Storytelling and History: Encounters in Health Workshop, University of Ottawa
In May of 2011, I attended an interdisciplinary graduate workshop offered by the Associated Medical Services (AMS) Nursing History Research Unit at the University of Ottawa. The workshop was entitled Storytelling and History: Encounters in Health.
As an interdisciplinary student in nursing, women’s studies and history, it is important to understand cross disciplinary methodologies and disciplinary perspectives in order to achieve the quality of scholarship expected at the PhD level. While many faculty and doctoral students in the School of Nursing are interested in history none are formally engaged in historical research. Similarly, some historians are interested in the history of health care and women, but
none in the Department of History focus on nursing history. Thus, I was eager to take advantage of the opportunity to meet with other students and scholars engaged in research in health care and nursing.
The organizers invited graduate students from any discipline whose research is grounded in the social history of medicine health, and healing to submit a proposal focusing on the stories used by historians to uncover the past.
The organizers were interested in stories that show how encounters are shaped by (human) interaction with other people, objects or spaces and that speak to wider social relationships, broader historical contexts and themes. Presentations and discussion looked at how the stories we tell contribute to creating new understandings and interpretations of the past. Specifically, each of us was asked to select a brief account from our own data that highlights some encounter involving, for example, patients, health care workers, health care systems, medical technologies, medical institutions or other environments of health disease
or illness. We were asked to examine the underlying assumptions in these encounters and their consequences in conducting our research.
The Dorothy Kergin Endowment award made it possible for me to participate in this workshop and to try out new ideas and receive constructive feedback from colleagues, as well as an opportunity to work toward a publication based on my presentation.
With thanks,
Margaret Scaia
From 2011 Summer Communiqué
Recent Comments