The Art of Data Analysis: Disturbing Knowledge and Performing Critical Inquiry

Abstract

Using theater and performance, the building of “We are not the Others” brought into discussion—How does the researcher ethically “code” data to re-present the stories of Women Immigrants who are understood as the Other to achieve the social justice goals? This article explores these questions and asks, “What is the purpose and politics of an embodied performance of/by the Other for White audiences?” These questions framed the processes of creating the re-telling of stories and were integral to the ethical engagement of audiences in a way that drew them in, to understand their own implications.

“We are not the Others” (WANTO) is an artful re-presentation of women’s migration journeys, woven together through performance. Stories were told by women as a part of a community research project. During data collection, those who participated advocated for this research to go beyond academia—to see themselves represented in spaces and use their stories to disrupt dominant narratives of migration. It became evident that there was an ethical responsibility—to disturb academic spaces, “knowledge” of migration in a way that amplified the experiences of precariousness of citizenship and belonging of newcomers. Women wanted their stories to show Canada and the mythos of immigration, the “better” life, and fabled multiculturalism. It was determined by women and the team that an artful display of how migration was, and is, navigated at the intersections of racialization and gender could reach Old-Stock Canadians and their descendants to change the narrative and perceptions. For community researchers, working to dislodge these stereotypes from the Canadian imagination, required new methods aimed at social justice—that extend beyond the academy (Leavy, 2015). Performance was decided to be ideal, as an embodied form of inquiry, knowledge mobilization, and production (Nichols et al., 2023). Embodiment intended to pose resistance to the meta-narrative that Canadians are told about migration—tropes of invasion, stealing, and criminality that racialize and marginalize women. These are the narratives that underscore political rhetoric, news media, and entertainment by operationalizing the tropes of the racialized newcomer, which challenge what is “Canadian.” The performances represented the stories of gender, mental health, and racialization in the context of migration to unsettle beliefs about what it means to be “Canadian.” WANTO is data analysis in motion.

Using the stage as a canvas for stories to be re-presented, the performances were created from the themes in the research to collectively voice individual stories as resistance. Working with women who participated, the stories were meant to connect with our humanity. Women spoke of hope, fear, injustice(s), and everyday life, which were transformed with the goal of telling new and underrepresented stories with people, families, and communities that have migrated. The re-presenting offered the possibility of bringing a new perspective to audiences who work with newcomers or those who uphold dominant narratives of migration. The participants and the research team concluded that, to incite meaningful social change, “regular” Canadians, those who “naturally” belong, not directly affected by migration, racialization, and the struggle for citizenship, had to unlearn some of the harmful narratives of immigration. Theater and the performance of WANTO opened a space for people who have been historically marginalized to be heard and those embodying these identities to be seen in White spaces (Carranza, 2020; Nichols et al., 2023). Using research in and for art and the re-presenting of stories for WANTO was not linear. The ethics encountered by the researcher/writer as an insider and outsider to the data when re-presenting the complexities of the Other were nuanced. This required different considerations from other forms of qualitative coding. Furthermore, there is an embedded ethic in this work that requires examination and reflexivity (Cox et al., 2023). This article draws on previous scholarship of research-based theater, ethnodrama/ethnotheater, performance inquiry, and performance ethnography. It explores coding as an ethical process, interpreting and analyzing the data to form the performance. One overarching question guided the process: How does the researcher ethically “code” data to re-tell and re-present the original stories of Women Immigrants who are understood as the Other in dominant spaces to move from the margins to center? This speaks to questions, such as “What is the purpose and politics of an embodied performance of/by the Other for White audiences?” Furthermore, what does it mean to, and how does one re-present stories of racialized bodies in a modality (theater) that has a history of marginalizing these narratives? These questions framed the processes of creating the re-presentation and were integral to the ethical engagement of audiences. Krippendorff (2012) suggests that “re-presentation” is more than just representing something such as an idea or image. The “re-” including the hyphen indicates that the producer and viewer had previous knowledge of the topic, idea, or event and they are building on this. Viewers are involved in making what was known present again. To explore creative data coding, the background and geopolitical context, including the theoretical framing of coloniality and the literature that guided the process, are explored.

The Research: WANTO

The research was conducted in Hamilton, a Tier-2 city, in Southwestern Ontario Canada. Tier 2 means less services and a lower population than major urban centers. The foundation for WANTO was a community–university research partnership examining the intersections of migration, gender, resettlement, and mental health (Carranza, 2017). To ethically engage in this work, principles related to community-based participatory research (CBPR) were used and informed the way that the research was approached (Israel et al., 2008). These principles were employed to address power imbalances between the researcher and the participants and viewing research as a process that can further the social agendas and supports resistance and resilience of marginalized groups (Ungar, 2003). The collaboration was led by the principal investigator’s (PI) institution and three local immigrant-serving organizations that had a 30-year history of working with newcomers in resettlement and integration, social supports, and legal matters. The framework for the partnerships was guided by the principles of engaged scholarship, translating lived knowledge gathered during research into meaningful change (MacKinnon, 2010). This meant that research and action were an iterative process. A community-advisory group was developed with the research partners, employees of social service organizations, and women to provide guidance on the study process to ensure participants’ voices remained at the center. Centering participants’ voice resisted commonly held notions that knowledge is created by, and often reflects, the values and experiences of those who generate it (Cochran et al., 2008). It, too, opened up space for different ways of knowing, in particular, grassroots knowledge. This knowledge grounds itself in people’s lifeworld and plays a central role in activism (Choudry, 2014).

Community consultations, followed by focus groups and individual in-depth interviews (Mason, 2017), were used for data collection. Narrative inquiry (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990) was used to understand how the world is experienced, constructed, and reconstructed through personal stories (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990). This allowed for space to discuss lived experiences and participants made meaning of their realities (Strauss & Corbin, 1994). Over a span of 2 years, women (38), their children (five), and community members and service providers (35), all totalling 78 participants, were recruited and asked to detail the journeys of their migration and the intersection with mental health, experiences of trauma, intimate partner violence, and integration in Canadian society. Their stories spoke to trauma and loss, resilience, and the struggle to both leave one’s country of origin and try to find a sense of belonging in Canada. Participants also spoke to how women with their families navigated the context of Hamilton, its services, and the immigration system. They also talked about developing transnational lives and circular meaning-making processes in both of their “homes.”

In Hamilton, Women expressed a demarcation of difference, or being constructed as the “Other” due to not being born “here,” looking “different” [racialized], speaking “differently” (with an accent), language barriers, and immigration status. Within their stories, the Othering they experienced was a process tied to migration through encounters of structural racism, racialized microaggressions, marginalization, and gender discrimination. Resettlement, acculturation, and integration meant navigating environments where non-racialized or White Canadians and structures contested their belonging. Their race, gender, and accents often granted silent permission to demarcate these differences while refusing their resistance. Often, experiences of racism and marginalization were unspoken, nuanced, and beyond verbal articulation. These encounters were often attributed to “cultural differences” or misunderstandings.

The Process

Using community-based participatory methods, the team was well-known in the community and had collaborated with organizations and women for more than 10 years together. As members of the Central American and South American diaspora, the team, including the PI, moves with both insider and outsider status depending on the geopolitical location. WANTO was originally intended to be a research-based art project, using art (visual art, music, poetry, and dance) in the data collection, analysis, and/or reporting of research (Wang et al., 2017). When the project was beginning, women who were involved, spoke with the research team and said they wanted something to come out of this research. One, to see themselves represented beyond reports, recommendations, and articles, and, second, that Canadians who may not have been affected by migration or have negative views should understand their journey better. Women wanted the negative pieces of their “image”—often related to their country of origin and stereotypes about their gender combined with overall anti-immigrant sentiments—to be reinvented in the public imagination. The image, including a range of stereotypes from poverty, violence, and “backwards” cultures, did not reflect their realities, experience and emotions. It also served to keep them in the margins, contributing to the idea that they and their countries are inferior to Canada and the Global North. In their sharing of stories, there was the opportunity to bring a more realistic and emotive perspective and, to do so, theater was determined to be accessible; literacy is not needed, can be translated, and performed in low-cost spaces.

This medium presented a new opportunity but required a shift in methodologies. As an emerging field, research-based theater is not a neutral methodology. Art, including theater, can at times conflict with institutional structuring of research (Nichols et al., 2023). Building on this, the team signaled that this shift beyond research-based art had some ethical implications as a methodology and with the subject matter. There were new complexities to consider as these were the stories of women who were racialized in their journey to Canada, many of whom were forcibly displaced. This discussion was twofold. The first was the potential considerations in relation to procedural research ethics and reporting of such changes to the university’s board. The second is the moral impetus to tell such stories, on how to ethically re-present women’s stories in an authentic and nonexploitative way, while provoking a response by viewers.

In the university ethics application, the board determined that the participants, women and their children, were considered “vulnerable.” Meaning they experience more risks by participating in research. Institutional ethics was concerned with their experiencing distress from speaking about past topics, having less capacity to say “no” or withdraw from the research, and experience social or psychological retribution. Ethical praxis in research requires a minimizing of these risks and discomforts, whereas using the arts is intended to unsettle and create discomfort (Bolt, 2016; Nichols et al., 2023). How institutional or procedural ethics had the potential to “rub up” against the stated wishes of participants led to generative discussions on mapping the way forward. Discussion focused on the target audience who were those who not only believed in but also were implicated in the maintenance of stereotypes. There was also consideration of how whiteness, of which audience members would embody, benefited from the exploitation of newcomers, contributing to displacement and vulnerability in Canada/research. It was in this relationship of those who hold marginalizing views that the re-presentation held the potential to rearrange their views and how they participated and maintained these everyday exclusions (Sinding et al., 2017).

These complexities meant that the process of engaging with the data constituted more than an interpretation, or theming. As the research team, women, and audiences had an experience of migration that was different, the data needed to be re-presented. The work needed to build on what was already known and had been experienced to shift knowledge. The uptake could not encourage interpretation as a sensationalized portrayal of trauma (Wang et al., 2017). The intention was to create a moving, performative critical pedagogy of the process of leaving, arriving, and living at the intersection(s) of women’s lives. This creation would engage with politics of exclusion to which everyone was implicated/affected by. Most importantly, women who participated could see their stories. This engagement challenged the cannons of using art in and for research, as it blurred the boundaries of artful inquiry and performance, expanding notions of research-based theater (Cox et al., 2023; Nichols et al., 2023). This meant moving beyond the interpretation and performance of data, the foundation of ethnodrama, to create a visual re-production of participants’ stories (Saldaña, 2003). Performance writing became a method of qualitative analysis.

Ethical Considerations

Belonging exists in the body, and can be confirmed through the senses of seeing, hearing, and knowing, and has certain preconditions needed to be deconstructed, or dislocated, in the context of citizenship, race, gender, and migration (Mirza, 2018). Citizenship and belonging are a lived process and, for women, this was constantly under threat and precarious. It is at this juncture that professional and artistic ethics (Nichols et al., 2023) and the emphasis on embodied ways of knowing in theater meet social justice research in centering lived experiences and knowledge outside of the Global North. The ethical imperative was that the immigration tropes of invasion, stealing, threats to ownership, and flooding the country (Cunningham-Parmeter, 2011) with racists stereotypes around gender that often framed resettlement, were placing women on the margins and had to be the overarching concepts to deconstruct. The non-neutrality of this methodology, including the history of harm, oppression, and “power over” employed by both social sciences researchers and Theater, needed to be attended to (Gray, 2023; Nichols et al., 2023). Despite the collaboration with women, the community-based methodology, and the in-depth discussions of theater praxis, power is everywhere present. In reducing “power over” and maintaining participants’ visions and decision-making, the team was searching for a way, as Mienczakowski (2001) discusses, to prompt the viewer to find their own ways to take in the information, learn, and create social change. In Hamilton and the surrounding area, there was a strong arts community with potential collaborators and several opportunities for accessible venues. This opportunity allowed for learning in both—a new way and space.

Geopolitical Context

At the time of the research and performances, the rise in “Trumpism” was extending into Canada—showing up as racist rhetoric in day-to-day life, services, and politics (Mason, 2017). Some of the participants’ and research teams’ countries of origin had been named by the United States’ 45th president as “shitholes” (Dawsey, 2019). This is not new in Canada; the growing number of racialized newcomers since World War II (WWII) has brought a backlash, hate, and anti-migration sentiments, with Hamilton being named one of the most racist cities in Canada (Carranza, 2020). This situated the project in a hostile space, especially for women. Not only did existing in a hostile space constitute a major theme in women’s stories, but there was also an awareness that some of the audiences may espouse these value positions as well. Amid struggle, women’s stories brought forth messages of connection, community, and love—it is here they wanted their image to be reimagined; bringing the unspoken and misunderstood to the forefront. Peer-reviewed articles, presentations, and even gray literature fell short of reaching those on the other end of the White gaze.

Each of the women who participated came from countries of the Global South and were marked by difference upon arrival. Situating their migration trajectory brought into focus not only their realities but also informed the theoretical framework of coloniality. Coloniality (Quijano, 2000) considers the complexities of women’s countries of origin and the history of being colonized, challenging the resettlement country of Canada as distinguishing itself as not having a historical role in globalized exploitation. These complexities, meant in part, that there was a perceived distance between women’s norms, customs, and knowledge, and the occidental and European standards on which settler Canada was built and maintains.

Coloniality of Power

Coloniality of Power (Quijano, 2000) posits that anti-migration sentiments are often based upon remnants of the colonial relationship and the desire to control those who are not White. In Canada, the organizing principles of belonging are rooted in the racial and gendered classification of people. In accordance with the axis of the imaginary “matrix” of race, the ordering of people that has largely remained is the remnants of colonialism and centers whiteness as the dominant worldview. This worldview, in turn, legitimizes White people’s superiority to determine who belongs and who can be excluded (Quijano, 2000). The relationships of domination between race, class, and gender form the “colonial difference” (Carranza, in press).

The colonial difference is visually demarcated by race through racialization that occurs in Canada and other settler nations. It is also experienced through other senses, in accents, clothing, and the smell of what is termed “ethnic.” This process occurs at the intersections of identities, at the axis where newcomers are recreated as the Other. The Other is non-White, female, often English is their second language, and they may or may not have an accent (i.e., second-generation racialized children). This legitimation has led to what is arrogantly referred to as the “dominant group” White European or, as referred to by Canada’s former Prime Minister Mr. Stephen Harper, “Old stock Canadian” (Hopper, 2015). As a patriarchal state, “old stock” inevitably means that the ideological and symbolic standards for what is, and is not, a Canadian are rooted in White masculinity. “Old Stock” further refers to those who are the pinnacle of belonging—they look White, sound as if they are “from here,” and display the mannerisms of a Canadian.

This structuring of who belongs and how this informs structural inequality and marginalization is what participants believed could be challenged to recreate how “Old stock” Canadians engaged with newcomers. Canada, as a nation, encourages in some ways and requires in others, for newcomers to close the distance between them and whiteness and shift to be more like Canadians (Carranza, 2017). In response to this perceived difference and privileging of whiteness, women and their families experienced covert and overt acts of racism. Canadian attitudes toward newcomers arriving from the Global South vary. The most significant are embedded in the notion that they should be “grateful,” and their arrival should be “enough.” This creates an unwelcoming environment to discuss the many challenges associated with migration and the remaking of home—as it defies the expected colonial gratitude. The research project and play sought to interrupt these expectations, specifically the savior ideology that once “safety” has been achieved in Canada, happiness automatically begins without the presence of any integration challenges.

Engaging With the Arts

Ethically working in the area of the arts and research from a social science perspective required developing new understandings of these intersections and overlapping elements. There are several terms and concepts aimed at codifying the current role of the arts in social science research and ways to understand the configurations of knowledge production (Sinding et al., 2017). Currently, in the research lexicon, “arts-based research” and “research-based art” are the two umbrella categories for the range of forms discussed in the literature. This area of inquiry or ways of performing, incorporating, and experimenting with arts in research can be understood through the field of arts-based inquiry. Arts-based inquiry incorporates humanities, performance, arts, and creativity with other forms of academic research (Eaton, 2017). Concurrently, “research-based theater” is the overarching term for play and performances. Where there is a collaboration with artists, research is used and there is a commitment to participant voice in theater (Cox et al., 2023).

WANTO brought in a theater professional to develop the play and actors who had a relationship to migration and were racialized. As actors would be selected to visually re-present the processes of racialization, extra caution and care were required to ensure safety. It was the PI who coded the data as the first step of re-presenting. This process blended two realms of arts and research—the artist and the academic—to jointly create knowledge and an artful interpretation of the data for dissemination. Reviewing the research on this type of work guided the process and the ethical engagement with the material. This review is especially pertinent to the power relationship in research and in telling of stories. Performance ethnography brings critical traditions to the forefront.

Jones (2002) identifies six foundational elements to performance ethnography and the “doing” of critical scholarship that reinforced the correlation between the project and the possibilities offered by theater: (a) center on a context or a phenomena, (b) the performance should grow as a collaboration between the researcher and community, (c) subjectivity: the researchers is acting as an interpreter and must practice reflexivity, (d) multi-vocality to mitigate the power dynamic of the researcher, (e) participation: the audience can challenge their own culturally inscribed bodily truths, and (f) the ethics of re-presentation. Art then challenges the traditional ways people learn about “immigrants” by humanizing the stories of women to prompt thought and action. In thinking about the doing of critical scholarship with performance ethnography and the possibilities for the project, it was determined to blend this method with performance inquiry and performance ethnography.

Ethnodrama/Ethnotheater, Performance Inquiry, and Performance Ethnography

The arts are often utilized as a vehicle for knowledge translation and as a social justice method (Eaton, 2017). The activism or engaged scholarship is understood as engaging with participants and using their knowledge and experiences to disrupt dominant narratives. The use of performance ethnography speaks to scholarship and advocacy but in the form of theory, not the “doing” of engaged scholarship (Janes, 2016). WANTO was a process of drawing in the audience on the previous mental models of migration; the data analysis used knowledge of how the dominant or “old stock” viewed Women Immigrants. Intentionally, “old stock” Canadians too were re-presented.

Performance in this context is, and represents, a strategy of inquiry by doing things materially, effectively, and imaginatively. WANTO presents the phenomena of migration, mental health at the intersection(s) of gendered racialization in an ethnodrama format, with elements of performative inquiry and performance ethnography. This blending of methods would translate the stories and knowledge for viewers to examine their own belief and take action. Performative inquiry and performance ethnography were weaved in to assist in unpacking how embodied belonging is understood and performed and the possibilities of such instances. During the writing process, careful consideration was given to the implications of style and format to the re-presentation and how the performance would be taken up and by whom. Viewers would already know about migration, and some would be able to see themselves in the actors and others in their stories—but on the other side.

A comprehensive literature review was conducted for ethical and authentic praxis to guide the data analysis coding and writing. The play would follow the works of Eaton (2017), Denzin (2003), and Saldaña (2005), who concluded that “ethnodrama” is the presentation and mobilization of research through dramatic production to increase the reach beyond scholars. Saldaña (2003) calls an ethnodrama “a play based on the analysis and dramatization of data derived from qualitative research” (p. 218). This modality can also be referred to as performance-based methods (Leavy, 2015) or research-based theater (Saldaña, 2005). Ethnodrama does not simply re-enact the words of participants, it attempts to present the lifeworld by displaying the meaning and words from data collection (Mienczakowski, 1997).

Performance inquiry is considered a “dramatization of research data as a method of critical pedagogy and resistance” (Wang et al., 2017, p 2). Fels (1999) defines performance inquiry as a (re)search methodology that allows researchers and educators to engage in performance to learn about a phenomenon. Pelias (2018) builds on this definition, drawing our attention to the body in performance, claiming that performative inquiry is an embodied practice. This conclusion highlighted the importance of engaging with actors who have lived experience of migration and racialization. This embodiment grounds performative inquiry into historical processes, demanding that the body is centered in a participatory dynamic (Conquergood, 1991; Gray, 2023). In presenting data, creative moments can be used in the learning experience to gather new understanding(s). This type of inquiry exists in a creative space between performing and inquiry, which Fels and Meyer (1997) name “interstanding.” In this theory, performance is an epistemology; it gives credence to the body as a site of knowledge. Performers, following ethnographic procedures, gather data from the field, but instead of turning that data into a formal written report, they script and stage their findings (Pelias, 2008). It is this embodiment in performance that can challenge and disrupt viewers’ own thought processes and ways of knowing/seeing the world.

Notions presented by Hamera (2011) on performance ethnography as existing in the body and providing the researcher and/or ethnographer a way of presenting the expressive elements of culture through embodiment guided the decision of which themes would be included, and the why(s). Performance ethnography is a way to share knowledge of how culture or, in this case, the phenomena of migration, is done through the body. This work situates the body in social/cultural/historical spaces (Gray, 2023). This visually highlights how these lived realities are both set within the historical and political landscape while embedded in its own time and location, placing these understandings on stage (Hamera, 2011). Performance ethnography presents a series of interpretive monologues intending to communicate the messages selected by the participants and the researcher. As with Hamera (2011), the transcripts, field notes, observations, memos, and the audiotapes were coded for inclusion in the re-presentation—the latter in particular to depict the intonations, pauses, and the emotionality in the participants’ stories.

Ethnodrama or performance ethnography is presented as an alternative to academic publishing, as a way to increase accessibility. It uses no jargon, mitigates literacy issues, and is visually more stimulating. Much of the literature focuses on how this can re-create research as more applicable outside of academia, and this knowledge can create social change. However, the discussion of WANTO provides something slightly different. In many of the case samples in the literature (Eaton, 2017; Speechley et al., 2015), the data were collected to create a theatrical production aimed at educating new audiences and promoting dialogue. Furthermore, each of the productions was compiled from prominent themes, with quotes and stories to fit. In Mienczakowski and Morgan’s play (2001), themes were developed through an iterative process, in collaboration with participants, to serve as the framework for a fictional play. There is no discussion of coding or “story re-production” derived from an analysis of the data. There is very little on how to code data and use the analysis to create an ethnodrama or a performance ethnography.

The Process of Coding and Analysis

Knowledge mobilization was, in part, going to be educational modules with service providers, university courses, and a trauma screening tool. After the decision was made on how to blend art-based modalities, the ethics and moral imperative to present these themes and tensions in a way that prompted dialogue and challenged audience members became the guiding principle of data analysis. Developing WANTO, required engaging with the data in a new, artful way guided by the ethics of social science inquiry. The re-presentation was centered on the conflicts between grand narratives of migration and the stories of how women experienced Canada. As WANTO was a departure from other spaces developed by the interaction between arts and research, the goal became to create an assemblage of migration stories that demarcated the audience—as learners and the performers—as performing critical inquiry.

There was an underlying worry about whiteness and needing to comfort, which moved away from the original purpose but posed a challenge. The message needed to be “heard” and taken up in a way that was meaningful and did not shut down women’s stories. Decisions had to be made on how to balance the visceral nature of the experiences with the perceived reception level of the intended audiences. For example, would “Canadian born, non-racialized people” understand the nuances of microaggressions? Would they become defensive at examples of blatant discrimination? Decisions were made in collaboration with participants and the partners, being mindful of the potential “censorship” of experiences, and whitewashing was at the forefront of decisions. But the safety of the performer needed to be attended to. The idea that the data should “speak for itself” (Saldaña, 2005, p. 10) needed to be congruent with methods of engagement, including the actors, to engage with a script that can invoke emotion—to achieve the goals identified by the participants.

Qualitative inquiry is often inductive, building new knowledge(s). A balance needed to be found between the disruption to current ways of knowing about migration and prompting the audience to “see” in a new way. They wanted to re-build knowledge in new audiences, presenting the experiences in such a way that challenge the traditional ways that people learn about the idea that “immigrants” are a category to be known. This was done through the weaving of creative expressions, ideas, and emotions derived from the stories of women. It humanized migration, as opposed to news media or movies—the stories of loss and learning how to assemble IKEA furniture (Carranza, 2019). The re-presentation was both/and of women’s lives, the journey of belonging and citizenship blended with the everyday, is where they found meaning. The vision was to present the original stories as close as possible, using the women’s spoken words in such a way that prompted learning, insight, and new ways of seeing the human condition. For example, one of the narratives of migration was that newcomers come to Canada to “steal jobs” that supported the tropes of threats and challenges. The truth was that many of them struggled to find meaningful employment, which was rarely in their field.

Engaging with elements of grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1994), phenomenology (van Manen, 1990), discourse analysis (Potter, 1996), and narrative analysis (Lieblich et al., 1998) for data analysis, to create this performance text the transcripts were re-read line by line (Charmaz, 2015) to look for words and stories that described the overarching discourse, contradictions, and nuances. Each transcript was read at least twice, listening for pauses, encoded messages, and subtleties to become familiarized with each of the participants’ stories while recalling the interview by the PI. Nvivo 11 data analysis software proved very helpful in identifying common words, analogies, images, and metaphors that participants used to describe their lived experiences. These words served as an anchor to build the performance. As a process of re-building the narratives, words connected to the larger context enabled the audience to get a glimpse of understanding the depth and/or complexities of the participants’ story without the 40+ pages of detailed transcripts.

The main categories were everyday life, community, safety (Canada and country of origin), employment (Canada and country of origin), family (Canada and country of origin), the immigration process, money, politics, health, perceptions of themselves, and the process; others involved significant emotions, hopes, and dreams of a “better life.” Each transcript was given a synonym name and a mental map of their life prior to migration was created: their family, home, workplace, and surroundings; during migration hurtles, excitement, challenges encountered, and post-migration: settlement, integration, learning a new language, searching for meaningful employment, spending time with their children, with their memories—their past neatly woven in their present and future. Finally, a critical ethnography (CE; Mason, 2017) of each of the story transcripts was completed by the PI. CE begins with the same ethical responsibility assumed in the writing: to address a process of unfairness or injustice within a particular lived domain. In this case, “responsibility” is meant to make visible the accuracy and emotional impact accounts in the women’s stories, often lost in knowledge dissemination.

There was another listening of the audiotaped interviews and line-by-line reading to re-examine pauses, sobs, humor, sarcasms, ironies, contradictions, the women’s learnings about themselves, and their critical thinking about their experiences. Next, all of these were mapped out, including the silences, the crying, the PI’s observations of their facial expressions and body language (i.e., one woman threw herself on the floor when describing her pain of leaving her baby daughter under the care of her mother) as well as their hopes for themselves and their families—particularly their children. Embedded within the transcripts were participants’ own hierarchy of classifications/categories, which served as the emerging themes that anchored the play. From that, a re-arrangement of the participants’ own words to construct their story occurred, very rarely inserting words to help smooth out the arc of the story. Cues such as tone, stutters, tears, body language, and facial expressions were attended to throughout the development of the play. The PI, who collected all the original data, ensured that the re-presentation mirrored the original storytelling. Saldaña (1999) names this “story re-telling” (p. 63).

Each ethnographic account of the transcriptions added to the complexities of lived experiences arrived at after detailed rich descriptions. At each point in the data analysis, there needed to be mindfulness of the stories being presented. Of particular importance was not to engage in shock-based approaches, where horrific or traumatic examples were used to jar audience members. As determined by women, the approach was to show their daily reality, which contravened the story embedded in the Canadian imaginary of a “welcoming nation.” The next step related to critical discourse analysis, particularly the hidden relations of power—questions arose regarding who exercises power—who’s discourse is being presented, both in women’s lives and in the playwriting. Who is consulted, who is the ideal subject, what is left unsaid, who said it? on who’s behalf, and who is silenced? In addition, how theater can bring to center previously marginalized voices was considered during the iterative process of play development.

Careful attention was paid to the use of passive voice and descriptions throughout the process. In coding the data, these considerations were of the utmost importance as alternative wording imposed by the PI or collaborators could change the meaning or interpretation by the audience. The events were presented and replicated in the play to signify the importance of context. Selection of story transcripts that re-presented the nuanced process, tensions, and contradictions of the women’s lived experiences led to complexities of meaning, all of which were to be explored on the stage. In presenting the grand narrative, the PI was required to assemble and to weave stories together to present a coherent vignette that conveyed the messages in an engaging format and layered themes; a delicate balance was struck. Facilitating an unmasked view into the lives of marginalized women to open a new space of learning was both a moral and ethical imperative of using art to facilitate a connection between individual lives and the macro-level structures that connected people. In this case, citizenship, nation, and immigration.

In terms of the performance, the actors were carefully selected to re-present all of these interlocations of identity, racialized, female-identified, and newcomers, on the stage. The actors invoked through the dramatization of the women’s words and emotions their bodies through performance. The actors lived the tensions of belonging and the experiences as the Other through bodily expression. The tensions prompted dialogue in the post-performance talk back and the viewers, or “regular” Canadians, at times held the boundary between themselves and the Other. This was a unique opportunity to create and engage in dialogue in a theatrical space from several angles related to concepts of embodied belonging: inclusion of racialized actors in a typically “White” space, offering a space for the “not viewed” to become visible, the truth of migration or the not spoken to be spoken, a space for personal connection, compassion and impact, change, and a commitment to social justice to emerge by engaging with the discourse being presented. It was there where the emotionality of the women met the emotionality of the audience and our bond of humanity, often lost in labels such as refugee, immigrant, and re-emerged. A sacred moment often missed in academic writings.

Conclusion

The arts and theater have much to offer as a vehicle for communication for social science research, in terms of new methodologies, methods, and forms of dissemination. As Sinding and their colleagues (2017) note, this modality has a way of re-arranging our understandings and beliefs in ways that traditional knowledge dissemination does not. The questions that arose during the process were guided and resolved by the ability to ethically engage with the material to connect the audience to women’s stories. The politics of re-presentation in the “White” space of the theater brought forth and challenged the visual re-presentation of who belongs and who does not. WANTO opened and closed with the notion that, as women, mothers, friends, neighbors, and humans, our connections sustained us and that newcomers are more alike than different from their Canadian counterparts. By weaving dialogue and content throughout, exploring the lived realities of women, the potential for connections prompted empathetic understanding in the audience by deconstructing the barriers that prevented the feelings, knowledge, and insight the play produced.

Activating a social justice lens for playwriting was done as data analysis hinged on re-presenting the stories of women as close to the original as possible. Elevating pieces of their story to be re-told in a space that was active and complicit in marginalizing racialized women translated into a new ethical journey. Framing the stories in such a way to challenge White fragility was a delicate balance to keep women and the actors safe while encouraging the audience members to be brave. The play is a moving interpretation and presentation of data and the analysis and the modality of knowledge mobilization. These dual roles articulate the research process as moving and iterative. It reconstructs stories while rupturing the original story of migration and creates a new narrative for audience members. Playwriting as data analysis offers a new method for critical inquiry and a way to challenge the re-presentations of the Other, which reaches beyond academia to the lifeworld of participants.