Body Mapping for Peacebuilding

29th July 2024

Author

The AHRC MAP PhD researcher, Anna Smirnova, utilised body mapping methodology to facilitate the storytelling of young people in Kyrgyzstan, enabling them to analyse their experiences and integrate youth perspectives into conflict analysis and peacebuilding.

Body mapping is a creative process involving drawing, painting, and other arts-based techniques to visually represent aspects of individuals’ lives, bodies, and their world. This storytelling approach offers new insights into participatory methods, visual representation, and analysis by combining visual, narrative, and participatory data generation. It provides a framework for critically analysing power structures, cultural specificities, conflict-related factors, and promoting intergenerational dialogue.

Anna developed a detailed step-by-step toolkit to facilitate body mapping storytelling workshops. These workshops, conducted between December 2022 to May 2023, with young MAP participants in Bishkek and Dzhany-Dzher village, led to the creation of a series of body maps and accompanying stories. The narratives revealed the participants’ embodied experiences and highlighted concerns about their lives and conflicts, including loneliness and (non)acceptance, future fears and motivation, gender identity and inequality, insecurity, and violence. The catalogue of body maps accompanied by young people’s stories is available here.

Following the workshops, MAP partners and young people organised a series of body map exhibitions at various events in Bishkek, such as ‘The Cohesion Week’ and the FTI interactive-consultation meeting ‘Talk to Me’. These events provided young people with opportunities to share their problems and concerns with adults, empowering them to become co-creators of knowledge in arts-based research and interventions towards conflict resolution and peacebuilding.

Nurlan Asanbekov, the Principal Investigator of the MAP project ‘The Magic of Theatre’, produced an artistic response to the body mapping storytelling in the form of a short film. This film features three young female participants sharing their stories about the challenges faced by young women in Kyrgyzstan. It was presented to a wider audience at the 705 Theatre in Bishkek, followed by an engaging discussion on gender inequality and youth responses to the challenges faced by young women.

Anna’s significant contribution to the body mapping storytelling methodology was recognised by the Award Committee of the International Visual Sociology Association. As the 2024 recipient of the Prosser Award for outstanding work in visual methodologies, she presented her work at the official Awards Ceremony at the IVSA Conference on June, 29 in Xalapa, Mexico. Her presentation, which provided a rationale for body mapping storytelling as a powerful visual methodology, can be viewed here. More information about her work is available on the IVSA website here.