Personal Information
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Given name: Adelaide









Surname: Swanston









Email: swan0360@mylaurier.ca









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Your contribution
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Title: Embodied Maps: Critical Considerations for Exploring Identity, Power, and Knowledge Through the Body









Format: Workshop (3)









Main language: English









Abstract:
There is a dominant biomedical narrative of mental health formed by psychology practitioners of what ‘disorderly’ ways of being looks like (Martinez-Mendia et al., 2024; Masters, 2023; Runswick-Cole et al., 2024). This dominant narrative has seeped into popular culture and influenced lay understanding of mental health, in which more people continue to medicalize their everyday experiences and relationships (Hollon, 2024; Masters, 2023). Medicalized language can hegemonize individual conceptions of psychological experiences, overshadowing the conceptions of marginalized communities (i.e. BIPOC individuals) whose perspectives were largely ignored while the biomedical narrative was developed. Body mapping is an artistic embodied method where one creates a life-sized drawing of their body and creatively adorns it with various images, words, and phrases telling a story of the emotions and feelings they perceive through their body (Jokela-Pansini, 2021). When employed in mental health research, body mapping allows individuals to resist medicalized language by expressing their psychological experiences in visual art modalities, limiting oral communication often over relied upon in qualitative mental health research. Drawing from an arts-based research project that explored the lived experience of Black women managing PPD, this workshop foregrounds body mapping as a critical feminist methodological approach. Through practicing group body mapping, participants will examine how the artistic method can support marginalized communities reclaiming and voicing a new preferred view of their embodied psychological reality thereby disrupting negative assumptions that exist in the dominant biomedical narrative (Jager et al., 2016). Objectives: 1) Join ongoing conversations about the value of using beyond oral artistic methods (e.g., body mapping) to engage marginalized populations in stigmatized topics (2) Identify how critical theories shape the implementation of artistic methods. 










Image: https://test.sar2026.ie/system/files/webform/submit_contribution/391/IMG_5206.jpg









Short biographies of the presenter(s):
- Adelaide Swanston (She/her) is a community-based researcher whose work supports the integration of artistic research methods into mental health research. As an MA and soon to be PhD student in the community psychology program at Wilfrid Laurier University Canada, Adelaide continues to receive extensive training on conducting decolonial and participatory action research in community settings. This has grounded her practice in critical inquiry and centering the lived expertise of equity deserving populations. Her master’s thesis, fostered collective healing through artistic practice by bringing together Black women managing PPD to create body maps that artistically reflect their lived experience. 










Previous presentations or iterations of the research:
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Requirements
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Additional information:
This workshop will be a combination of group body mapping and collective discussion that will be facilitated in a world cafe format. I approximate between 150 to 180 minutes. For the first 1.5hours,  groups will initially be given a prompt related to the author's context when facilitating body maps, and then together each group will create a body map that visualizes the story of the prompt. For the next 1 hour they will then rotate every 20 min to different stations to discuss their fellow groups maps and key questions related to the ethics of body mapping and the role of critical theory in that process. For the remaining 30 min of the session everyone will come together to engage in an open dialogue where we will identify guiding principles for future researchers looking to use body mapping in their context. 










Spatial and technical requirements :
Depending on the size of the room participants will be seated in a few  groups of 6-10. I can provide markers, coloured pencils and papers for each group as part of their group mapping. It would be helpful if there was a board in the room or an easel so we could display the map of each group during the discussion portion of the session. I will also have a slide presentation to guide everyone with information and instructions so a projector display would be needed. 










Potential risks or ethical concerns:
Body mapping can be an emotionally heightened experience. Although in a group setting, participants may wish to take a moment to themselves if they find the process is raising negative emotions. 










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