Resilient Bodies: Exploring Racialized Newcomer Women’s Experiences of Embodiment
Date
2020-05-01
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Abstract
In recent years, several scholars have called for the construct of embodiment – that is, the experience of engagement of one’s body in the world – as a meaningful way to explore how women experience their bodies. However, limited research has explored embodiment specifically among newcomer women (i.e., immigrants, refugees, and non-permanent residents) who are part of racialized groups (i.e., those identifying as persons of colour or as being part of visible minority groups) in Canada. As such, this dissertation represents a purposeful attempt to explore embodiment among racialized newcomer women, and how to investigate this topic in culturally-sensitive and meaningful ways. Through a feminist lens, and situated in the field of counselling psychology, this body of work integrates different research practices (including a critical review, arts-based engagement ethnography [ABEE], and critical reflection) to systematically contribute to the academic literature focusing on embodiment among racialized newcomer women. Consisting of three conceptually linked manuscripts, which use the Developmental Theory of Embodiment (DTE) as a guiding framework to conceptualize embodiment, this dissertation makes the following contributions to research and practice. First, Manuscript 1 demonstrates how the construct of embodiment offers a meaningful vantage point from which to conduct qualitative research with newcomer women, offering suggestions for working through some of the ethical, methodological, and cultural considerations that may arise in doing so. Manuscript 2 outlines the results from a feminist research study that used ABEE to explore the experience of embodiment among six racialized newcomer women in Canada. Finally, Manuscript 3 offers a critical reflection of the use of ABEE in the aforementioned study, offering suggestions for its utility as an embodied, culturally-sensitive, and reflexive approach. Taken together, findings from this body of work strengthen the embodiment field by demonstrating that there are several unique aspects of being a racialized newcomer woman that can influence embodiment; therefore, these factors should be taken into consideration from a conceptual and methodological standpoint in future research, clinical practice, and social justice initiatives.
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Keywords
newcomer women, embodiment, arts-based engagement ethnography, feminist research
Citation
Green, A. R. (2020). Resilient Bodies: Exploring Racialized Newcomer Women’s Experiences of Embodiment (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.