Columbia University Oral History Lecture, April 2015, New York City, NY
"Digital Storytelling as Narrative Shock: New Views on Young Parenting Latinas, Migration and Family"
Aline Gubrium and Elizabeth L. Krause (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
Digital stories have the potential to draw on hidden histories and render them visible. Challenges with digital storytelling overlap with those of oral history and ethnography: connecting parts to totalities, redeeming fragments, and co-constructing new narratives from idiosyncratic stories. Small yet poignant stories connect to larger issues, such as growing inequality, that affect everyone. This presentation draws on “Hear Our Stories,” a project that uses new media to reveal how diasporic youth experience and negotiate sexual health disparities. We prioritize uprooted young parenting Latinas, whose material conditions and cultural worlds have placed them in tenuous positions, both socially constructed and experientially embodied. We aim to recalibrate conversations about young parenting Latinas through a reproductive justice orientation that connects sexual health to young women’s lived experiences in relation to family, migration and movement across generations.
American Public Health Association annual conference, November 2014, New Orleans, LA
"Day-Long Learning Institute: The Ethics and Practice of Digital Storytelling as a Methodology for Community-Based Participatory Research in Public Health"
Aline Gubrium (University of Massachusetts Amherst) and Amy Hill (Center for Digital Storytelling)
Published literature on the ethics of community-based participatory research methods grounded in personal storytelling and participatory media approaches is in short supply, as are advanced training opportunities for public health researchers interested in these approaches. Based on their previous research and practice experiences with digital storytelling, Gubrium and colleagues discuss the “situated practice of ethics” for participatory visual and digital methods in public health research and practice. Specifically, they write about six common challenges faced by researchers, advocates, and health promotion practitioners alike: fuzzy boundaries to negotiate between research, advocacy/action, and health promotion practice when using these methods; tensions related to recruitment of participants and consent to participate; complex considerations for the release of materials produced in workshops; power issues as they relate to the shaping of digital media content; the potential for harm in visual/digital representation; and the promise of confidentiality/anonymity to research participants. This Learning Institute will address gaps in public health academicians’, practitioners’, researchers’ and workers’ existing skills and knowledge related to culture-centered approaches to health communication (including a focus on diversity and culture and cultural humility) and public health ethics. Participants will share and discuss thoughts, opinions, and skills in a mutually self-enriching, non-judgmental environment as we provide an overview of applications for digital storytelling for public health research, advocacy/action, strategic communications, and health promotion contexts. Next, we will discuss-by-doing some of the key elements of a digital storytelling workshop, to provide Institute participants with an opportunity to gain experiential insight into the ethical implications of digital storytelling for the field of public health. Participant discussion will be encouraged through the day; we will also leave room during the lunch break and at the end of the day for additional questions and discussion.
"Promoting the Dignity of Parenting Youth: Digital Storytelling and Organizing as Tools to engage young parenting Latinas"
Aline Gubrium (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Karina Garcia and Ann Marie Benitez (National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health)
Often, the reproductive and sexual health issues that young people face are shaped by socioeconomic determinants and policies at the local level, including disparities in access to housing, education, food, and state-supported services as part of a local healthography that shapes their health and wellbeing. The U.S. cultural and political landscape often presents young motherhood as a public health problem to be prevented or solved. In this session, we discuss a current collaboration between the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health to challenge cultural frameworks that stigmatize young motherhood and expand advocacy conversations beyond the federal level. The National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health will share their work to shift policies from a prevention-only frame to resolve teen unintended pregnancies to a reproductive justice frame that includes a holistic approach focused on lived realities and comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care for young Latinas. Best practices discussed will include the formation of several Young Moms groups and the findings of a digital storytelling project to elevate and insert the voices of young mothers in the national rhetoric regarding young motherhood. Panelists will also discuss how these practices create networks of support and empowerment for pregnant and parenting youth while building their leadership capacity.
"APHA Film Festival Screening: Hear Our Stories"
Amy Hill (Center for Digital Storytelling), Aline Gubrium and Miriam Shafer (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
The “Hear Our Stories” project uses participatory media and strategic communications strategies to explore how young pregnant and parenting women living in Western Massachusetts experience and negotiate sexual health disparities. A partnership of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, the Care Center, the Center for Digital Storytelling, the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program at Hampshire College, the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy, the Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy, and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, the project aims to recalibrate the existing conversation about teen motherhood from stigmatizing young moms to promoting their sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice.
The material conditions and uprooted cultural worlds of young parenting women in Holyoke, Massachusetts typically place them in a tenuous social position, with little opportunity to influence the design of programs and policies that affect their lives. “Hear Our Stories” partners led a series of four-day digital storytelling workshops, in which small groups of young parenting students from the Care Center, a GED prep program based in Holyoke, shared first-person narratives about their experiences, gathered images with which to illustrate these narratives, and learned via hands-on tutorials how to combine these materials into short digital videos.
Recognizing the sensitivity of the stories, the project has taken special care to carry out a “living consent” process, which asks the young women for permission to share their stories in specific venues at specific times. The work of those women who have granted broad consent is being re-purposed in a variety of forms for distribution through web and social media platforms. For instance, text-only versions of the stories will accompany photos featured on a project Facebook page and on the blogs of involved partners, and shortened 30-second “PSA” style excerpts from the stories will be integrated into partners’ awareness raising and policy advocacy activities.
In the APHA Film Festival session, we will share a collection of the digital stories and talk about the workshop process and its impact on participating young women storytellers. We will also share examples of how repurposed story content has been used to contribute relevant local knowledge to sexual and reproductive health, rights and justice-oriented messaging efforts targeting young moms and the program directors, service providers, and policymakers charged with supporting them.
Healthy Teen Network Annual Conference, October 2014, Austin, TX
"Digital Storytelling to Amplify Voices and Complicate the Picture: Hear Our Stories: Diasporic Youth for Sexual Rights and Justice"
Aline Gubrium and Miriam Shafer (UMass Amherst) and Amy Hill (Center for Digital Storytelling)
In this presentation we will the introduce the Ford Foundation-funded Hear Our Stories project, which uses new media to reveal how diasporic young mothers in Western Massachusetts experience and negotiate sexual health disparities. We prioritize uprooted young parenting women, whose material conditions and cultural worlds have placed them in tenuous positions, both socially constructed and experientially embodied. Existing programs and policies emphasize failure on the part of young parents, often promoting stigma through public messaging. The goal of this project is to flip that paradigm allowing young parents to be media-makers, crafting their own narrative bodies of work to shed light on their lived realities and act as a catalyst for micro and macro level policy change. This project strives to showcase the knowledge, triumph and challenges of these young parents, creating space for their stories to be share and networked. This project is steered by Women Organizing Across Ages (WOAA) a group of storytellers involved who are developing their capacity as sexual and reproductive rights advocates as they engage in project-sponsored trainings, workshops, meetings, and conferences.
This project is based at The Community Adolescent Resources and Education (Care) Center, an alternative education program for pregnant and parenting teens in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Four digital storytelling workshops, have served as a venue for training new scholars in cutting-edge sensory ethnographic methods and for producing digital stories as transformative, subject-driven data. Repurposed into strategic communications materials, the digital stories are intended to trigger multi-level conversations on sexuality, health, rights and justice issues. In collaboration with project partners, including the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy, the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, and the Center for Digital Storytelling we aim to transform assumptions about young parenting women through the novel use of digital storytelling to recalibrate the conversation on young motherhood and sexuality, health, and rights across generations.
Youth Sexuality Media Forum, June 2014, Detroit, MI
"Hear Our Stories: Diasporic Youth for Sexual Rights and Justice"
Miriam Shafer and Aline Gubrium (UMass Amherst)
In alignment with the Detroit Youth Sexuality Forum central questions regarding media portrayals of sexual vulnerability among youth, we propose the sharing of media generated through a similar project, also funded by the Ford Foundation. Hear Our Stories: Diasporic Youth for Sexual Rights and Justice uses new media – specifically digital storyteling to explore how diasporic young mothers in Western Massachusetts experience and negotiate sexual health disparities. This showcase will be an opportunity to screen digital stories from four week-long sessions during which 32 young mothers created subject-driven, crafted and produced personal narratives to be used in strategic messaging and communication on local levels and beyond.
The project prioritizes uprooted young parenting women, whose material conditions and cultural worlds have placed them in tenuous positions, both socially constructed and experientially embodied. Existing programs and policies focused on these women fail to use relevant local knowledge and rarely involve them in messaging efforts. In collaboration with project partners, including the Center for Digital Storytelling, we aim to transform assumptions about young parenting women through the novel use of digital storytelling to recalibrate the conversation on young motherhood and sexuality, health, and rights.
An arm of this project has been Women Organizing Across Ages (WOAA) a youth advisory board wherein storytellers have participated in national responses to PSAs that upheld harmful and shaming stereotypes about young people, their sexuality and their rights to make families. This group is involved in shaping and steering the direction of the Hear Our Stories project as a whole with a focus on collaborating with other teen parents driven groups.
Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program Annual Conference, April 2014, Amherst, MA
"Digital Storytelling for Community Mobilization: An Introduction to the Hear Our Stories: Diasporic Youth for Sexual Rights and Justice Project"
Aline Gubrium, Elizabeth L. Krause, Christie Barcelos, Kasey Jernigan, Iesha Ramos, Miriam Shafer (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Dashira Pomales, Daisy Rodriguez, Yasmin Figueroa (Women Organizing Across Ages/WOAA members)
In this presentation we will share the Ford Foundation funded Hear Our Stories project, which uses new media to reveal how diasporic youth in Western Massachusetts experience and negotiate sexual health disparities. We prioritize uprooted young parenting women, whose material conditions and cultural worlds have placed them in tenuous positions, both socially constructed and experientially embodied. Existing programs and policies focused on these women fail to use relevant local knowledge and rarely involve them in messaging efforts. In collaboration with project partners, including the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy, we aim to transform assumptions about young parenting women through the novel use of digital storytelling to recalibrate the conversation on young motherhood and sexuality, health, and rights across generations.
This project is based at The Community Adolescent Resources and Education (Care) Center, an alternative education program for pregnant and parenting teens in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Four digital storytelling workshops, have served as a venue for training new scholars in cutting-edge sensory ethnographic methods and for producing digital stories as transformative data. Repurposed into strategic communications materials, the digital stories are intended to trigger multi-level conversations on sexuality, health, rights and justice issues. We have also organized a cadre of Care Center students to develop their capacity as sexual and reproductive rights advocates as they engage in project-sponsored trainings, workshops, meetings, and conferences. Several representatives from this group will take part in the presentation. The Hear Our Stories project brings together a team of social science researchers, young parenting women, sexual and reproductive justice advocates, and strategic communications experts, to create synergies for community mobilization, leadership, and policy development.
The young women from the Care Center who will be participating in the workshop are representatives from “Women Organizing Across Ages” (WOAA), who collaborate to steer and advise the Hear Our Stories project
Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Conference, March 2014, Albuquerque, NM
Aline Gubrium, Elizabeth L. Krause, and Kasey Jernigan (UMass Amherst0
"Hear Our Stories: New Ways of Seeing and Being Seen as Young Mothers through Digital Storytelling"
Holyoke has the highest teen birth rate in the state of Massachusetts, with roughly 10% of young Latinas ages 15-19 giving birth in 2009, and the city ranks as one of the worst on numerous sexual and reproductive health indicators. Structural constraints of poverty, unemployment, and homelessness underlie these disparities. This paper explores the subjective experience of structural violence and the ways young parenting Latinas enrolled in an alternative education program for pregnant and parenting teens embody and respond to these experiences. Novel understandings produced through a participatory digital storytelling process will be used to shift public conversations, programs, and policies focused on young parenting Latinas.
American Anthropological Association annual conference, November 2013, Chicago, IL
"Hear Our Stories: Promoting Collaboration and Engagement through Digital Storytelling"
Aline Gubrium (University of Massachusetts Amherst) and Elizabeth L. Krause (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
The project “Hear Our Stories: Diasporic Youth for Sexual Rights and Justice” offers a structure and context for meaningful collaboration and engagement. The lead researchers are partnering with six organizations as they collectively prioritize uprooted young parenting Latinas living in Western Massachusetts. Through multiple-day digital storytelling workshops, the project not only aims to reveal how diasporic youth experience and negotiate sexual health disparities but also to co-construct new narratives. These narratives build on local, multi-sensory forms of knowledge and will be strategically repurposed in communication and policy-making efforts. Ultimately, the project seeks to transform assumptions about young parenting Latinas through the novel use of digital storytelling to recalibrate the conversation on young motherhood as well as sexuality, health, and rights across generations. In what ways might a single project such as this contribute to modifying the disciplinary identity of anthropology? How might the researchers’ own ideas about themselves as “researchers” and the possibilities for collaborative, engaged research be transformed through the process? What unintended negative consequences might arise from such collaborative work, and what interventions might the researchers and partners anticipate?
American Public Health Association annual conference, November 2013, Boston, MA
"Storytelling, Organizing and Policy Advocacy as a Tool for Supporting Young Pregnant and Parenting Latinas"
Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas, Candace Gibson, Elizabeth Guerra, and Karina Garcia (National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health); Aline Gubrium and Elizabeth L. Krause (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
The U.S. cultural and political landscape often presents young motherhood as a public health problem to be prevented or solved. In this session, we discuss a current collaboration between the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health to challenge advocacy and cultural frameworks that stigmatize young motherhood. The National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health and two activist/participants in Young Moms’ Groups organized by the Latina Institute, one based in New York City and another in Holyoke, MA, will share best practices regarding their work aimed at shift policies from a prevention-only frame to a reproductive justice frame that includes comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care for Latina teens. Best practices discussed will include the formation of the Young Moms groups, storytelling, and the use of Photovoice and digital storytelling tools to elevate the conversation on young mothers in cultural and political rhetoric and as ways to build leadership capacity. Panelists will also discuss how these practices create networks of support and empowerment for young, pregnant teens and young mothers.