Nineteen - Using poetry to engage the voices of women and girls in research

Summary

There is a growing interest in the use of creative or arts-based methods within social research. These are opening up spaces outside the boundaries of traditional methods of data gathering; a space that improves ‘critical attentiveness, collaboration and experimentation’ (Back and Puwar, 2012, p.18). Poetry as research methodology can elicit thoughts, feelings and emotions, and can give a platform for marginalised voices, such as women and girls, as it enables those silenced voices to be heard – and heard loudly.

During the ‘Imagine’ project, poetry was used as a research methodology by a group of women participating in a writing group at the community library. As a part of that group, I wrote the following poem, which exemplifies the emotions captured in poetry:

The voices of silent women

Tell me who is going to listen to those once silent voices?

Now Screaming to be heard

Invisible right before your eyes

The little girls who were neither seen nor heard

No longer wanting to be at the back of the queue

Ignore them at your own peril for they are demanding to be listened to

They have been gagged for far too long

Now it's their turn to speak the truth

A different lens to knowledge production

In the introduction to Part Three of this book (see Chapter Eleven), Elizabeth Campbell considers what kind of knowledge matters, and who should have a say in its production. As a community development worker and activist for over 30 years, my answer to that question is: the members of the communities whose lives are being investigated through research. They are the real experts on their own community and are responsible for producing the everyday knowledge in those diverse communities.

Poetry offers one way to capture the knowledge held in communities, particularly among those whose voices have been traditionally marginalised, like young people and women. Poetry provides us with a different lens for making sense of everyday interactions, contradictions and conflicts. Our cultural frame of reference – ethnicity, spirituality and faith, our interaction and experiences – means we see the world though different lenses. Poetry allows us to express those different perspectives of our lived experiences, a mosaic of autonomous voices freed through poetry.