Artesanía o handcraft: el textil obligado a ser (o no-ser) arte

As I have outlined, I was inspired by ‘indirect’ techniques of body mapping when I designed the series of seven participatory clay embodiment workshops that informed the design of the CERM. The CERM is innovative because it extends the traditional notion of body mapping as a two-dimensional drawing technique which is used to ‘visualise’ reproductive body parts into a three-dimensional body mapping technique and process using clay, which enabled the women to ‘visualise’ and ‘sculpt’ representations of their reproductive bodies.

Although I was aware of the risk of elevating reproductive trauma in indirect and direct body mapping approaches from my research, I was guided by the clay therapy work of Sherwood (2004) in the creation of the ‘thematic’ body mapping workshops to enable use to stay focussed on relevant reproductive body parts and/or reproductive health issues. Being cognisant of the fact that Nepalese women and trafficked women were likely to have very limited reproductive body knowledge due to cultural taboos around engaging in discourse around sexuality and marriage (as outlined in Section 3.9.2), I decided to keep the reproductive

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body themes simple for the CERM. I also came to this conclusion after a discussion with the UNFPA and Y-PEER ASRH Educators in Nepal who also informed me that it was their experience that the women would unlikely know much about their reproductive bodies, so we should aim to start from basic knowledge foundations. Akin to other reproductive health researchers who have used body mapping, I decided to use a flexible interview questionnaire to help guide Sabrina and I through delivering the body mapping workshops. We adapted this questionnaire throughout the workshop process and often ‘in the moment’, if needed.

When thinking about the lines of questioning, I often had art therapist Mala Betensky’s (1995) concept of intentional ‘phenomenological looking’ (at art or images) in my conscious thought so I was ready to leap in and ask the ‘what’, ‘who’, ‘how’ and ‘where’ of issues related to the reproductive body. Sabrina and I also felt that the women and girls – even those who had used clay before – may need to familiarise themselves with clay in a research process. As we also wanted them to conceptualise being a woman or girl before full engagement in the workshops, Sabrina suggested adding a workshop to the CERM (see Section 4.6). Finally, I drew on my practical experience of working with clay in Australia and Nepal to help design the CERM. In my original research design, I had planned to undertake six participatory (body mapping) workshops. However, in Nepal, after we had piloted the CERM, Sabrina and I then added an additional workshop, which was placed at the beginning of the series of workshops (see Section 4.6). We also simplified the titles of the workshops in Nepal. As mentioned, as part of the CERM, we also used flexible interview questionaires (see Appendix A and Appendix B for the the original flexible interview questionnaires. These were transcribed into Nepali before undertaking data collection). In the final research design, the CERM themes then became:

1. ‘I am a Woman/Girl’

2. Outer Female Reproductive Body 3. Inner Female Reproductive Body 4. Menstruation

5. Pregnancy

6. Male Reproductive Body

7. Outer and Inner Female Reproductive Body79

In the clay workshops, each session theme was undertaken in the above sequential order. However, Sabrina and I gave the research participants a choice about changing the order

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of ‘Workshops 5: Pregnancy’ and ‘Workshop 6: Male Reproductive Body’ because we knew these workshops would likely be sensitive. At Asha Nepal, the workshops were undertaken a week apart because we were able to plan around the girls’ schedules at the hostel. However, at CAP Nepal, at times, two of the workshops were undertaken in a day because the women had to travel on public buses with their babies to attend the workshops as they were living in the broader community. They were also experiencing transport delays in the fuel crisis, so, in as much as was possible, we did not want to extend on the time they agreed to give us. At the end of each workshop, the clay work of the research participants was photographed by myself or the women themselves. Although we gave the women a choice to photograph their own work, some wanted to and some, equally, did not. We also took several photographs of each of the clay works so we had reasonable quality images. Then these photographs, one from each workshop for all women, were chosen (by me) to be used in the group interview as the photoethnography tool.

The clay workshops were also audio recorded. Although Sabrina and I were unable to take notes in sessions due the intensity of the process, we made (limited) notes after each session and took detailed notes in our ‘debriefing’ sessions a day or so later. We did not debrief immediately as we often needed time to reflect. Sometimes we used clay in our own debriefing sessions to help us articulate issues such as, for example, group dynamics. Although I anticipated trust issues in relation to audio recording the clay workshops, I introduced the audio recorder - in a fun and relaxed way - to the non-research/research participants during the first two months of participant observation to familiarise them with it. (This was pre-planned to ensure we had no issues with audio-recording). For example, I taped a spontaneous singing session which we then played back to them. (It caused a lot of laughter when the young women heard the playback of their singing voices.) Thus, we had no audio recording issues. As many of the staff at Asha Nepal and CAP Nepal have mobile phones with audio recorders and cameras, they often audio/video recorded house events, such as their annual Christmas party, so the women and girls were accustomed to this process.

As anticipated, Sabrina and I actively engaged in the participatory clay embodiment workshops to enable the women and girls to feel comfortable using clay and to help facilitate discussion. After a few workshops, the women and girls took the lead in the clay work, and we only participated when we felt it was necessary to prompt for more information. However, there was still a shared sense of co-creating data. The duration of the clay workshops was different with each group workshop we ran, but in general, they lasted from 30 minutes to just over an hour. We used the women’s interest and energy level to guide the the duration of

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sessions and we were sensitive to the fact that if they divulged a lot in a session, we should not extend the sessions for too long or prompt for too much more information. As we got to know the groups, we were able to gauge this energy level well. Sabrina was instrumental in guiding this process by listening to the women’s voices, and I – with her – ascertained it through observing the women’s body language.