Honouring Stories through Hand-bound Books

Dignity First - Co-creating Tomorrow was a research project led by Dr Jaz Hee-Jeong Choi.

In this project, Dr Choi, Adele-Charmay Yule and I gathered the stories of those who have experienced homelessness through reflective, creative kits. These stories were gathered to inform early research into co-creating support services for those experiencing homelessness. After engaging with these stories, we realised it was important to demonstrate to participants that we had heard and appreciated the time they spent to share their stories with us. To demonstrate our listening and the impact the stories had had on us we chose to illustrate words and thoughts that stood out to us in each story. We printed these illustrations into hand-bound book to return to each participant.

After receiving the hand-bound books, participants were invited to meet with us in a co-creative workshop, to edit their hand-bound books in any way they chose. We suggested they might like to change any parts where we might have misinterpreted their stories, or add pages to thicken their narratives. I had imagined participants might be frustrated if we had misinterpreted their stories, but that was not the case. Misinterpretation was an opportunity to talk and connect further, and strengthen our understandings. None of the participants altered the booklets we gave them in the workshop. Instead, the workshop became one of simply chatting, laughing, and furthering our knowledge of their stories and experiences.