narrative writing as art-based practice
Situated Writing as Theory and Method. The Untimely Academic Novella, (London: Routledge, 2019).
This creative and original book develops a framework for situated writing as theory and method, and presents a trilogy of untimely academic novellas as exemplars of the uses of situated writing.
It is an inter- and trans-disciplinary book in which a diversity of forms is used to create a set of interwoven novellas, inspired by poststructuralist and postcolonial feminist theory and literary fiction, along with narrative life writing genres such as diaries and letters, memory work, poetic writing, and photography. The book makes use of a politics of location, situated knowledges, diffraction, and intersectionality theories to promote situated writing as a theory and method for exploring the complexity of social life through gender, whiteness, class, and spatial location.
It addresses writing as an inter- and trans-disciplinary form of scholarship in its own right, with emancipatory potential, emphasising the role of writing in shaping creative, critical, and reflexive approaches to research, education, and professional practice. It is useful for researchers, teachers, postgraduate and PhD students in feminist and intersectionality studies, narrative studies, and pursuing interdisciplinary approaches across the humanities, social sciences, design, and the arts to inspire a theory and method for situated writing.
Mona Livholts, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Social Work in the Department of Culture and Society, Linköping University, Sweden. Her research focuses on emergent writing methodologies, in particular auto/biographical and narrative life writing genres such as diaries and letters, memory work, poetry, and photography. Research themes include media narratives on rape, gender, space and communication, and glocalised social work. She has invented new forms of critical, creative and reflexive writing, such as A ThinkingWriting Methodology, Post/Academic Writing, The Untimely Academic Novella and Situated Writing (with Tamboukou). During 2008-2017 she founded and led the Network for Reflexive Academic Writing Methodologies (RAW) and gives lectures, seminars and workshops on writing in Sweden and internationally. Books include Emergent Writing Methodologies in Feminist Studies (2012), Discourse and Narrative Methods (with Tamboukou 2015), Social Work in a Glocalised World (with Bryant 2017) and Situated Writing as Theory and Method. The Untimely Academic Novella (2019).
I work with writing as a critical spatial practice by making use of narrative life writing genres, and recommend the article ‘Narrative writing as art-based practice’ published in Synnyt/Origins: Finnish Studies in Art Education (3/2018) as an example of such a practice. The main question is: What are the potential possibilities of narrative life writing genres to contribute to shape creative and performative art-based practice for scholars across the arts, design and science? In my practice I explore epistemological questions about the author as creator and storyteller is useful as a catalyst for such practices. Inspired by auto/biography- and life writing, feminist theory and literary fiction, I promote the idea of artistic self-portraiture where the writers at work perform their writing selves in specific situated locations, power relations and inter/disciplinary contexts.
Berger, John (1984/2005) And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos. London: Bloomsbury.
Cixous, Hèléne (2004) ‘Enter the Theatre’. In: Prenowitz, E. (ed.), Selected Plays of Hélène Cixous. London & New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 25–34.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins (1892/1989). The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings. New York, NY: Bentam books.
