Mother’s experience in prison: Finding meaning through weaving and words
Spectrum Research Repository, Concordia University | QC | 2016
Magali Henry
« Women’s imprisonment, and more specifically the situation of mothers, is a widely under represented research topic. The research presented through this report gives voice to nine mothers incarcerated in a Quebec provincial detention center in Canada. By adopting a subjective and feminist standpoint epistemology, using art-based and narrative strategies of inquiry and a thematic analysis, the researcher seeks to explore the meanings that these mothers make of their experience.
The craft of weaving was suggested to these mothers as a primary mode of artistic expression and therapeutic medium in the context of an art therapy group. The process of witness writing, a method of looking at and entering into a relationship with one’s artwork framed this artistic exploration. This creative writing method lead the mothers to produce texts which stand as rich analyses of their handcrafted work.
These narratives stand alone in expressing how these mothers experienced weaving, and in parallel, their situation of imprisonment. The texts were then analysed by the researcher to extract the most relevant themes in concordance with the research interrogations: How does weaving as therapeutic medium and creative mode of expression inform the participating mothers about themselves and their imprisonment experience in the context of an art therapy group? The findings show that most themes stand at the intersection of the experience of weaving and that of imprisonment.
As a primary focus, these mothers expressed the concerns they have and the emotions they feel about their children. Creating beauty is the overarching theme identified by the researcher and refers to these mothers’ use of the process and product of weaving as a way to search for, bring about, and give life to the qualities that provide pleasure and delight to the mind and the senses in a context where they are deprived from sources of beauty, particularly their children. »
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