, 66, 83 ethics  160–​2; see also authentic representations, interviews, methodology ethical choices  139–​40, 144 ethics of care  150 Eureka rebellion  20, 35n1 F fake news  5 family trauma  73, 74–​6, 160; see also trauma, intergenerational trauma emotional labour and intergenerational trauma  82–​4 feminist researchers  139, 140, 142, 149, 154 feminist scholars  6 Forgotten Australians  23, 36n4 Frank, A.W.  64, 65 G  gender inequalities  142 graphic storytelling  78–​80 H harm minimisation  44–​5 human rights advocacy  7 I illness, sociology of health and  2–​3 imagination  60; see also narrative imagination immigrants  83 incarceration  58 Indigenous bands  107–​8 Indigenous sovereignty  109, 112, 113, 114–​15 Indigenous story-​making  111 institutional authority  159 institutional child sexual abuse  20–​4, 33–​5 intergenerational trauma  83–​4; see also trauma international development research  141, 142 interviews  and deconstruction  127–​9

165

NARRATIVE RESEARCH NOW

possibilities and limitations  133–​5 and witnessing  126–​7, 130, 132 see also life histories; life stories; methodology L life histories  139–​55 as analytical method  141–​3 ethical considerations  148–​54 role of the researcher  143–​5 see also interviews; life stories life stories  87–​8, 90–​4, 141, 160 challenges to  97–​8 legal rights to  98–​100 off the record  96–​7 oral history collection and curation  89–​90 see also interviews; life histories listening  59, 65, 82, 130, 163 lived experience  58, 64, 67, 68 Lost Innocents  23, 35–​6n3 Loud Fence  20, 22, 33–​4, 159 M Māori  58–​9 memory  79, 81 memory recall  77 see also postmemory, post-​amnesia methodology  data collection  76–​8 role of the researcher  143–​5 see also ethics; interviews; life histories; life stories #MeToo movement  6 micro-​ethics  150–​1 Midnight Oil  106–​7, 161 ethical questions  111–​13, 116–​17 narrative openings  113–​16 songs’ stories’ context  107–​11 Dead Heart (Midnight Oil)  106–​7, 116 Gadigal Land (Midnight Oil)  106–​7 music  see songs N naming  59 narrative criminology  3, 61 Narrative Economics  3 narrative imagination  60 Narrative Network  7–​8 narrative openings  113–​16 narrative policy analysis  41, 42 narrative policy framework (NPF)  3, 39–​40 narrative power  60–​1; see also Plummer, K narrative practice  125–​6, 135 deconstruction  127–​9 witnessing  126–​7, 130, 132 narrative psychology  3 narrative subscription  50–​1 narrative therapy  3, 125 narratology  2 Dangers of Narrative project  5

O one-​dimensional stories  124–​5 open access research  139, 140, 152 oral histories project  see The Invisible Farmer (TIF) project oral history collection and curation  89–​90 othering  61–​3 encountering the Other  64–​5 ownership  162–​3 P pill testing  44–​6, 159; see also drug checking Plummer, K.  60, 64 policy analysis  3, 40, 42 policy change  42–​3 policy narrative  39–​40, 41–​2 and narrative subscription  50–​1 policy studies  40, 41 Polletta, F.  4 post-​amnesia  75, 78 postmemory  74–​5, 78 power  159 narrative power  power dynamics  77, 125 power imbalances  150–​1 power relations  65–​7, 142 Protectionist Legislation Act, Australia  107, 117n7 protest songs  105–​6 R radical co-​presence  62, 65 reading back  122–​3, 129–​33, 149, 161 and deconstruction  127–​9 possibilities and limitations  133–​5 and witnessing  126–​7, 130, 132 reflexive consciousness  131–​2, 133, 134 refugees  83 refugee studies  128 representation  124–​5, 126, 161–​2 resonance  127, 133 ribbons  see Loud Fence Roach, Archie  109–​10 S second-​wave feminists  22 Shuman, A.  7, 34–​5, 57, 64, 66, 74 silence  160 social censorship  160 social change  61 sociolinguistics  3 sociology of health and illness  2–​3 songs  105–​6 Indigenous bands  107–​8 Midnight Oil  106–​7, 161 St Alipius Primary School Loud Fence, Ballarat  24–​7 St Patrick’s Cathedral Loud Fence, Ballarat  19, 21

166

INDEX

St Patrick’s College, Ballarat  28–​30 Stolen Generations, Australia  23, 35n2 stories  60 as border crossings  65 one-​dimensional  124–​5 see also life histories; life stories storytelling  23, 57–​8, 59, 67–​8 encountering the Other  64–​5 graphic  78–​80 and narrative power  60–​1 and power relations  65–​7 surveillance  153 T testimony  23–​4, 34, 35 The Invisible Farmer (TIF) project  87 life stories  87–​8, 90–​4 legal rights to  98–​100 off the record  96–​7 oral history collection and curation  89–​90 therapeutic practice  127–​8

time /​temporality  163 trauma  family trauma  transgenerational trauma  83–​4 truth commissions  21 Tumarkin, M.  5 U Uluru Statement from the Heart  106, 108–​9, 114, 115, 116 V victim blaming  93 voicelessness  112 W war  73, 110 whiteness  112, 115 witnessing  126–​7, 130, 132 women’s life histories  139–​55, 161, 162; see also life histories; life stories wounded storytelling  66

167