2 results
4 - Autoethnographic playwriting and performance for self-healing and advocacy
- Edited by Ephrat Huss, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, Eltje Bos
-
- Book:
- Social Work Research Using Arts-Based Methods
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 13 October 2022
- Print publication:
- 28 April 2022, pp 45-54
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Introduction
This chapter focuses on how autoethnographic playwriting and performance can be used as research pursuits in social work. It lays out (1) a rationale for using playwriting and performance as a research method to engage in self-healing and to advance social change; (2) a case study including theoretical approach, research procedures, and dissemination; and (3) a discussion for future social work research and practice. Autoethnographic playwriting and performance provides a tool that researchers can use to explore the experiences of research participants.
Autoethnographic playwriting and performance as research
As a research method, autoethnography developed in the late 1990s (Ellis et al., 2011). As a more sophisticated method of postmodern social science, autoethnography became in the 2000s as ‘the study, representation, or knowledge of a culture by one or more of its members’ (Buzard, 2003, p. 61). Autoethnography has since become a confessional form of inquiry in which researchers embrace the realities of their lives while they deconstruct reality, power, and identities (Adams & Holman Jones, 2011, p. 108). Autoethnography has provided a space in the human sciences where the ‘human’ is of central interest and where the ethnographic method is the vehicle for writing stories, for excavating the past, for envisioning the future, and for investigating life in its totality (Bochner & Ellis, 2016).
The exploration of the self in playwriting and performance was solidly developed in the second half of the twentieth century, and it then took hold in the past 20 years alongside reality shows, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram – all forms of expression that not only allow for but call for the exposure of the self in the public space (Pendzick et al., 2016). Autoethnographic playwriting and performance are investigational pursuits that echo experimental theatre, whose main focus is more on the process of acting than on the actual outcomes, be it the written play or the performance (Emunah, 2020).
The method of ‘self-revelatory performance’ was described by Emunah in 1983 (Emunah, 2015). For this chapter, self-revelatory performance is a genre of experimental theatre that encourages the actor/ethnographer to explore themselves and their process to find a relationship with the audience before, during, and after the performance.
Brazilian community health agents and qualitative primary healthcare information
- Margareth S. Zanchetta, Rogério Meireles Pinto, Wilson Galhego-Garcia, Zeilma da Cunha, Hésio A. Cordeiro, Francisco E. Fagundes-Filho, Mônica A.L. Pinho, Susan M.V. Voet, Yves Talbot, Rodrigo S. Caldas, Thiago J. de Souza, Edwaldo Costa
-
- Journal:
- Primary Health Care Research & Development / Volume 16 / Issue 3 / May 2015
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 25 April 2014, pp. 235-245
-
- Article
-
- You have access Access
- HTML
- Export citation
-
Aim
The aim of this study was to explore female community health agents’ views about the value of recording qualitative information on contextual health issues they observe during home visits, data that are not officially required to be documented for the Brazilian System of Primary Healthcare Information.
BackgroundThe study was conducted in community primary healthcare centres located in the cities of Araçatuba and Coroados (state of São Paulo) and Rio de Janeiro (state of Rio de Janeiro), Brazil.
MethodsThe design was a qualitative, exploratory study. The purposeful sampling criteria were being female, with a minimum of three years of continuous service in the same location. Data collection with 62 participants was conducted via 11 focus groups (in 2007 and 2008). Audio files were transcribed and submitted to the method of thematic analysis. Four themes guided the analysis: working with qualitative information and undocumented observation; reflecting on qualitative information; integrating/analysing quantitative and qualitative information; and information-sharing with agents and family health teams. In 2010, 25 community health agents verified the final interpretation of the findings.
FindingsParticipants valued the recording of qualitative, contextual information to expand understanding of primary healthcare issues and as an indicator of clients’ improved health behaviour and health literacy. While participants initiated the recording of additional health information, they generally did not inform the family health team about these findings. They perceived that team members devalued this type of information by considering it a reflection of the clientele’s social conditions or problems beyond the scope of medical concerns. Documentation of qualitative evidence can account for the effectiveness of health education in two ways: by improving preventative care, and by amplifying the voices of underprivileged clients who live in poverty to ensure the most appropriate and best quality primary healthcare for them.