Arts-Informed Storytelling: How Arts-Informed Research was Used with Six Indigenous Peoples in London, Ont.
Abstract
This doctoral project outlines the methodological process of using arts-informed storytelling to illustrate the experiences of six urban Indigenous Peoples who live in London, Ontario. The strategy is a qualitative method influenced by artistic processes and expressive qualities to deepen understanding of human experiences. The technique involves illustrating personal experiences, often using multimedia in photographs, artwork, text, audio, music, crafts, or some combination of these cultural products. I aim to build on previous studies that use storytelling methods in their research by employing this participatory and multimodal approach. This dissertation tries to make new contributions to media studies by offering a first-person account of how my experience using arts-informed storytelling unfolded as an emergent and iterative process.
For this study, I facilitated a storytelling process by asking six Indigenous contributors to share and tell their own stories related to life and living in the city. I also interviewed the contributors about their experiences in creating their works. In this dissertation, I explore what the stories suggest about the experiences of the six contributors. I also document how arts-informed storytelling can be an essential addition to qualitative approaches by addressing the complexities, potential opportunities, and limitations of using the method. While this dissertation offers a widely accepted way of documenting my doctoral project’s findings, I also curated a virtual exhibition for knowledge translation to make the creators’ stories more accessible beyond academic contexts.