Dancing the Crisis and Its Transformative Potential: A Cooperative and Performative Research With an Italian Disability Service System During the Coronavirus Pandemic

Abstract

This study draws on research that investigated transformative learning with reference to complexity theories. It describes the use of dance-informed performative autoethnography employed to analyze and interpret participants’ experience of crisis in research conducted within a disability service system in Italy during COVID-19 pandemic. Firstly, the use of this method of inquiry after the initial data collection was useful in deepening the crisis experience. Secondly, the representation of the data through dance performance fostered new interpretations of the crisis situation that further validated the presentation of the data and had the secondary advantage of reinterpreting the entire experience.

Keywords

transformative learning social work crisis dance-informed research performative autoethnography

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