Pickering, B. J. (2020). Sharing Stories, Building Bridges, Moving Mountains: An Action-Oriented Inquiry with Children of Incarcerated Parents (Unpublished doctoral thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB.
http://hdl.handle.net/1880/111984
“Most people rarely think about children of incarcerated parents (COIPs) and when they do, these children are usually dismissed as not worth the effort. However, in Canada there are likely more than 400,000 children affected by parental incarceration. This became apparent to me when I was working with women recently out of prison, most of them mothers, who mentioned the hardest part of their experience was being separated from their children and the lack of support. There is a body of predominantly quantitative research that tells a bleak story of how COIPs are destined to have trouble in school, misuse substances, be gang involved, have contact with the justice system, and likely be incarcerated themselves. I was curious about a different, and less problem- saturated, life story that COIPs might tell. In this research I invited seven adult COIPs to share their experiences in a collaborative relationship that would privilege strength and resilience with the hope that we could turn toward some type of advocacy through action-oriented practices.”
from the abstract
re. Life Story Board Back in March 2019 Barbara had contacted me with interest in the Life Story Board, whether it might helpto visually animate interviews in a documentary film recording, the culmination of her action-oriented research project. After an initial web video meeting with her and a participant to explore ideas, I shipped her a LSB kit and a few days later a second online session with the overhead webcam help set to her up and get oriented her application- She knew the participants well and their stories well over several meetings and saw LSB interviews as a re-enactment. After the filming weekend she emailed me:
I am so grateful for your work. The Life Story Board will play a big part in the documentary and the participants still say it was the most impactful part of the experience. I am a bit shy about having you see my awkward stumbling as I was not very familiar with all the tools but in spite of my clumsy delivery, it was tremendously effective. It’s a testament to the tool.
“We have just gone through a fabulous (and over the top hectic) filming weekend. We used LSB for some of it and I thought I would let you know that even though I was clumsy and unaccomplished, it was very powerful. It will definitely be in the film!! ….Participants said they weren’t distracted by my sifting and hunting (they often helped) so I guess it wasn’t too disturbing for them. They all said it was a very positive experience.”
Excerpted below are some of her comments in a January 7 Zoom meeting. The launch of the documentary Bonds that Hurt, Bonds that Heal will be January 29, 2022, here is the trailer
https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1193030602&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true Vidaview · Barbara Pickering
Re. Qualitative Research For graduate students and those interested in qualitative research methods, Her dissertation is an amazing body of work in which the Life Story Board played a minor role, below is an example with better resolution. Her work is an excellent application of combining diagolical narrative analysis (Frank 2010) and thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) grounded in dialogic philosophy as described by Bakhtin (1986) and Shotter (2016). I attach a useful table she presents on the Tensions in Narrative Theory/ Inquiry (p 80 of her thesis)
