Category: Writing

confinement Intersectionality Life storytelling Writing

Confinement Day 15 :: My Work

OK this is hard. I can dig deep and I can seek inspiration and I can enjoy all those precious moments with little one. BUT. But. but. Knowing that schools may not start until September, and even then there is the prospect of further closures over winter cold and flu season. AND. And. and. Knowing the rough set of emotional and material needs in the family (including my own). AND. And. and. Knowing that if any of us get ill, the set of needs on the cards will ramp up exponentially. ERGO. Therefore. ergo. This is hard. NOT EVEN TAKING INTO ACCOUNT the wider social picture. The doctors and nurses without sufficient PPE. The communities without doctors at all. The people living in loneliness, in hunger and/or in fear of an abuser. The challenge of ‘walking through the portal of Covid19 ready to imagine a better world and fight for it‘. ERGO. Bloody. ergo. Gotta prioritise and put in some space and structure. Gotta get to work.

… Confinement Day 15 :: My Work
confinement Intersectionality Life Visual Writing

Confinement Day 9 :: The Insides

Writing sometimes feels like survival. Writing from the inside out. One word after another. One step at a time. Climbing out of the suffocating layers of precarity and non-stop circumstances. Getting a breath. Seeing some light. Filling some of my own space. Getting to grips with own agency again. Making a plan.

confinement Intersectionality Life London PhD Writing

Confinement Day 4

Feels like the emotional aspect of Covid19 and self-isolation is hitting home now. I think I was running on adrenalin for ages, getting everything ready for self-isolation. Now the tiredness and numbness is rising. Writing the first blog on this yesterday was helpful. Thank you. I realised that fear and tension were lurking in my being and I had to breathe them out, channel them, address them, rest… or this wasn’t going to be sustainable.

… Confinement Day 4
confinement Intersectionality Life PhD Writing

Confinement Day 3

Hackney Flashers Collective (1978)

I was going to start blogging a research diary anyway but there is a whole extra urgency to that now under Covid19 confinement. I’m working at home with my little one, and my Dad will be joining us once we have all completed quarantine. Working as a single parent (and carer) regularly feels a like mission impossible. Now in self-isolation, the level of difficulty has now zoomed up again onto a radically higher level.

… Confinement Day 3
Barcelona Collective Intelligence Intersectionality PhD storytelling Writing

Who are the Storytellers?

In parallel with the storytelling themes, I’m asking Who are the Storytellers? as a way of proactively problem-solving some intersectional issues in the research project. For example, key literature regarding my fieldwork with Decidim Barcelona has a very limited range of authors in terms of gender. In contrast, during my fieldwork, I could see many women authoring and creating Decidim Barcelona. In order to recognise a more accurate range of authors and creators, I am working with a broader idea of authorship in my research, and developing the profile of the Storytellers alongside the Storytelling themes.

To be continued…