interested in employing discourse as a vehicle for both constraining and enabling critical change processes for individual learning (Evans, 2013).

A focus on available discourses of progression to higher education should also produce a shift away from the individualization of perceived 'lacks' to a focus on relationships and socio-cultural representations. This is another way of saying that we should attend more closely to how individuals create culture and society through access to discourse and not primarily to how culture shapes individuals in both structural and discursive ways in widening participation work. It is this bottom up cultural creation and appropriation by individuals that I am interested in with respect to higher education discourses of progression throughout the life course. Understanding how individuals adopt and shape particular stories from the discourses available to them is a challenge for widening participation research, not least because, as I will demonstrate through an auto-ethnographic piece of work, these processes are not necessarily immediately obvious.

Both 'having voice' and also 'fnding a voice' are then part of the problematic *status quo* with respect to which learners are routinely dissuaded from accessing, or even conceiving of, higher education. The refective, retrospective element elaborated here may be problematic for approaches focused on an objective version of the 'truth,' as I will suggest that the meaning of counter-discourses that facilitate new representations may sometimes only become available on reinterpreting past events through later understandings and insights. Counterdiscourses may, we could say, work at a deeper, or less conscious level, and as such be less amenable to interrogation in the present.

This chapter, fnally, is oriented in the values-based perspective that supporting learners to higher education at any time of life is a good thing, not because this choice is routinely the best one for everyone, but because choices may have been restricted through lack of access to knowledge of and support for diverse routes through learning and it is important to strive to ensure meaningful choice exists here, particularly in a climate of high tuition fees, as is now the case in England. (This is notwithstanding the fact that all choice is adaptive to the extent that contextual framing is a given, as discussed well in the context of widening participation by Bridges, 2005, for instance.) It is also based on a number of suppositions about identity and narrativity, particularly work around the notion of identity capital and articulating a narrative of the self (Warin, 2015).

## Narratives of Learning Take Many Forms, and Diversity Matters

'We must emphasise not the ladder but the common highway, for every man's ignorance diminishes me, and every man's skill is a common gain of breath'. (Williams, 1989, p. 15)

As Raymond Williams speaks about culture as ordinary (1989), the remit and creation of us all, so we must see diverse discourses about higher education and lifelong learning as ordinary — although not always accessible to us all. I do not mean ordinary in the sense of unexceptional (although a previous research participant articulated with great passion how he would not have succeeded against the odds were he to believe himself doing something extra-ordinary, (Mazzoli Smith & Laing, 2016), but ordinary primarily in the sense of ubiquitous and necessary. A hegemonic discourse of university access, the ultimately successful student climbing successive rungs of the ladder, from which other 'non-traditional' discourses are deviations, marginalizes an array of deeply signifcant, plural and diverse stories, yet these are often unrecognized as such, or not thought to be signifcant if they are not about progression in learning in some explicitly causal way.

In writing about and researching the dominant discourse on widening participation to higher education, I found myself unexpectedly accessing for the frst time a personal resource of hope on my own journey to higher education, which I will argue functioned as a counter-discourse to the dominant cultural trope of the successful student. Whilst the specifcity of my story is likely to difer from others, some theoretical generalizations suggest ways in which we in the research community can support the diversifcation of discourses of widening participation, by drawing on more varied methods than usually pertain in the feld, to explore how resources of hope can manifest in counter-discourses, which help us 'work around' those that dominate.

In my case, I refect on how the novels of Iris Murdoch provided me with narratives of new and diverse structures of feeling before, and throughout, my higher education years. Through refective analysis I now understand these to have been functioning as a counter-discourse, a way of thinking beyond and so undermining the dominant, narrow, discourse of student success and progression, despite the fact that the novels are not explicitly about this. Auto-ethnography is not an approach that I had previously used, but it became the default method to describe this systematic refective analysis of a period of my own personal experience, which had returned to the present as I engaged with analogous periods in my research participants' lives. The selfconscious and socially conscious nature of this act was neither planned, nor initially welcome. The resulting small auto-ethnographic study is therefore a refection on this period of my life, as the process by which I analysed how my participants were able to access counter-discourses led to a self-refexive analysis of how I, too, had done so. I argue that these varied counter-discourses served a similar functional purpose in diversifying the discourse about educational progression that was predominant.

## The Novels of Iris Murdoch: Thinking Beyond a Narrow Discourse of Success

I ris Murdoch (1919–1999) was an Anglo-Irish novelist and philosopher, author of some twenty-six novels focused on the key themes of morality, relationships and the unconscious, as well as plays, poetry and philosophy. Iris Murdoch's many novels hold within them narratives of fawed, neurotic, complex and contradictory characters living and learning in a multitude of ways: the successful, wealthy psychoanalyst paid to alleviate the trauma of others, busily committing incest at weekends; the successful writer in his seaside retreat quietly enslaving his long lost love; the postulant nun and schizophrenic, passionately in love with the failed priest who leads her lay religious community. On the face of it the particularities of these contexts bore no relation to my own, yet nonetheless between the ages of 16 and 21 these novels enabled me to connect with diverse structures of emotion, thought and action, taking me far beyond my own context and enabling a wider imaginary of other lives and the structures of feeling that these opened up. Murdoch was pre-eminent at evoking the inner world of fantasy, projection and delusion, whilst celebrating a diverse range of ordinary foibles and eccentricities in her characters. As her biographer Peter Conradi says:

One source of positive pleasure in the bizarrerie ofered by her plots comes from our sense that, as Murdoch has often averred, people are secretly much odder, less rational, more often powered by obsession and passion than they outwardly pretend or know, and that the novelist is revealing such secrets in creating her (imaginary) people. (Conradi, 1989, p. 6)

In writing about the dominant discourse of progression to higher education in my research, I came to refect on how Murdoch's novels constituted for me in their imaginary worlds a discourse that countered the institutional educational discourses that tended to the conservative and the rhetorical, ill-defned recourse to 'realizing potential' or 'aiming higher' for instance in order to achieve 'success'. In their holding together of these individual eccentricities and foibles in the ordinary and quotidian, Murdoch's novels introduced me to a multiplicity of ways to succeed and fail — often at the same time — which ran so counter to the hegemonic discourse of the successful student and a linear, rational trajectory of university progression that I felt subject to. The educational discourses during those years felt overpowering yet were narrow. In struggling to stay on track and epitomize the successful student, the only alternative to not doing so felt like failure.

The method I embarked on involved a self-refexive re-reading of Murdoch's novels, whilst writing about resources of hope as counterdiscourses for other students. This auto-ethnographic analysis positioned Murdoch's novels as a resource of hope I drew on, in the form of both introducing and legitimating diverse discourses of progress through life. Whilst a sociological understanding of these novels would be as a form of cultural capital (Bourdieu, 2011), imparting a rich set of cultural values and meanings otherwise not accessible to me, I argue that this is not an adequate explanation, as the concept of cultural capital fails to engage with the subjective experience of objective possibilities (West, 2014). A psycho-social approach would suggest that these novels helped me to work and think around the tyranny of the simplifed, narrow discourse of successful progression that I felt constrained by. The richness of Murdoch's characters and plots, in contradistinction to what was my narrow socio-cultural context and the equally narrow messages of what educational success meant and for whom, provided me with not only models, but more crucially structures of feeling that could enable me to imagine diference and contradiction as other than failure.

In this retrospective narrative of my youthful, somewhat obsessive relationship to Murdoch's *oeuvre* and its role as a resource of hope, I would suggest that an important element was the unconscious juxtaposition of the glossy pictures of university undergraduates on prospectuses — the successful student — with Murdoch's array of eccentric and earnest protagonists, muddling through chaotic lives, and prey to contingencies which they tried, but routinely failed, to control. Graham (2013), utilizing Foucault, describes the constitutive efect of brochure images, marking out the 'ideal' student as a dividing practice. Without diversity, these images take on substantial power, creating megaliths of the mind, likely to leave many young people and adults feeling inadequate.

I now look back on how Murdoch's characters' vulnerabilities and aberrances likely constituted a resource of hope by enabling me to think beyond the boundaries of highly prescribed, singular identities and expectations of a particular kind of success, and therefore failure, to a more diverse array of lived lives. The 'success discourse' and related images of the 'good' student construe such young people as rational, self-governing, autonomous and empowered. Murdoch's novels abound with characters that are driven by irrational desire, repeatedly failing to self-govern, who depend — often fatally — on others and who are prey to contingency. Yet, simultaneously, they were often accomplished in their career and the development of their intellect, refecting explicitly on matters philosophical as ends in themselves, and in so doing subverting the discourse of instrumental educational outcomes or narrow models of success against which I was straining.

Arguably the widening participation discourse of 'aiming higher' and 'realizing potential' carries a particular moralizing force. Murdoch's novels are full of characters who attempt to moralize and coerce the world, but for which they often pay a high price, while the hedonists get of altogether more lightly, another reason a young person may well have taken pleasure in these novels. Murdoch's characters' lives are given to disjuncture and rupture, as they create, or have foisted upon them, the shocking or the unforeseen in life, particularly those who are most earnest to control and preordain. The critic Lorna Sage commented that Murdoch's plots were a 'device for humiliating those who wish to contain experience or abstract from it' (in Conradi, 1989, p. 99). I took great delight in such irreverent narratives and I now refect on how they gave me permission to question those who attempted to control and preordain my future through a discourse of making use of one's talents and aiming 'high' in a linear, narrow route to higher education progression as the foremost measure of success for a young person after leaving school. I have found similar concerns articulated by some of the widening participation students I have worked with, interviewed both in order to understand non-traditional routes to higher education (Mazzoli Smith & Laing, 2016) and about what constitutes fairness in education (Mazzoli Smith et al., 2017).

## The Importance of Diverse Structures of Feeling and Social Imaginaries for Widening Participation

My interpretation from this auto-ethnographic study is that these novels were read and reread in part because they ofered a way of working through and thinking around the contradiction that successful students are made to feel if they don't aspire to a particular pathway and/or feel they are failing. What may well have been provided was a way in which to learn to live with this perceived contradiction. The dichotomy often articulated by students in distress — aiming to conform, or being expected to, or thought to conform to the empowered selfregulating student, whilst feeling the opposite — inevitably produces anxiety. I suggest that diverse discourses of progression to higher education throughout the life course could militate against anxiety borne of nonconformity to some ideal as portrayed through narrow discourses of student success. Through the personal tutor system within the university, for instance, students have told me that they have resisted applying for extensions to assignments or temporarily suspending studies, even when they have had strong medical evidence to do so, because this is not what 'successful' students do.

My experience as a researcher leads me to argue that we fail to see with adequate sensitivity the implications of positioning young people as both lacking in various capitals — social, cultural, emotional — alongside

promoting a narrow discourse of success in widening participation activity. What is often read as an individual defcit could also be read as a discourse defcit in terms of narrow vision, and over-simplifcation. The data with which we structure our knowledge of young people as marginalized or disadvantaged, alongside the methodologies that we then employ to solve the problems that follow, too often eclipse what may actually be signifcant resources of hope to a young person, or indeed any person. I suggest that these may come in the form of counter- or diverse discourses, which if recognized and/or promoted as such, could support working around the structural and discursive barriers that too often become unassailable.

Such counter-discourses may provide a means to imagine, accept and recognize the self as complex and contradictory, yet crucially without the evocation of intolerable anxiety, which we know many students experience. The argument of this chapter is that the promotion of diverse discourses in various felds — here widening participation — may be a functional vehicle through which we can promote this perspective and facilitate how we can live with complexity and contradiction that at other times can threaten to overwhelm or limit. This may in turn help students who face multiple challenges to live with an imaginary of possible versions of student progression beyond narrow ideals.

### Re-Description and Diversification

Richard Rorty's philosophical work informs the supposition that the imaginary can play an important role in shaping identities and achievements. Rorty (1989) argued that human solidarity is not to be achieved through willed, individual self-creation and self-refection, but through imagination and novels, for instance, which let us 're-describe ourselves'. He spoke about self-knowledge not as a process of discovery, but as one of creation. Rorty discusses Proust and Nietzsche, for whom, he says, there is nothing more powerful than self-re-description and he talks about how only other human beings can propose languages for us to speak — on his view, truth is made, rather than found. Yet the framework in which much widening participation work happens is largely positivistic, focusing on how language gets at the truth, rather than how it creates it, which could be construed as one of its *de*  *facto* limitations. In Iris Murdoch's novels I was provided with a novel language for re-description and simultaneously warned about the pitfalls of seeing one description — in one dominant discourse — as a fnal truth about self, place, and others. Rorty's view of the need for equal opportunities for self-creation is therefore highly pertinent to this chapter and yet this is of course not a normal part of what we mean when we talk about equal opportunity in education. This chapter is intended to highlight how taken-for-granted and likely un-recognized and under-theorized such opportunities may well be.

As has been said, Murdoch routinely challenges her characters through her plots and those that come away less scathed are those, often, who can hold conficting emotions and thoughts together. Those who desire wholeness and completeness, which she often associates with moral hubris and the desire for goodness, founder. In her philosophical writings, such as *Against Dryness* (1961), Murdoch does not argue for a choice between realism and myth, but for a dialectic or mediation between them. In her novels I found such a dialogue between forms of life and modes of thought, which in repeat re-reading, provided me with access to structures of feeling that would have helped allay anxiety. Murdoch's characters therefore provided a way of militating against the outcomes of the cognitive dissonance that must result for many students who become invested in narrowly conceived educational discourses about success. Freeman says that:

…in becoming aware of the ways in which we are determined and in considering alternate modes of living our lives than the ones bequeathed us, we denature and demystify the established order of selfhood itself, thus paving the way for diferent stories to be told. (Freeman, 2015, p. 186)

I did not ask whether there was any truth in the actions of Murdoch's characters, but in what possible worlds these actions could be true, the very fact of which altered the range of my own possible worlds. If, increasingly, learning and educational achievement are tightly bound to particular models of 'the good student' (Taylor, 2008) in a narrow range of possible worlds, then a version of freedom for me was found in the highly wrought depictions of adult learning and development that continued alongside, in spite of and sometimes in virtue of, personal failings.

## Accessing Diverse Narratives of Progression as a Means of Diversifying the Dominant Discourse

A main concern of this chapter is that we need to fnd more and better ways of researching, understanding and promoting how individuals not only counter the narrowing of opportunities for selfcreation in an increasingly performative educational landscape (Ball, 2012) and in the face of a narrow dominant discourse of higher education progression, but also our own prejudices and lacunae in recognizing these in our own lives and in those of others. The last section of the chapter sets out several examples, which demonstrate how this may be possible through alternative methodologies and what challenges there are inherent in these, not least that the focus on care leavers as marginalized in some of these studies serves to confrm this position even as it seeks to ameliorate it.

Recent life history work with care-experienced adults (Duncalf, 2010) demonstrates how a synchronic research perspective can itself negate or obscure diverse and complex patterns of progression through education and lifelong learning, here with respect to what care-experienced adults were doing later in their lives than is often the focal point. When research views learning lives diachronically, these care leavers were not so likely to be out of education, but rather were accessing education at diferent points in their lives, in diferent ways to what a perspective at age eighteen would reveal. It was argued that lifelong learning for care leavers was possible only when more basic support needs were frst met (Maslow & Herzberg, 1954), something I heard directly from care leavers on a panel at a National Network for the Education of Care Leavers event in London in 2015. Hence accessing education later in life, when other needs had been met, was more likely to be the case than at age eighteen. In this example a diachronic research perspective ofers more diverse narratives not only *of*, but also *for* this particular group and can provide support for thinking beyond the dominant discourses of care leavers' relative failure in education when measured at a single point in time. As one of the participants in a previous research project said to me, knowing the statistics on educational progression for care leavers as a teenager made him feel backed into a corner, but these statistics were of course for progression to higher education at one point in life only and therefore unnecessarily restrictive if seen as a single endpoint (Mazzoli Smith & Laing, 2016).

So, a relevant issue here is whether the politics of hope is connected to the idea of epistemic justice. Fricker (2007) says that one can be harmed in one's capacity as a 'knower' by virtue of a marginalized status and if so, are structural determinants implicated in the availability of resources of hope, in either implicit and tacit, or more explicit ways? Are diverse discourses of progression to higher education more available to some young people and adults than to others, both literally and in terms of what they can convey? Does democratizing knowledge through diversifying discourses mitigate the impact of this? I want to suggest that the answer to these questions is yes.

One way of attempting to deliberately democratize or widen a narrow discourse about university progression and widening participation is through the use of the digital medium to share stories. I will mention two projects designed to change and diversify stories through horizontal dialogues, which bypass professional mediation, but in diferent ways. One is an app, *Inspire Me!*, designed as a vehicle to inspire, advise and mentor care leavers in an exogenous way by The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education. The other, *Changing Stories*, is a project at Newcastle University, with aims of democratizing who has the power to speak, through utilizing varied life stories and narrative learning to diversify the over-arching discourse of successful student progression to higher education.

*Inspire Me!* enables young people in care to access aspects of the life stories of young adults who were themselves care-experienced. These are unlikely to be lengthy life histories, rather they are designed as short fact-flled pieces providing young people in care with information and so provide some of the mentoring they may be missing out on in their everyday experiences. It is ostensibly about raising aspirations through the provision of knowledge from the very people who beneftted from it themselves and went on to succeed against the odds. *Changing Stories* is a portal for current university students of all ages to tell their own digital story of getting to university and becoming a student, in an unmediated way, i.e., using their own words, videos or images. This project aspires to put students at the heart of a widening participation intervention, but also takes account of critiques of widening participation work,

which suggest that higher education institutions are necessarily, at times, part of the very cultures of elitism from which disadvantaged students feel themselves excluded, hence the stories are to be hosted on institutional sites to mitigate this. A literature review on widening participation to higher education had as one of its key fndings that 'higher education students and other positive role models can make a signifcant contribution to delivery of information, advice and guidance interventions' (Moore et al., 2013, p. 5). Yet I would suggest that this has to happen in such a way that removes the likelihood of hegemonic 'good student' discourses (Taylor, 2008).

Students are invited to share with others their journey to and through higher education, in order to expose others to multitudes of ways to learn and progress in education, which encompass varied failures and varied successes, these being defned by the students themselves. Narrow discourses of success do not of course always ft even those supposedly 'entitled' to higher education, the middle-classes, those with cultural capital, the right postcode and parents who have been to university. Moreover, diverse narratives can challenge the notion of 'kinds' and 'types', recalling the quote by Raymond Williams at the start of this chapter, and simple stories of success or assumptions about end points in learning lives. Diverse discourses of this kind would potentially bring with them much needed recognition of diverse forms of knowledge, experience and learning potential; 'learners can bring diverse forms of capital into universities and via good enough recognition, claim space for self, agency, and social justice' (West, 2014, p. 80). Access to diverse stories that make contradiction not only possible but normal and bearable, could function for others as resources of hope, analogous to what I accessed through the novels of Iris Murdoch as a young person.

Goodson's (2010) conception of narrative learning and action potential drives this conception of narrative capital. By default, these narratives will be oriented towards action potential because of the context in which they are generated (progressing to higher education) and towards diversity both between and within narratives. The aim of *Changing Stories* is that personal stories can contribute to public, political (counter) discourses. Goodson argues that 'strategies to facilitate narrative learning are currently unexplored and hence underdeveloped' (2010, p. 132) and an approach like *Changing Stories* and similar others that have begun to appear in higher education institutions, could provide a learning resource to test and utilize narrative learning as a widening participation tool.

The expectation is not just that these narratives will communicate realist events in a transparent way but will perhaps more importantly constitute a varied array of learning journeys, making available many more possible imaginary worlds than are usually known to prospective students. A narrative is generally purposive, moving towards an ending and, in this sense, I am taking the critical humanist perspective of an optimistic view of narrative learning, 'posing narrative as a means to recuperate individual and social agency' (Andrews et al., 2002, p. 7). Jacobs (2002) is one of many authors writing on narrative to state that civil society must contain public spaces for constructing alternative narratives and that these introduce new perspectives through narrative creation, or put a diferent way, provide the opportunity for counter- or diverse discourses that enable thinking around those that predominate. In our recent chapter (Mazzoli Smith & Laing, 2016), such transformative learning spaces were discussed, where the telling of varied life stories created new horizons of possibility for others. Yet it is striking how few such spaces are available through institutional forums, especially for prospective students.

#### Conclusion: Narrative Imagination and Discourse

'…the revelation of the diversity of individual world-views, of the plurality of ethical life-worlds, of deviance, fuidity and irony, is itself a liberation in the context of ubiquitous frameworks of social institutionalism proclaiming behavioural and moral homogeneity'. (Rapport, 2010, p. 21)

Rapport is here refecting on the conficted nature of feldwork and the limitation of one's own vantage-point, and the moral benefts that result from putting into comparative perspective societal roles and beliefs, however partial the overall study may be. He also draws on Ricœur in refecting on how far individuals know themselves and are known by others through the stories that they and others tell about themselves. Rapport draws on this idea of 'narrative identity' for ethical advantage, claiming that it is of beneft for people to recognize that individual, group and cultural level identities are not fxed and this stance may make us more able to accommodate the stories of others. He goes on to say that the stories of others may make it more possible for us to imagine their lives (as in fction, for me with Iris Murdoch's characters) as 'we might extend a generosity towards our own stories […] not being rigid in our conception of them' (Rapport, 2010, p. 22). Again, it is this openness to fuidity and thinking/working around the rigidity of dominant discourses, not only in widening participation but arguably in much of education today, which may be a resource of hope for others, too.

Diversifying the discourses of student progression through sharing widely narratives of progressing to higher education across the life course draws heavily on the concept of narrative imagination, that 'the way we see the world is only one way amongst infnite possibilities' (Andrews, 2014, p. 27). Nussbaum (1997) says that narrative imagination is necessary to transport an individual into the frame of meaning of another person whose life circumstances are diferent, which gives us the tools to decipher meaning from another's perspective. Going back to Murdoch's narratives, these diferent perspectives expand the horizon of the possible: 'Through exercising our narrative imagination, we increase our awareness of the choices available to us' (Andrews, 2014, p. 110).

Narrative imagination thus depends on access to narratives that not only diversify but unseat, transgress and liberate us from hegemonic stories and discourses, de-centring the idea of centralized knowledge. This way of displacing central knowledge and discourses makes ideology visible (Burke, 2002), hence the importance of *Changing Stories* being hosted on higher education websites and platforms. More diverse narratives of pathways to higher education and through learning will be of use not only to potential students, but importantly also to those working in higher education, who can engage in a creative re-positioning of the marginalized learner. Such institutional-level refection is also important and part of a much-needed shift in higher education from a politics of representation of certain groups, to a politics of recognition of more diverse knowledges and identities alongside (Fraser, 2014).

Finally, increased access to diverse narratives of educational progression may also function as a means through which young pupils may be able to develop identity capital (Warin, 2015). Warin demonstrates how particular kinds of discourses and the opportunities made available in privileged families foster the construction of a personal sense of self. This may also be fostered through narrative learning, and we should not only see the formation of cultural capital as resulting from the crucible of the family, as the dominant discourse maintains. Walker (2003) refers to how gaining knowledge and constructing successful learner identities should go hand in hand. In this chapter I have advocated the availability of diverse narratives of progression to higher education as well as a better understanding of resources of hope that may function to counter and transgress the dominant narrow discourse, and through recourse to narrative learning, support the development of more agentic learner identities. But this is not to see the learner identity as a fxed or generalizable quality, but rather as a capacity that can be shaped and reshaped anew through articulating and re-articulating a narrative of the self in order to achieve what Walker refers to as 'deep participation and ownership' (2003, p. 176).

#### References

# 26. Using Journaling and Autoethnography to Create Counter-Narratives of School Exclusion in Britain

*Helen Woodley*

Helen Woodley describes an insider study of a pupil referral unit (for excluded children) that challenges the orthodoxies that are commonly attributed to such facilities. She seeks to give the pupils a voice, and thereby to modify the views of the public and policymakers. Helen discovered the power of journaling and autoethnography as methods of data collection and interpretation, and demonstrates their value as research tools.

For many years I was a teacher of pupils with Special Educational Needs (SEN), working in an alternative educational setting with children excluded from mainstream schooling. Consequently, I was keen, when undertaking doctoral research, to fnd a way to make their voices heard. I was motivated to do this by my personal and professional frustration that these young children were 'done to' rather than 'done with' in the UK education system when decisions were made about their futures. They were not involved in any part of the exclusion process and often not even aware of the discussions surrounding their lives. They were subject to powers beyond their control and their views and opinions were not sought. As my research progressed it became clear that the process of exclusion, and the discourses around it, rested solely with adults at a national and local level, and were largely informed by beliefs around power and discipline. My research focus shifted to encompass my own learning journey as both academic, researcher and teacher of SEN learners as I realized the power of the ideas and developments captured in my research journals and through autoethnographic writing, and saw how my narratives could sit alongside the discourses from the pupils themselves.

I worked in a unique type of alternative education setting within the UK education system, as I taught young people who had been permanently excluded from their mainstream school, meaning that they are not allowed to return to the school that they have left. They are often permanently excluded for acts of violence and aggression. Therefore, the children I taught were educated not in settings which they or their parents had selected, but ones that had been chosen for them. This lack of selection and personal choice is unparalleled in any other area of the school system for, in every other circumstance, parental views and often pupil views are taken into account. The establishments that the permanently excluded pupils attend may be known as Pupil Referral Units (PRUs) although this term is increasingly falling into disuse as many, including my own setting, prefer to style themselves in a more positive manner using the PRU title as a means of explaining their function rather than as their own self-description. Many of these PRUs are rebranding themselves as Alternative Provision (AP) or simply choosing a name and then discussing their function either in a strap line or on their school websites. In spite of these attempts at a creating a positive self-image, many people continue to refer to such schools as being 'the PRU' due to their familiarity with the term. For the purposes of this chapter I will continue to use the term PRU whilst acknowledging the use of AP as a broader term to include a wider variety of settings.

## Dominant Discourses in the Current UK Education System: Power and Discipline

Before taking a deeper look at the discourses within PRU settings, a wider view of the dominant discourses within the UK education system is necessary. The focus of the majority of discourses in the UK education system at both the macro- and micro-levels, are discourses of power and discipline. Foucault discusses how discipline is a specifc type of power and how such disciplines are techniques used for ordering human groups to increase the docility and utility of the people who are subject to being disciplined (Foucault, 1995/1977). When applied to an understanding of the UK education system, one can imagine an environment where questions of power and disciplinary actions are embedded at the very heart of the ethos and philosophy of schools. In this case, the teachers wield power and the pupils are the subjects of their discipline.

Social media is often full of comments and observations on the role of government in judging the efectiveness of schools, the power which the newly created privately run academies have compared to schools run by the local authority, and criticism of the assumed authority which non-teachers may claim they have in dictating how schools should operate. So as much as I can criticize the use of power and discipline towards pupils, it must be framed within a larger discourse about how schools themselves are controlled and maintained. These discussions of power and authority can even be seen within the UK teacher training system where Britzman (1986) discusses how cultural educational myths are taught to trainee teachers leading to a reproduction of such ideas within their classroom practice. This means that each subsequent generation of teachers is brought up within the discourses of power, control and domination held by the preceding generation thereby reproducing, even extending, the narratives held. If one takes the view of PRUs into this stance, then it can be seen how such discourses can continue to infuence the viewpoints of schools and teachers and impact upon how they relate to and work with the PRUs in their local authorities.

Another side efect of such discourses at a macro-level is the infuence they have upon pupils and teacher relationships including the cultural diferences between pupils and teachers (Delpit, 1988). If the macrolevel discourses relating to teacher power versus pupil subservience are maintained then this will have a lasting impact on pupils' lives (Uitto & Syrjälä, 2008) and teachers' understanding of their own identities (Sachs, 2001); the relationship of power continues to encourage a hierarchy with learners as the weaker partner. This ultimately leads to a continuing cycle of discourses of power dividing us, which, as Foucault reminds us, is due to their familiarity (Foucault, 1989/1969).

Within UK Government policy, these familiar discourses of teacher power are frmly established and are found within numerous texts that have been published within recent years. In 2012 the Government produced a guide to support schools in understanding their role in the exclusion process. This document refers to 'exclusion [from school] as a sanction' for behaviours exhibited by pupils (DfE, 2012, p. 4) although no specifc guidance is given as to what types of behaviour may be deemed to require such a sanction, which leaves the matter open to interpretation by those holding the power in school. A later 2015 Government advisory document discusses the rights of teachers in using physical force with pupils and refers to the ability of staf to 'control' and 'restrain' pupils when needed (DfE, 2015, p. 4). Yet again there is a lack of guidance surrounding the specifc circumstances it discusses, which again leaves those in power within each school to defne the terms as they see ft. A fnal example from 2016 is a Government document on behaviour and discipline within schools, which refers to teachers' 'power' and their legal right to use 'punishment' as a tool when needed (DfE, 2016, p. 7). The free and unqualifed use of such terms leaves plenty of scope for school leaders to interpret their meaning as they choose and cements the notion that it is the teachers who hold power and authority.

These macro-discourses at a national level have a substantial efect on the micro discourses within individual school settings, specifcally in the language of power that they use to describe the gulf in relationship between adults and children. This use of the language of power and discipline is seen across all age ranges and in all types of settings, and they are often found in the school behaviour policies, which are freely available online but which I, nevertheless, choose to leave anonymous when I highlight the point, by presenting three examples from schools within the North East of England. The frst is from an 11–18 comprehensive school, which is maintained by the local authority. The school behaviour policy states that, 'no adult may be treated dismissively or unfairly'. The fact that there is no mention of how the pupils must be treated is a reminder that the power and authority remain with the adults in the setting. A similar school has a policy that states that teachers may enforce a 'disciplinary penalty' on pupils. However, such statements are not confned to school policies that refer to older pupils, as one 5–11 primary school states that 'a child can have a maximum total of 18 days seclusion (educated in isolation away from peers) in one academic year'. These are the discourses of power and behaviour management found in mainstream schools, which are subsequently those that are passed onto pupils who are permanently excluded. In the minds of mainstream colleagues, PRUs therefore become the repositories of pupils who have already experienced a lack of power and autonomy and staf working within them who must also exhibit such control and dominion when faced with educating a setting full of excluded pupils; PRUs are often seen by outsiders as places where more power and discipline is used than in mainstream provision.

#### Discourses on PRUs

Whilst these are the macro- and micro-dominant discourses seen within mainstream schools and the assumption of many about the remit of a PRU, it is crucial to understand how diferent being educated in, and teaching in, a PRU is, and therefore how diferent a discourse on power and discipline is possible. Currently, being excluded to a PRU is a school's ultimate sanction and use of power for poor behaviour. The path for the creation of PRUs was laid down in the 1980s allowing the permanent exclusion of pupils from mainstream schools. Currently, there is no uniformity across the UK for how a PRU should function and meet the needs of its pupils. Instead a series of basic principles are laid down:

Many teachers within the UK education system will therefore have heard of a PRU but the discourses surrounding them are often negative. At their conception, PRUs (like APs now) were for a wide range of pupils who, for a number of reasons, could not attend their mainstream school. This might be due to illness or school phobia but PRUs also took pupils who had suddenly arrived in the area and had no named school to attend (Teachernet, 2005). However, the main route into a PRU for most young people was, and is, through permanent exclusion from their mainstream school or the risk of it. Government guidance says that, 'The decision to exclude a pupil needs to be robust, fair and defensible' (DfE, 2011) with subsequent advice requiring it to be 'lawful, reasonable and fair' (DfE, 2013/2015). There is no defnition of what these terms mean, and they are therefore open to interpretation by individual schools. This means that some young people can be permanently excluded for rather minor acts such as noncompliance to school rules, compared to others who may be excluded for extreme acts of physical assault or carrying a weapon.

PRUs, then, are often only known by mainstream schools to be the place that their unwanted pupils subsequently attend. That many PRUs are small in size adds to the situation that many mainstream staf never have the opportunity to meet with colleagues who work in alternative education settings as their chances of meeting each other are naturally reduced. Adding to this seclusion is the way that many PRUs develop their own cultural expectations of not being public about who they are or what they do and do not necessarily advertise their services or expertise. This therefore adds to the negative discourses surrounding the provisions, for surely educational establishments flled with unwanted and disagreeable young people cannot be positive or purposeful learning environments. PRUs, therefore, are cast in a dark and negative light. Mainstream schools have a role in this as they often reinforce the negativity of the establishments as a warning to errant pupils before their exclusion is unpreventable.

The mainstream school's responsibility for the excluded pupil ends the moment they start at a PRU. Mainstream schools' legal right to permanently exclude is bound by a responsibility to inform the parents and the governing body of the school correctly and to provide work for the pupil until they start at the PRU. As long as the mainstream school has lawful justifcation, they are entitled to permanently exclude a pupil and the local authority has a responsibility to provide alternative provision within six days (DfE, 2012).

## Discourses in my Former Setting: The Role and Remit of an Individual PRU

As discussed above, each local authority has a PRU or an AP and some have several catering for diferent ages or needs. How each specifc PRU or AP is set up and runs is unique to each individual setting. In my former role, I worked across the entire age range of the provision which caters for children aged fve to sixteen. However, when carrying out my doctoral research, I primarily worked with young children aged between fve and nine who displayed a range of SEN needs including social, emotional and communication needs. Many were working at an academic level signifcantly below their peers and had often missed large periods of time away from school due to their behaviour.

Within my former local authority the excluding schools are required to pass on the following information: the form outlining the reason for exclusion (this is where they tick the 'robust', 'reasonable' and 'fair' boxes), a copy of the letter sent to the parents and a very basic outline of the pupil's academic levels and wider needs. Although they were encouraged to share more, this rarely happened, for the act of exclusion and the demonstration of school power ends the relationship in the eyes of many school leaders. It is also important to note that these discourses of power do not solely apply to the pupils; they extend to their parents, who in many cases do not appeal the school's decision to exclude, although they have a legal right to do so. Instead they seem accepting of decisions and narratives put forth by the school about their child; many apparently believe that the school knows best when dealing with their

child's needs. The discourses held by staf within the PRU regarding exclusions are often one of frustration with the education system, both for allowing some young people to be excluded for reasons which seem unfair as well as for the execution of power by schools over parents.

In the UK, it is Black males who are at greatest risk of exclusion from school and those whose life chances are most afected by their lack of educational experiences (Andrews & Palmer, 2016). The North East where my PRU was located, due to the smaller numbers of pupils from ethnic minority backgrounds, ofers a counter-discourse to the nationwide picture of the type of pupil who is likely to be permanently excluded. Data held by the regional local authorities show that in 2010/2011 in the North East of England, there were 240 exclusions across KS1-4 and of those 220 were recorded as being White British. Therefore, the vast majority of pupils who were excluded in my local area were of White British origins, an alternative paradigm to that which is generally perceived at a macro-level by those in education.

The specifc remit of my former PRU was to re-engage these permanently excluded pupils and support them in moving to a new mainstream school. This again ofered a diferent discourse to that generally held by those at both a macro- and micro-level in education who perceive exclusion to be removing such pupils from mainstream schooling. The discourse from the PRU I worked within was one of social engagement, acceptance, and academic progress, as opposed to the need to use power and discipline to control pupils. Pupils largely stayed at the PRU for two terms. However, more complex cases would stay for a full academic year or longer. We ofered a broad curriculum with targeted, personalized interventions for those in need. Although making academic progress was often possible, more important was the social and emotional progress that was made. Any academic progress was the positive by-product of a successful placement. Pupils came from across the local authority and the majority were therefore educated outside of their local community when they came to the PRU. Those who lived over two miles away were eligible for free transport in a taxi resulting in many pupils making long journeys. The provision had space for up to 122 young people who were either excluded or at risk of exclusion. However, there was a degree of fexibility given we were the only PRU provision for excluded pupils in the county. This meant that the PRU's ideal staf-to-pupil ratio of 1:4 often became 1:7, and classrooms designed for eight pupils were forced to accommodate fourteen or more. As a consequence, there was less time to give pupils individual support and if there was a behavioural incident staf support was further reduced for its duration. When all the pupils have behavioural concerns, a setting is (and was) often understafed at such moments.

In summary, the discourses present within the specifc PRU I worked in related to power but from a very diferent perspective. Instead of discussions around the use of power by staf, the focus was on fnding ways to empower the young people we were responsible for. These pupils, subjects of power and discipline at their previous schools, often have limited experience in how to be part of the equal and reciprocal relationship we encouraged them to develop with staf. Whilst the use of disciplinary measures was still required, the focus was not to create hierarchy or distance. Instead measures were infuenced by principles of restorative justice which seeks to create a new paradigm in contrast to that of retribution (Hopkins, 2002).

## Development of my Research Methodology: Becoming a Journaler

I nitially, my research plans were very pupil-centred with a focus on trying to understand their perspectives and views of permanent exclusion. I sought answers around how an authentic voice could be found and which methods were useful in supporting SEN learners to share or record their voice for others. I was keen to understand what learners could add to the wider discourse around education in a PRU. During this earliest stage of my research and writing, I found it advantageous to have a notebook readily accessible, as many thoughts and events occurred that I wanted to record. During the research process my notepad developed into a journal, which ultimately led to a change of research direction to include a focus on teacher voice and my own learning experiences, shared through autoethnography.

In the later stages of my research, I began to hear the plurality of identities and voices recorded in my journals, those of myself as teacher, an academic and my own personal thoughts. Ultimately, I realized that autoethnographic accounts allow an insider perspective to be heard, specifcally that of a teacher learning, not only about her pupils, but about herself as a professional, as she attempts to counter the macro- and micro- discourses she has heard. It is this combination of teacher's voice and the use of autoethnography that I suggest can ofer an alternative way of sharing 'new' discourses around permanent exclusion and the PRU system to challenge those that are already established. Who better to share the discourses of working within a PRU than those employed there?

## Journaling as a Method of Recording Teacher Voice and Developing a New Discourse

#### First Research Journal — Personal Development

S o, I turn my focus to the use of journaling as a method of developing personal knowledge and forming new discourses. During the earliest stages of my research, my notebook was simply a lined school textbook belonging to a past pupil with the used pages torn out. This early recording was functional and contained to-do lists, *aide memoires* and scribbled notes. They did not contain any refection or scafolding of ideas, lacking what Engin suggests that a teacher's diary should contain (Engin, 2011). However, reading Moon's (1999) book, which details the benefts a learning journal can bring to personal development within higher education, encouraged me to change my approach. I started my frst research journal with this line: 'Current pupils I have and my thoughts…' (14.9.12 Research Journal 1).

My journal became a place where I discussed thoughts with myself, including emerging concerns about insider/outside research, especially the problem of sharing my 'voice' whilst maintaining my professional identity:

What struck me was that feld journals played a massive role in her (Lanas, 2011) research. She recorded so much detail. Sometimes beautifully so […] The researcher was not part of the community and therefore chose to show her emotions with the kids. I am not in that place and I need to act with them as I always have done. Professionalism? Yet dialogue is a two-way street. (16.9.12 Research Journal 1)

However, these moments were rare, and my journal largely focused on my pupils and the insights that I was having about their worlds and voices. As time progressed, I began to ask myself what my motivation for using a journal was. I had started to recognize that my focus had shifted at times to being about my own learning. This was something that I felt uncomfortable with initially:

I don't think I have found my own voice yet. True, I have only been keeping one since September, but I am yet to fnd me in it. Maybe I am too conscious of how other people write and what I should write like. It's funny that I am struggling with my own identity in this when I am so interested in the pupils' identity. (4.1.13 Research Journal 1)

Towards the end of that frst journal, my writing took a further change in direction, becoming more personal with an increased focus on my own identity and hardly any mention of the pupils at all:

Candlemas. Thinking back to my time in Chad's Chapel. That world all seems so long ago now yet I am still so fundamentally the same as I was. (2.2.13 Research Journal 1)

At this stage I had not even heard of the term autoethnography and my journals had certainly not been written with the intention of ever sharing them. Yet what they had allowed was a continuation of my own learning both in terms of my knowledge about the pupils and of my own identity. It was this development of my professional voice as a teacher ofering a new discourse on working with excluded pupils which became the focus of my second research journal.

Second Research Journal — Development of Teacher Voice

As discussed earlier, the dominant discourses in education in the UK are largely about power and control. However, through my journaling I began to see that there could be a diferent approach to the power relationship between staf and pupils. My own refections highlighted that, within my classroom, my use of 'power' was very diferent to the national cultural climate I was working within and the dominant discourses found in education. I explored my own understanding of my relationship with my pupils, considering whether it was possible to have friendly and loving relationships with pupils. I wondered if the act of working in a PRU had afected my moral compass as a teacher, leading me to view it as a vocation rather than a profession (Buijs, 2005).

I became aware that I was building a counter-discourse to that more commonly accepted:

Reading about vocation in education. One article by Schwarz (Schwarz, 1999) quotes Huebner (Huebner, 1996) saying that vocation in teaching allows teachers to talk about feelings and themselves — I like! […] So, after all of that reading, what do I make of teaching as a vocation? I think I am more convinced that it is, yet aware that the way we are judged is a professional one with a set of standards, etc. (3.3.13 Research Journal 2)

Through this learning, I began to feel a sense of frustration that my professional voice, at odds with the dominant discourse of power I encountered on a daily basis, was unheard within the micro-setting of my local area and the macro-setting of the wider educational context within the UK. An example of this frustration was when the local area education department applied new restrictions on the physical support that we could give pupils. For us, physical interventions were not a means of exercising power or controlling behaviour: our rationale was to protect the young person, their peers, and staf from injury. However, the education department in the local area established new rules across all schools. Schools must try a wider range of more punitive measures before physical intervention could be used. Whilst I appreciated that within the mainstream schools this had some value, I believed that this was at odds with the type of setting that I worked in and I was angry that there had been no scope to share my thoughts:

So my frustration is this. Change management. How this was decided and translated to us was by word of mouth. No discussion. No evaluation. No understanding of the job we do. They want to cut exclusion rates and MIR rates [major incident reports — the use of physical intervention] but the efect on the rest of the pupils' learning is dramatic. (2.5.13 Research Journal 2)

My journals had allowed me to weave my own thoughts with my research and reading on wider issues. They were a tangible record of my own adult learning and my developing voice as a teacher speaking against the dominant discourses of education. Yet they remained private and book bound. This was to change through the use of autoethnography when I realized that I could share my own learning at an academic level by sharing my own narratives in my thesis.

## The Use of Autoethnography as a Means of Sharing Teacher Voice and Alternative Discourses

I was actually six months into my research when, having realized that my journals and emerging writing had become really focused on my own learning, I stumbled across autoethnography as a legitimate methodology. It was a chance reading of a text by Moriarty with the title 'Leaving the blood in' (Moriarty, 2013) that made me realize that, without knowing it, I was writing autoethnographically. Moriarty's title summed up all that I felt about my own writing so far. However, I also realized that I had taken on a new battle with a new set of dominant discourses: traditional academia. Moriarty sums this up succinctly:

I suppose he helped me to believe that I could do it on my own terms but that I had to be realistic about what those terms were in relation to a dominant and oppressive discourse that had thrived for hundreds of years. Let me make it clear: I did not knock down any walls when I completed my thesis but I tried to take part in helping those already at work building the tunnel through, the bridge over and the road around the concrete mass that is conventional academic research. (Moriarty, 2013, p. 75)

Whilst I found some validity in the criticisms of the method as discussed by Delamont (Delamont, 2009), I found a greater wealth of material about the use of autoethnography to share adult experiences of their own learning in an open and accessible way. Although the evocative nature of some of this writing, such as that by Ellis (Ellis, 2004), was not something that I felt professionally comfortable with, I encountered writing by a range of people involved within education. One author who became important for my own research was Clough (Clough, 2002), who wrote about his own experiences as a teacher using fctionalized narratives to protect his professional identity and the identities of the pupils he wrote about. This went beyond simply anonymizing his writing. He created entire scenes and situations that had not necessarily happened in the manner in which he presented them yet contained the 'truth' of the events that had occurred.

Combining both autoethnography and fctionalization in this way enabled me to discuss my learning experiences in my thesis, share my voice as a teacher and show an alternative educational discourse about

working in a PRU whilst maintaining the professionalism required of me in my role as a teacher. Specifcally relating to discourses of power and discipline, I was able to share my own stories and those of my pupils and show how these relationships can be positive, balanced and shape each other (Clandinin et al., 2006). The voices of insiders, such as practitioner researchers like me, are able to provide an honest and reliable understanding of the impact of educational discourses in PRU settings as well as ofering an alternative perspective. There is a wealth of experience and knowledge hidden in classrooms all over the United Kingdom, yet it is largely unseen. However, insider research can achieve an understanding that an outsider might not as successfully achieve (Brannick & Coghlan, 2007) and this is especially true regarding the sharing of discourses from specifc settings which may be counter to those at a macro-level.

#### The Use of Journaling in Education Settings

As previously discussed, my use of a journal grew out of keeping a notebook and was then further infuenced by reading academic research (Moon, 1999). I continued to use it beyond the end of my research as I became aware that it was a tool with wider uses. Keeping a journal was not a natural act and was a discipline I needed to learn. As a child, I had repeatedly tried to be an active writer and keep a journal, infuenced by prolifc writers such as Jane Austen. I was never successful and grew into an adult who assumed that I had nothing worthy of being written about.

After I started to use a journal for my thesis, I began to understand that I had a misconception about what, and who, a journal was for. My doctoral journals were not written to be shared with anyone else but for me alone. I grew to understand that my journal was a 'paper mirror' rather than a document I needed to construct to appease an unknown audience (Hubbs & Brand, 2005). This awareness meant that my writing became free. I was able to write about and discuss challenging subjects. My journal became a safe 'space' where I could write my way through demanding situations — and there were many in a setting that was undergoing cultural change. This space was important: there were often issues that I did not want to discuss with colleagues who, like me, were struggling to protect their own emotional and mental wellbeing.

In the UK, the teaching profession has been subjected to many changes at a macro-level which have impacted upon the micro-level working lives of staf. In 2015, 10% of teachers left the profession (Worth et al., 2015). Many of them cited the negative impact of teaching on their wellbeing and the lack of support for this at a school level (Simon & Johnson, 2015). Journaling enabled me to identify and address issues that were afecting my wellbeing at an early stage. This self-refection, using my journal as a mirror, meant that I was able to work through some of my concerns, often fnding my inner voice an aid in problemsolving (Boden et al., 2006). Keeping a journal enabled me to make sense of my professional life as a teacher and align this to my personal beliefs; to fnd a degree of security in knowing who I was and being able to maintain this self-belief. In turn, this meant that I was able to understand that the negative experiences I was having at work were not a personal attack but were instead the product of the changing climate within education.

### Conclusions

I n this chapter I have highlighted the current dominant discourses within the UK education system relating to power and discipline which are punitive in nature and balanced in the favour of the adults in schools. I have shown how these dominant discourses have infuenced schools at an individual level through having a direct efect on their behaviour policies and school ethos. I have then shown how a journal, and the space it creates to express voice through autoethnography, can be used as a tool to enable a diferent discourse; one that counters that which is accepted as the established norm. Staf working in education during periods of cultural change (or personal stress) could efectively use journals to foster a sense of wellbeing.

To maintain the continued development of teacher voices through the use of autoethnography and fctionalized narratives to counter the dominant discourses, is crucial in shaping the education system at a micro- and subsequently macro-level. Current discourses of power and discipline have created a narrative whereby pupils who are permanently excluded and are educated in a PRU are viewed negatively and are seen as both perpetrators of discord and a challenge to the authority and power of adults in schools. Such pupils are seen as requiring disciplinary measures to readdress the power balance. The current discourses also lead to a belief that all adults in education share this hierarchical viewpoint and this allows the discourses to be continually perpetuated.

Current movements within the UK education system which began as grassroots initiatives (such as The Chartered College of Teaching and WomenEd), are beginning to bridge the gap between the discourses from within individual classrooms and those held at both local authority and national levels. However, it is also important to develop the use of teacher voice at an individual level to enable professionals to share their own narratives of experience, some of which may ofer a counterdiscourse to that which is generally accepted. There is still a lot to be done to strengthen links between the micro-level of individual school development and ethos and macro-level Government policy. It would be benefcial if future research were to map the infuence that such personal learning at the micro-level of individual school development and ethos can have at the macro-level of Government policy.

#### References

Andrews, K. & Palmer, L.A. (2016). *Blackness in Britain*. Abingdon: Routledge.

# 27. Reflections on a Creative Arts Project to Explore the Resilience of Young Adults with a Muslim Background in Finland

*Helena Oikarinen-Jabai*

Helena Oikarinen-Jabai discusses her involvement in a participatory project that combines a social science framework and creative methods. She describes how young Finnish women with Muslim backgrounds explored their diverse embodied cultural in-between spaces and sense of belonging by creating artworks as part of the research process. This chapter ofers a glimpse of the challenges to be met within an interdisciplinary research project.

I n this chapter, I discuss some of the challenges that arose whilst working as a researcher on a project that sought to explore the resilience of young adults from a Muslim background.1 The project embraced a participatory framework and used arts-based approaches that enabled self-expression. This 'sharing of control' and freedom of form allowed the nature of the project to evolve, creating new understandings of diversity among the participant and associated Muslim communities. It also indirectly captured resilience through the

<sup>1</sup> The research project, 'Young Muslims and Resilience: A Participatory Study', was based in the Department of Social Research at the University of Helsinki between 2016 and 2018. It was funded by the Kone Foundation, which supports 'bold initiatives in research and art'.

actions and initiatives that ensued and the tensions that arose during the process. For me, it raised many unanticipated issues and my intention, here, is to discuss the challenges of merging performative and arts-based approaches with a more traditional qualitative social studies methodology; a process that left me feeling that I was often 'trapezing between paradigms'.

For me this was not a new experience but a continuation of my earlier research with young people with an immigrant or minority background. Previously, I had clearly shown that participants with a Muslim lineage (specifcally a group of young Finnish Somalis) wanted the productions they created during the research process (exhibitions, books, TV and radio documentaries) to challenge existing racial, national, ethnic, gender and religious stereotypes and create new positions for cultural citizenship (see Hua, 2011; Oikarinen-Jabai, 2018). The study I discuss here was therefore a natural progression, ofering me a chance to understand better the multiple positionings of young adults (aged 20 to 35) belonging to a religious group that is often demonized in public discussions in Finland and other Western countries (Ernst, 2003; Oikarinen-Jabai, 2018). In this new project, I was to concentrate primarily on working with female participants with difering ethnic, religious and national backgrounds — part of a group that also included fve young male participants. Among other outputs, the study resulted in an exhibition, 'Numur — Islam and I' (in Helsinki in 2017, in Turku in 2018) that presented the artworks of eighteen young people, including the fve female and fve male participants, plus eight artists participating only in the exhibitions. Members of local Muslim youth organizations arranged additional workshops and seminars.

Our methodological background was performative and artsbased, incorporating a specifc resilience methodology, devised by Michael Ungar and colleagues (Didkowsky, Ungar & Liebenberg, 2010; Liebenberg & Ungar, 2009). The overall goals and research questions were fairly wide-ranging, but despite this, appeared to steer the research process in ways that caused this diverse group of participants to be categorized in essentialist ways that obscured intersectionality, an outcome I found problematic.

### Resilience: The Concept and Ways to Capture It

Though now more broadly applicable, the idea of resilience was originally used in the social sciences, where the concept was generally criticized for being too vague, multidimensional and value-laden (Luthar, Cichetti & Becker 2000). Ungar (2004), a therapist employing a social ecological approach and both solutiontherapeutic and system-theoretical thinking, addressed these criticisms by restructuring the concept and deepening its theoretical and methodological underpinnings. This was of particular interest to me, as at the time I was undergoing training in solution-focused therapy. Yet, despite this, I found it problematic to apply the methodology in contexts unconnected to social work or therapy. The resilience method as set out in our research plan, involved each participant taking photographs during a one-week period and researchers videotaping a day in the participants' life. The videos were then to be watched by the research group, who would select a small number of fve-minute sections which were deemed to refect the resilience of the participants. These sections would then be watched and analysed together with the participants, to identify jointly the resilience factors within these sections and, consequently, in the participants' everyday lives.

This kind of methodology may be of beneft in some action research projects, but for our small research group, hours of video flming and subsequent analysis of the material seemed an almost impossible mission. Furthermore, the young adults involved in the research had already found their place in society. They knew their strengths and were familiar with the social structures that supported or rejected their personal decisions. For them, such an approach appeared strange and unattractive. In contrast, being involved in an artistic process would enable them to share their personal experiences and ambiguous questions with the research group and audience, to deepen their own interests and communicate their own visions and views. Moreover, the structured plan was in confict with arts-based and performative creative approaches, which generally emphasize the process, dialogue, diferent ways of knowing, potential spaces, transitions and border crossings (Conquergood, 2009; Jungnickel & Hjorth, 2014; Minh-ha, 2011; O'Neill, 2008; Rolling, 2010). This methodological dissonance raised a number

of theoretical and practical challenges that we faced during the research project. Though, as I worked primarily with the female participants, I will concentrate mostly on their processes and artworks but frst look generally at how the project unfurled.

#### Researchers and Schedules

As is often the case with collaborative research projects, our study plan was quickly stitched together by people from diferent felds, backgrounds and life situations. Furthermore, during the research period, the composition of the researchers and participants changed, and this created further unplanned ambiguities around our intentions and actions. There were initially three of us: a project leader and two researchers comprising myself and my colleague (a PhD student from Somalia who was to be supervised by the project leader). A fourth person, a research assistant was hired at an early stage and, being a Muslim herself, used her networks to fnd the female participants.

My role in the project was mainly to work with female participants and to help my colleague shoot and analyse the videos and data collected with male participants. This colleague planned to conduct observations and interviews at mosques and other Muslim gatherings and events in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area in order to understand the sense of belonging, citizenship, roots of radicalization and resilience factors of young Finnish Muslim men. After that, he would conduct a follow up study with a smaller group of informants using performative, visual and related methods. However, at the beginning of the second year, he decided to abandon his doctoral studies. In late spring, he was replaced by two individuals: a young man who had previously been a participant and a male researcher who was particularly interested in Muslim Youth organizations. An intern was also hired to help in planning the exhibition, so we became a team of six, plus the participants.

By the second year, the female participants had begun working with the art pieces that they wanted to include in the exhibition. However, most male participants were recruited by the former participant — who was now one of the replacement researchers — from the Muslim youth organization to which he belonged. They created photographic material and were interviewed about it as part of the project and were subsequently invited to participate further. However, they only began working with their ideas in the summer and autumn of 2017, so our timings were disparate. Nevertheless, everything was ready by November 2017 for the exhibition at Stoa, the Cultural Centre of Eastern Helsinki, which is located in an area with a multicultural population. In March 2018 the second exhibition took place at the Institute of Migration, in Turku, accompanied by seminars and workshops organized by people from local Muslim youth organizations, so in respect of its public face, the project fulflled its intentions. But, at the local level, the research activities were more fuid.

#### In the Field: Modifying Methodological Approaches

I began work with the female participants and found them reluctant to follow the proposed data-collection procedures. Instead of taking photographs over a one-week period, some wanted to choose photos they already had, others wished to extend the process to photograph their forthcoming travels abroad. They disliked the idea of a 'day-in-the-life' video; so, I agreed to flm with them in places they found empowering. Thus, the research assistant and I followed those who agreed to participate to locations that they chose: to cafés, their childhood places, schools, museums, mosques or the countryside. These sessions often ended up resembling a deep, non-directive interview. For example, one participant, caring for her new-born baby on her lap, shared her ideas on motherhood, religion, and her own career at a mosque and Shia cultural centre, where her media company also had a studio. I consider that our meeting was empowering for her: it inspired her to continue flming in her free time and create a video-based artwork for the exhibition even if it failed to follow the planned formats.

In the interviews with the female participants, the central themes that arose were gender and sexuality, motherhood, spirituality, relationship to Islam, aesthetics and being in between diferent ethnic, gender, racial and class identifcations and languages. These were also themes that the participants wished to address with their art works for the exhibition, and I became interested in creating an installation on multilingualism, a topic that connected all the participants. Our project had a limited amount of funds allocated to the artistic activities of the participants and researchers, so I sought, and managed to get, extra funding to recruit an art student to our workgroup to help with the video works and recordings. Thus, our team gained a new member.

From the outset, some of the female participants had highlighted the need for the exhibition to show respect for diversity and to allow multiple approaches and various perspectives on religion and many of their artworks touched on gender and diversity issues. Although these themes were evident in the exhibition itself, they were overlooked in the seminars and workshops created around the exhibitions. Moreover, in some cases, the male participants even attempted to limit the female participants' artistic expression. Again, I felt that I was balancing on a trapeze traversing two contradictory positions, as the relative importance of the artwork and other qualitative data was never clearly established in our research team. It remained unclear whether the art constituted core research or it was simply visual or textual co-production alongside more important interview material. Such ambivalence is worth discussing further and touches on a range of historical and ideological positions.

## Beyond the Field: Considering the Theoretical Frameworks

Resilience studies are usually conducted in a traditional quantitative and/or qualitative research setting, even if the focus of the analysis is the content co-produced with the participants. Moreover, reporting often concentrates on statistical measures of resilience to develop public health, human wellbeing and social policy (Didkowsky, Ungar & Liebenberg, 2010; Windle, Bennett & Noyes, 2011). Visual methods provide an alternative or complementary approach for use in studies of resilience because they may address problems associated with interviews, such as power imbalances, young participants' lack of engagement in the research process, and language barriers (Didkowsky, Ungar & Liebenberg, 2010). Furthermore, by including the participants' own ideas of construction and representation, images act as a catalyst for transforming thoughts and understandings of self and society (Liebenberg & Ungar, 2009).

Nevertheless, using visual data does not change the methodological limitations of qualitative research, such as its emphasis on written outcomes. Thus, researchers have increasingly employed practice-based performative research, which is experiential both for the participating informants and for the researcher (Haseman, 2006). Practice-based methodology can be enriched by familiar qualitative methods, but research outputs and knowledge claims are most often created through symbolic language, such as creative writing, music, drama, dance, (audio)visual methods and digital media, with little interest in attempting to translate the fndings and understandings of practice into numbers (quantitative) and words (qualitative) (Haseman, 2006). Practice-based performative research can be defned as an independent paradigm, emerging from relativist ontology and celebrating multiple constructed realities and interpretative epistemologies where the knower and the known interact, shape and interpret the other. This represents something more than 'the performance turn', which can be understood as a form of emancipatory action through embodied and enacted storytelling (Bauman, 1977; Haseman, 2006).

Maggie O'Neill (2008) combines ethnography and arts into the idea of 'ethno-mimesis', an approach that includes producing fction and art works, trusting diferent ways of knowing through the research process and underlining the enthusiasm for practice instead of the problem (see Barone, 2006; Barone & Eisner, 2012; Rolling, 2010; Tolia-Kelly 2007). Borrowing from diferent narrative, performative and arts-based epistemologies, the performative approach emphasizes practice as a precondition for engagement, and widens understanding of knowledge and data production in the context of the social sciences (Haseman, 2006; Jungnickel & Hjorth, 2014; O'Neill 2008; Rolling, 2010).

Experimental and performative approaches have various roots. Since the 19th century, racialized people have developed academic strategies that lean on embodied and localized ways of knowing and, in this fashion, have criticized the hegemonic standpoints existing in academia (Conquergood, 2009; hooks, 1990). In addition, many philosophers and educators, including Buber (1970/1923), Dewey (2005/1934) and Freire (1970/1968), have emphasized the empowering capabilities of sensuous, narrative and dialogical knowledge in educational settings and human encounters. Since the 1980s, various scholars working in social science or ethnographic and (art)educational felds (such as Barone, 2006; Denzin, 2003; Richardson, 1997) have introduced practices that provide the space to understand knowledge production in wider terms.

Many feminist scholars, especially women belonging to diversifed groups or minorities, have created fresh approaches for critically examining the standpoints, power relations and hierarchy hidden in academic theories, methods and reporting (see Anzaldúa & Moraga, 1983; Conquergood, 2009; hooks, 1990). Similarly, many continental feminists, such as Julia Kristeva (1980), Helene Cixous (1993) and Luce Irigaray (2002), have emphasized the superiority of experimental and poetic writing, autoethnographies and fction for deconstructing language and deepening understanding of social structures and human encounters.

In performance studies, the notion of performativity is often linked to J.L. Austin's (1955) linguistic notion of the speech act as a performance. For instance, according to Judith Butler's constructivist approach, subjectivity is established through repeated performances as a result of pre-existing rigid discourses, such as those of 'gender,' 'race', or 'sexuality' (Butler, 1993; Friedman, 2002). Moreover, Victor Turner's (1967) ideas of betwixt and between have inspired performance and performativity researchers. For Richard Schechner, performance and performativity — understood as intertwined spheres of entertainment, healing, education and ritualizing — are symbolic forms of cultural/ artistic expressions that may expand the distance between the performer and what or who is being represented (Friedman, 2002, Schechner, 1993, p. 20). Post-structuralist Derridean performance can be understood as 'representation without reproduction', where performed living bodies 'are forever cut from what they represent' (Phelan, 1993, pp. 148–49; in Friedman, 2002), or as a bridge between individuals, genres and cultures that may lead us towards the other side of speech and as representations where no narrative can describe the opened boundary between diferent approaches to sensing the world (Minh-ha, 2011, p. 94).

Yet, the ideological position framing our overall research process remained unspecifed and unclear. As a personal construction, I felt that my feldwork process was supported by the idea of unfnished knowledge (Yuval-Davis, 1997), which allows the simultaneous presence of epistemologically diverse perspectives. Unfnished knowledge is based on Martin Buber's (1970/1923) notion of dialogue, in which 'I' encounters another person not as an objectifed 'it' but as part of an interconnected 'I-Thou' relationship, which he also considers the foundation of artistic practice and works of art. Further, 'nomadic inquiry' (St. Pierre, 2005), exploration and writing that departs from representationalism and interpretation, supported the exploration of diferent intertwined spheres of performance during the materialcreation and research process.

The 'potential spaces' and landscapes created within the dialogues and artworks exposed diasporic experiences, multiple senses of belonging and the intersectional practices of diferentiation, thereby allowing the fusion of embodied experiences, collected/produced material and diferent ways of knowing in the research reporting (O'Neill, 2008: Oikarinen-Jabai, 2018). This also allowed the participants' resilience to be approached through embodied intersectional perspectives, where agency and the ability to defne their own citizenship and positionings in social, cultural and religious discussions became an important key for appreciating personal empowerment (Oikarinen-Jabai, 2018; Ungar, 2004).

#### From the Field: Issues Made Visible

Muslims or Young People with a Muslim Background?

Alongside the project's theoretical and methodological confusion, the word Muslim in our research title created certain questions and tensions from the outset. Rather than approaching Tatars (the oldest Muslim community in Finland) or frst-generation Muslim immigrants, we had mainly contacted second-generation citizens when recruiting our research participants. It transpired that, even among our small group of co-researchers, their relationship to religion difered. For many, religious identity was just one identifcation intersecting with other important locations or metaphorical spaces of belonging. Indeed, religious traditions, local ways of living and cultural values vary widely between countries with Muslim majorities, as well as between Muslim diaspora communities around the world. Thus, it is somewhat strange to use Muslims as an essential expression for a group of people with such varied backgrounds (see Ernst, 2003), and it is important to avoid further 'othering' the participants (Cooke & Kothari, 2001) when grouping people together in this way. Furthermore, on a stage built like this, researchers may fnd themselves trapezing between diferent academic, social, psychological and embodied domains, and they must be careful to avoid strengthening social hierarchies and reproducing the dominant hegemonic agenda (Koobak, 2014).

#### Diversity of Approach

Working with the female participants reinforced the idea that people with Muslim backgrounds are an extremely heterogeneous ensemble. From the beginning, it was clear that many of the young women were motivated to participate in the study by the issues with which they were struggling at the time, such as career plans, refections on women's roles and rights, and questions about Queer Islam or cultural citizenship. The young women emphasized pluralist values and critically approached, among other things, questions of gender, belonging and some ethnic and religious customs in their artworks.

One young artist with a textile-design background created an installation called *Suf-Masa*, which depicts a whirling dervish dancer. Through her work, she brought an important dimension of Islamic spirituality to the research setting (see Figure 27.1).

Another participant used her photographs and poems (and collages based on these works) to explore a queer perspective in an Islamic context, which in Finland, as well as in many other countries, is a sensitive topic inside the Muslim community. A third female participant commented on her belonging/not belonging and the stereotypes and restrictions that she encountered as a young woman with a Somali background in both Finnish society and her ethnic community, through her installation *Inside/Outside the Box*. This installation included a video, shown inside a chamber constructed from black cloth, of her encountering artworks at the Finnish National Gallery and wandering in the cultural landscapes of Helsinki. Outside the gloomy box, she hung photographs presenting places that she found important and empowering in Finland and abroad. The fourth of the female participants I worked alongside, wrote poems expressing her diferent senses of belonging and cultural citizenship

Fig. 27.1 The installation *Sufi-Masa* (2017). *Source:* Author.

between multiple positions and embodied landscapes, presenting them on a traditional Sudanese cloth embroidered with beads (see Figure 27.2).

A ffth participant discussed her belonging and spirituality by creating a video letter to her daughter. She had already begun flming during the birth of her child and continued over the space of one year by videotaping everyday life, family trips, her work and spiritual life. Furthermore, some photos taken by female participants from my earlier research and photographs, paintings and texts produced by some young

Fig. 27.2 A poem written by a participant. *Source:* Author.

women belonging to a Muslim youth organization were included in the exhibition.

The young men's working process started relatively late. All the participants were active in a Muslim youth organization, and much of the creative work they presented at the exhibition was somehow connected to religion and religious or activist identities. Two of them made videos that were connected to the work of Muslim youth organizations and Islamophobia. One man made digitally produced calligraphy paintings, another produced a series of photographs of the places in Helsinki that were important to him, while a third created little boxes covered with mosaic print that opened like books revealing quotes from, for example, the Quran and Malcolm X. In addition, two other male artists participated in the exhibition, presenting their poems, and, in the case of one, pieces of jewellery inspired by the diferent traditions and religions in between which he had grown up and exists.

#### Tensions Within the Group

While planning the exhibition, diferences over the proposed content created some tensions, both between the participants and among members of the research group. For example, a heated discussion arose about the frst suggestion for the name of the exhibition, which involved the word Muslim. Two of the female participants were particularly insistent that they should be introduced as people with a Muslim background — not Muslims — and suggested that the name for the exhibition be 'Numur — Islam and I' (instead of Young Muslims). The word Numur, meaning small tigers, had previously been proposed by some female participants as the basis for the exhibition's logo. Although some of the male participants considered the image of small tigers an inappropriate representation for the exhibition in the current Islamophobic climate, the word was retained in the title.

Another image that provoked impassioned discussions was a photograph taken by one of the female participants, which we had also used as the background image on the research webpage. The photographer had captured her feet as she stood on her prayer mat (see Figure 27.3). When pieces of the photograph were used as part of a mosaic print for the background illustration of the exhibition poster, together with some other excerpts of photographs taken by the female participants, some male participants objected, claiming that the photograph was unsuitable in this context because it depicted naked feet. Thus, the clippings showing feet and prayer items were cut from the fnal version of the poster.

Fig. 27.3 *My prayer mat*, a photograph taken by a participant. *Source:* Author.

The process of creating the exhibitions became rather chaotic, as nobody really managed the planning and curating, perhaps because so many people were involved. For example, the workshops that had initially been planned around the themes introduced by the female participants never occurred. However, the project assistant and the intern created a guided tour for schools, and this provided an educational dimension to the exhibition. As some of the participants were involved in guiding the student groups around the exhibition, they were able to receive feedback on their artworks and engage in a dialogue with the audience; moreover, some were involved in organizing handicraft workshops for children, alongside the workshops and seminars directed by the local Muslim youth organizations.

Many people attended the opening of the exhibition in Helsinki, including friends of the artists, members of the research group, members of Islamic organizations and local citizens. Nasima Razmyar, one of the deputy mayors of Helsinki and herself a young woman with a Muslim background, gave a moving opening speech. It was apparent that an event like this was signifcant to many Finnish people having their roots in Islam. In Turku, however, some tensions arose even between diferent cooperating Muslim youth groups. In the opening ceremony these tensions were apparent when a conservative Imam spoke on behalf of one organization, while two female members of another organization performed pop songs, which were considered impious by the other group.

## Leaving the Field: In Which Direction Does the Trapeze Swing?

Katrina Jungnickel and Larissa Hjorth (2014) observe that methods do not remain untouched by practice, rather, they are transformed by the subject and content. This also occurred in our project, which — even by the rather strict methodological limitations imposed upon it — managed to reveal some subjugated realities and provide space for imagination, border crossings and cultural citizenship (Conquergood, 2009; Hua, 2011; St. Pierre, Jackson & Mazze, 2016). Consequently, the exhibition ofered a site for a diverse group of young people with Muslim backgrounds to discuss their varied sense of belonging and their relationship to Islam.

The research process itself challenged the divisive epistemology and problem-centred approach defned in the research plan. The methods and goals created for the plan were simultaneously specifc and broad, and as such they failed to adequately support the enthusiasm and creativity of the participants and researchers. However, by trusting in the unfnished research process and by travelling the borders where meaning dissipated, a dialogue was opened around the ideas and artworks created and presented by the participants, becoming a kind of nomadic inquiry and transforming the research setting (Haseman 2006; St. Pierre, 2005). For example, the original idea of videotaping a day in the participants' life transpired to be both practically and methodologically problematic. Likewise, the original plan to categorize participants by, for example, their sect, ethnicity, social class, or their own or their parents' occupation appeared strange in a creative research process which wanted participants to explore their sense of belonging (and resilience) by using artistic approaches. Ultimately, for example in the research catalogue, everyone introduced themselves in their own style, and underlying tensions could be found between the lines of these introductions. For instance, the participant dealing with queer perspectives wrote a more poignant text for the second exhibition, expressing her disappointment with patriarchal and dogmatic interpretations of Islam.

#### Where the Project Leaves the Researcher

I learned a great deal through such a creative research process, and this learning continues. The issues the participants dealt with in their work were inspiring and eye-opening. For example, my perception of Helsinki changed as a consequence of participating with the young Somali woman in making the video that recorded her visit to the Finnish national art collection and in the shadows of Helsinki's cultural monuments and landscapes. Seeing a mosque and Muslim cultural centre through the eyes of a young woman who worked and prayed there, and who wanted to remove the curtain that separated male and female visitors, flled me with admiration for people who give their leisure time to developing such places, which are open to everyone. I also learnt how traditional Kurdish designs are combined with modern styles and became familiar with Sudanese society and customs, life in Lebanese villages, North-African architecture, the Suf faith and Queer Islam. Furthermore, I heard many stories of resilience told spontaneously.

Perhaps because of these experiences, I was confused when the male participants and members of the participating Muslim Youth organizations began to transform the exhibition into what I interpreted as a presentation of active and even 'pure' religious values. Certainly, the young women's artworks remained part of the exhibition, but somehow their message was 'veiled'. This both refected and endorsed the problematic positions and expectations arising from living in between Finnish society and their ethnic and religious communities, which many of the participants had discussed at the beginning of the process.

#### Where the Project Leaves Research

I t is unlikely that the female participants followed all the discussions, for example concerning the layout of the poster, as they were not active visitors on the project's Facebook pages. However, for me these incidents raised many questions concerning the positionings of research and researcher and, moreover, the interpretation of visuality and the arts in diferent Muslim communities. Furthermore, they also led me to consider who had the right to speak for Muslims, especially for young people with a Muslim background, and decide what was correct and appropriate. At the exhibition, it became clear that some Muslim audiences were disturbed by particular artworks. For example, some interpreted *Suf-Masa* as unorthodox; others were disturbed by a pair of photographs of Imam Hussain's (a founder of the Shia sect) fag, one of which was depicted in rainbow colours; and some could not accept the collage *Face of God*, which presented the idea of God as potentially female.

These questions, in turn, gave rise to others concerning research practices and approaches to organizing exhibitions. For example, is possible negative feedback from audiences a reason to censor the way an art exhibition is presented? Furthermore, should customs concerning art practices and visual culture be adapted diferently to suit people with Muslim backgrounds? And fnally, are incidents like those I describe unavoidable if researchers listen to diferent epistemological understandings and become entangled in messy 'rootings' and 'shiftings' (Yuval-Davis, 1997) within the feld-research process (Jungnickel & Hjorth, 2014)?

In her essays in *Key writings*, Irigaray (2004) discusses politics, language, art, sensuality, religion and the importance of fnding new ways to understand each other in a world where borders are both dissolving and strengthening. In Irigaray's suggestion to let the subject go and accept the limitations of our ability to co-exist with whom or what exceeds us, extends beyond us and remains exterior and foreign to us (ibid., 2004, p. 25), I hear echoes of Buber (1970/1923). In order to create a dialogue, Irigaray underscores the importance of recognizing the diference between the sexes, as Western culture has cultivated the male subject while leaving women without subjectivity. I wonder, could her ideas promote understanding of epistemological and even ontological standpoints concerning the strict division between gender positions — positions which I interpreted as existing behind the specifc phenomena discussed in these pages — and help create encounters and transgressions on the borders (Irigaray, 2004, pp. 26–27, Oikarinen-Jabai, 2019).

Unfencing the Field: Embracing Instability and Plurality

James Haywood Rolling writes:

There is no one set of criteria for judging the artistic quality of a work of arts-based research just as there is no one paradigm for the beauty of a work of art; for some, the beauty of a work of art is in the aesthetics of its forms and the mastery of its techniques, for others, it is in the authenticity and expressiveness of voice, and for still others, in the incisiveness of its social critique. (Rolling, 2010, p. 104)

The same may hold true for research that uses creative methods. In our research, certainly both the researchers and co-researchers had diferent ideas, not only about methodological inquiries but also about art, its content and its functions. Perhaps the participants from religious organizations considered the project their own in a way that other participants did not. Moreover, their participation probably produced more answers to the questions posed by the original research plan. Anyhow, the way that diferent works of art, which — dare I say — even ofered varied perspectives and epistemological standpoints on Islam, were presented under the same roof may provoke further discussion inside the community and inspire participants to continue their research and creative artwork.

For me personally, the research has been and, I hope, will remain an eye-opening process, promoting understanding of the multiple realities encountered by diferent research communities and especially by young women with a Muslim background. Moreover, it is still possible to continue working with the ideas that arose at diferent stages of the process, including my unrealized plans for a multilingual installation. Research can be conducted in many ways, for example by posing questions about the perception of a phenomenon, explaining that phenomenon through a rich and analytical description of its qualities, or experimenting with the phenomenon in a hands-on intervention that engages with its limits and possibilities (Rolling, 2010). Adopting Deleuze and Guattari's term 'micro-becomings' (1983, p. 70), Rolling (ibid., p. 107) describes how 'Arts-based research practices manifest themselves as poststructural and erosive pathways, fowing over, through, around, and under scientifc and social scientifc, quantitative, and qualitative epistemologies in a rhizomatic fligree of "microbecomings"', capturing the fexibility inherent in artistic endeavour.

Maybe it is time to jump from the research trapeze onto a trampoline that may at diferent times, and in diferent contexts, fing one in unpredictable directions. Experimental research leaning on performativity, arts and embodied knowledge can take many directions and discover new paths (Pink & Leder Mackley, 2014; Tolia-Kelly, 2007). It was inspirational, therefore, to discover at an international conference in South Africa in June 2017,2 that resilience researchers in diferent parts of the world are open to diverse approaches and practise their work by leaning on multiple methodologies, interdisciplinary sources and embodied knowledge. This fexibility encourages further experimentation and engagement with the feld and may enable diverse groups within society to be heard and to claim cultural citizenship rights and dignity.

<sup>2</sup> Pathways to Resilience IV: Global South Perspectives, organized by the Resilience Centre in Cape Town, June 2017.

### References

## 28. Discourses, Cultural Narratives, and Genre in Biographical Narratives: A Personal Overview

*Marianne Horsdal*

Marianne Horsdal considers diferent approaches and projects using biographical narrative methods, drawing on a lifetime of experience as an educator and researcher in Denmark. This is a concise but artfully composed account, which is set within a historical and theoretical context.

The invitation to contribute to this book asked us 'to interrogate the discourses we live by and consider how they are present in cultural narratives, and how they are relevant to the real life contexts of adult education and of people's life histories, and to question to what extent people's accounts are shaped by the understandings already held', and this is what I have done.

During a quarter of a century of research on biographical narratives a signifcant part of my analysis has been to identify and examine the cultural narratives expressed in the life stories right from the beginning. I rarely use the term 'discourse' in my books and articles on biographical narrative research, but this does not mean that I object to the terms used in the invitation. I only prefer the term cultural narratives in order to distance myself from the theories on narrative, which in the postmodern line of thought only wanted to speak of discourse. In viewing biographical narratives, also, as a purely linguistic phenomenon, such theorists abstained from any cognitive, embodied or phenomenological approach to the life story narratives.

My immediate answer to the question posed in the invitation is clear: People's accounts of their lives are to a very great extent shaped by understandings which may be termed and analysed as discourses or cultural narratives, that is as understandings already held in the communities and societies in which the narrators interact. What is interesting, however, is the way the cultural narratives or discourses appear in the stories.

## Biographical Narratives

When someone is asked to tell about her life — in an interview, in an interpersonal exchange of human curiosity, in a professional setting — the context of the telling is obviously of great signifcance. We do not tell the same story in diferent settings, and we do not tell the same story throughout changing times. The context of the narrative has a decisive impact on the discourses we may fnd in the story.

This, however, does not imply a complete relativism; the context is very important but not the only signifcant element of the story told. A life story narrative contains cultural, as well as cognitive and corporeal elements, however inseparable. The life story informs the listener about interpretations of self and existence, as memories from the past, expectations of the future, and the experience of the present are conceived, combined and expressed in the moment and context of telling.

The argument that we are confned to or limited by the culturalsymbolic signs available to us is often put forward, and for good reasons, mainly due to the infuence of impoverished cultural environments. However, it is a remarkable fact that the human imagination enables unlimited creative and innovative use of culturally and socially inherited symbolic forms. The ongoing production of fction is a proof of the human aptitude for new creations, just as the fantastic possibility of new musical compositions exists in spite of the fact that they all use the same twelve tones. Limitation of the cultural tools for symbolic expression is a social and cultural issue, not an immanent feature of symbolic representation.

Biographical narratives also contain a mixture of something unique as well as socially and culturally familiar symbolic material; there are remarkably common features. We are a paradoxical mixture of cultural imprints, such as social discourses and features of learned social interactions and, at the same time, we are individually unique human beings due to our corporeal existence in space and time in a cultural environment. Only Siamese twins share an identical path and trajectory throughout life. The rest of us move physically along individual trajectories in space and time although constantly involved in interpersonal relationships of various kinds, which partly determine our interpretations and embodied experiences of our life journey as well as our intentions and actions. Large samples of biographical narratives make the paradox evident. Each story and each human being is unique, and yet stories display so many common traits that similarities are found between many individual stories.

We are narrated from a third person perspective before we ourselves are able to narrate (Kerby, 1991). The world is pointed out to us adorned or burdened with values and signifcance from the very beginning. During our upbringing we acquire the available cultural tools in richer or poorer degrees, including the words and discourses at our disposal. Even the cognitive parts, our mastery of language and episodic memory, depends heavily on interpersonal interactions.

Whether or not we regard ourselves or others as individual beings is a diferent matter. Individualism is a major discourse or grand narrative in our Western culture today, which signifcantly afects our interpretations of self. Whether we regard the other as an individual human being or as a generalized member of a group is another question to be considered (Horsdal, 2012; 2017).

#### Discourse and Genre

Discourse analysis can be a useful tool in the analysis of biographical narratives. Back in 1998 Ochs wrote a fne chapter on narrative in Van Dijks book, *Discourse as Structure and Process*. A central part of discourse analysis has been the identifcation of 'foating signifers' and the tensions between various discourses used to determine the assignment of meaning to concepts such as 'freedom', 'democracy', 'equality', or 'nation'. Discourse analysis thus provides an important tool in critical analysis not least of social media.

As the chapters in Van Dijk's book (and, indeed in the very book that you are reading) demonstrate, discourse may be applied in a way somewhat similar to the term 'genre', as when you talk of a 'narrative discourse' in comparison with a diferent discursive genre, or as a concept somewhat similar to 'grand narratives' or 'cultural narratives'. But the ambiguity of the concepts may be confusing. You can speak of a narrative genre in comparison with, say, lyrics; and you may speak of the genre of a particular narrative, which may be told as a fairy tale, a *Bildung* novel, or a tragedy. The terms 'discourse' and 'genre' may also signify larger or smaller linguistic units.

As for third term, 'grand narrative', Lyotard (1979) proved to be quite wrong in his claim that 'grand narratives' were extinct. Although the interpretation of the signifcance of class and other collective frameworks has changed, grand narratives of 'individualism', not to speak of 'growth', are still very much alive.

Personally, I have primarily used the term 'cultural narratives' in my own research, signifying both grand narratives and discourses of various kinds, such as the two grand narratives mentioned above, as well as, say, religious narratives and social political narratives, which are part of people's biographical stories.

#### Negotiating Meaning

S ome of the hundreds of stories I have collected or analysed show a tendency toward negotiation of meaning between competing discourses, as in the two examples below.

#### Story 1

Can you force someone to do something — because what will be the result? In a way I feel that when I have fnished this education and I am able to do various things and also want to do various things, well, when there are lots of schools missing teachers the problem is that most of the students at the college of education say they may well study there, but they do not want to become teachers. The college works as a jumping-of point for something else. You don't really know what you want — you have tried the university — may be two or three times. This is typical of many of the students at college. What, really do I think myself? What do I want? We…maybe you have an obligation towards society. My father always maintained that.

(Woman, aged 23)

#### Story 2

On the other hand, I have no doubts as for when we feel fne. Most people feel bad about being alone, and they feel better being part of communities, and when they feel loved and appreciated by other people. That you now and again may want to act selfsh, it may be sufocating, and then you want to break out. But I believe we generally feel better in communities. The thing is that what is frightening in our time is also the gift. That we are released from a lot of family ties, religious ties, national ties, ideological ties…the question is to accept that we haven't got those ties you had in diferent times. Yet while we are so diferentiated it is important to have the basic belief that at some point we just want the same things.

(Man, aged 27)

These two young people negotiate an interpretation of self and existence with themselves among several common discourses. The discourse of individuality and variety of choices and 'death of the grand narratives' on the one hand, and a need for relationships and communitarianism on the other.

The open approach to the narrative interview — one in which the story told is the response to one single question: 'Please, tell me about your life from the beginning until we are here today', and where interruptions and redirections by further questions from the interviewer are completely avoided — leads to interviews, and stories, that more often display a negotiation of meaning between a variety of diferent cultural narratives or discourses (Horsdal, 2016b).

In some research projects this open narrative interview was followed by a more traditional semi-structured interview in which I posed several questions according to the interests of the research. Here, I noticed that the responses to the questions in the semi-structured interview proved to be much more unambiguous and unequivocal compared to the open biographical narrative. In other words, the narrators negotiated

meaning in the open biographical narrative, but chose one discourse (that perhaps might be expressed as the 'good interviewee') in the semi-structured interview. Also, a very specifc context for the interview might limit the application of various discourses to what was thought most appropriate, thus equivalent to Bruner's argument of rhetorical justifcations (Bruner, 1991).

An analytic implication of this is an increasing impact of the relationship between interviewer and interviewee — which, however, is always very important — in a semi-structured interview, colouring the chosen discourses and/or cultural narratives. The more the methodology of the interview procedure supports time for thought, for refection, for consideration of what to say and how to put it in a relaxed atmosphere, the more negotiations of meaning between diferent 'voices' and given cultural narratives are expressed in the biographical narrative.

Some commonly held beliefs and widespread discourses, or grand narratives, are present in most biographical interviews. The context of the biographical interview in itself points to an individualistic interpretation of existence and to an emphasized linearity in modern Western life stories. I have in a few cases met other forms, cyclical stories based on the seasons as well as collective conceptions of the person in her relationships of kin or class. Interestingly, the main discourse has changed over recent generations. For those born during the beginning of the 20th century, life was viewed as a common destiny; to their grandchildren, life is viewed as a matter of personal choice.

The biographical refexivity I am referring to above is in itself a quite dominant cultural narrative in our cultural environment. We ask the questions: 'who am I?' 'who do I want to become'? 'Am I doing the right thing?' 'Making the right choices?'. These are questions that are part of a grand narrative or discourse of: 'life as a project and a matter of personal choice'. Naturally, biographical research on lifelong learning underscored this tendency.

This individual biographical refexivity so well discussed by Taylor (1989) and Giddens (1990), meaning that individual biographies replaced the cultural narratives of a collective fate ('Such were the conditions for women/small farmers/workers') is nevertheless hardly visible in some biographical narratives.

## Biography and Social Context

Biographical refexivity is mostly found in stories of well-educated, prosperous young people. The two stories presented above come from a project researching biographical learning of active citizens. Stories collected in more impoverished areas beyond the range of possibilities belonging to the middle class rather show an interpretation of existence as a troublesome journey in a rough terrain with few options and a careless resignation to circumstances combined sometimes with some anger and frustration (Evans, 2016; Horsdal, 2016a; 2017). The antagonism between this interpretation of experience and the mainstream dominant discourse of life as a personal project with full control over success or failure may furnish the frustration.

Narrators belonging to the much older generations often tell us about the hard circumstances they endured, with a certain pride that they managed to have a reasonable life after all. The individual — often quite moderate — success is viewed within a frame of a collective fate of poverty, hard work, gender, social class, illness, etc. Today foreground and background are almost reversed for the less privileged narrators. The discourse of life as an individual project to be achieved is hinted at as a background upon which the actual life conditions seem almost given or fatal. And yet, the personal responsibility for success or failure lurks in the background.

Over many years I have asked my students of education at the university to carry out a narrative interview with someone they know, in order to become more familiar with the methods of biographical research before entering the feld. Together we have read and analysed most of those stories in class. This random collection of life stories from my students included a signifcant number of biographical narratives told by people who had to struggle with very serious problems during their childhoods. Serious neglect, violence, mental illness, abuse of drugs or alcohol make children's and young people's lives difcult: it can be a major challenge just to survive without deterioration, and without repeating destructive patterns in their own relationships.

Other narrators tell about caring families, secure childhoods and lots of happy memories. However, the most signifcant issue in the stories I have read, across diferent backgrounds, is the question of relationships.

Many biographical narratives show relationships as the overall theme of the stories: the relationships within the family between the diferent members; the relationships in kindergarten, in schools, in neighbourhoods, in sports or other leisure activities, other educational settings and workplaces. Shifts of place or communities of practice, such as the family moving, parents getting divorced, enrolment in a new school etc., entail new challenges within the theme of relationships. Did the narrator manage to make new friends in the new place, did he/ she feel accepted, legitimate in his/her participation, matters. This is signifcant.

Relationships are the big, big issue, and the feeling of being bullied or excluded seems devastating. Our participation in diferent communities is valued in the stories according to the kind of relationships they ofer or oppose. Even in stories in which working life and career play a signifcant role in the biography, the relationships within the diferent workplaces have a heavy impact.

The dependency on good relationships exposes a certain vulnerability, which can be interpreted as connected to the overall discourse on individualism and the 'liberation from', or 'dissolution of' earlier more persistent communities based on necessity. The old collective communities did not question the legitimacy of the wish to be accepted and appreciated for the person you are and for what you can do, to the same extent. You were free to go, but also to be excluded.

I also noticed a tendency to a quite narrow range of social relationships in the stories of less privileged people. Does the outer world seem frightening or hostile? Or, challenging and fascinating? Active citizens have the resilience and extra energy to engage in a larger world, the less privileged tend to care only for their closest relationships. One of the active citizens I interviewed said:

I think it is one of the curses of our time, exactly because we have got so many options, and we'll always feel there is something we haven't time to do. The danger, of course, is that you go to the other extreme and search yourself more than necessary, and then that you turn around and say that you'll only concern yourself with the Danish, or you'll only concern yourself with your family, or you'll only concern yourself with your job and that's it. This is a danger these years, and some people are caught.

(Man, aged 29)

This is clearly a statement from a person who has the freedom of choice and the resources to reach out to a larger range of communities. In contrast, another interviewee, a young woman alone with four children, from a third generation subjected to a succession of violent family relationships, limits her ambitions to the hope that her children do not become mothers at an early age as she has done. Typically, the only person outside her own closest family mentioned in her story is a doctor who treated her when she was sick as a child. How narrow or how spacious is the human lifeworld in which we engage? And what reserves of strength do we need, and have, for this engagement?

## In Conclusion

I now take up the question of hope foregrounded at an ESREA Life History and Biography Network conference I attended (Canterbury, 2016), for I hold that the sharing of life story narratives can play a signifcant role in supporting social harmony. It may, in itself, enhance a view of the other as someone with whom you can identify as well as recognize and accept as a diferent, unique, and equal person. The paradox between the individual trajectory and the persistent interdependency of humans in society cannot and should not be resolved; just acknowledged. Most certainly narrative competences, enabling individuals to safely negotiate their way round prevailing discourses, are indispensable today in a world full of troublesome, even dangerous, manipulative behaviours.

### References

Bruner, J. (1990). *Acts of meaning*. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Photo by Tom Perkins, CC-BY 4.0

## Learning from Narratives, Discourses and Biographical Research: An Afterword

*Hazel R. Wright and Marianne Høyen*

## Our Intentions for the Book

The introduction set out our editorial stance as embracing diversity by welcoming chapters with a broad range of content written in a range of styles. We knew that we could end up with 'this-and-that', a little like the Chicago Sociologists, but as Sacks acknowledges, 'thisand-that is what the world is made up of' and can lead to work that is 'worth criticizing' (Sacks, 1992a, p. 27). As our explicit motivation was to be inclusive and open up the possibility of publication to as many researchers as possible, we were prepared to take this risk. We were confdent that we would gain some interesting insights and committed to shaping the book into a coherent publication. On refection, however, we may also have been making a stand against the neoliberal practices constraining higher education, which increasingly limit what gets published and by whom.

A great deal of biographical research is about 'doing being ordinary' (Sacks, 1992b, pp. 215–21), 'attending the world, yourself, others, objects so as to see how it is that it's a usual scene' (p. 218) and this book collects together a good number of everyday narratives of 'life as lived' (Ricœur, 1986a, p. 121). Some chapters will have interested the educated reader as they echo his or her own experiences, but others

enter the lives of those less fortunate in society so bring us into close proximity with the unfamiliar; many occupy positions between these two extremes. But, apart from being interesting stories, what other value derives from a reading of the diferent chapters? What insights do we gain from looking beyond the information articulated within each chapter?

Before addressing those questions, we need to engage in a little *'travail négatif'* and set aside the content, context and fndings from each chapter and 'the connections that are recognized as given before the game starts' (Foucault, 1969, p. 34, translated by Evans). Then, engage in processes that could be termed *'travail positif'*, asking in turn: Why does this chapter matter? What is it doing? What do we learn from it? Through such a process it was possible to identify specifc themes and then to group them together into meta-themes that we could discuss. Through doing this we found the chapters delivered some unexpected riches, justifying the latitude accorded authors to write as they chose.

#### Emergent Themes Within the Book

#### Methodologies

We stated in the introduction that authors were asked to focus on discourses and narratives rather than on describing methodologies, unless these were key foci, nevertheless, some of the chapters ofer very clear descriptions and / or exemplar of particular approaches. Dyson's work closely follows the Narrative Inquiry methodology as set out by Jean Clandinin and Michael Connolly (Ch1), exploring the process of thinking *with* rather than *about* stories and providing an explanation of a process that others have used instinctively. Similarly applicable elsewhere, Breton (Ch2) uses a case study to show how the dynamics of biographical inter-comprehension can be harnessed to turn lived experience into expressible content and explains how this could be of beneft in therapeutic education.