Funded by the British Academy Talent Development Award
Project team: Dr Asiya Islam
Start date: 17 March 2025
End date: 16 March 2026
This project will use collaborative story writing as research method and dissemination tool to advance the PI’s longitudinal ethnographic research with young women in service work in Delhi, India.
It builds on discussions about creative writing as research method that challenges power relations in the field, as well as research output that can reach wider audiences and amplify the impact of research.
The proposed programme will bring these strands together to use story writing as a collaboration between the researcher and the research participants, de-centering the researcher as the author/narrator, enabling direct expression of women’s voices about their working lives, and reaching wider audiences through the publication of a short stories anthology.
This is crucial for intervening in ongoing discussions about women’s workforce participation, especially for understanding the nuances, complexities, and contradictions of women’s working lives in the context of socio-economic change in urban India. It will additionally contribute to scholarly engagement with the turn to creative writing in ethnographic research and feminist studies, systematically reflecting on the use of collaborative story writing as a research method.