Abstract
Important links have been established between eating disorders and child sexual abuse. These medical and positive studies, however, have causally quantified the link, and analysis has remained within the parameters of individual psychology. Thus, women’s perspectives and experiences are ignored. In this chapter, I argue for a feminist application of Mikhail Bakhtin’s sociological linguistics when examining women’s experiences of eating disorders and child sexual abuse and the links between them. Bakhtin’s theoretical constructs – authoritative and internally persuasive discourse – can enable researchers to expose the seemingly objective truths that overshadow alternative discourses competing for expression. I also argue for the use of a layered account, a technique that enables me to incorporate artistic expression. This chapter begins with an overview of how Bakhtin’s theoretical constructs can promote a feminist paradigm for analyzing women’s understandings. Drawing from my research that examined the nature of the relationship between women’s experiences of child sexual abuse and eating disorders, I demonstrate how Bakhtin’s theoretical constructs can expose the hidden mechanisms of control found in these gender-based oppressive practices. I also illustrate how drawing and poetry, when used in qualitative research methodologies, can create space for interactional discovery and give voice to the unspeakable.
References
Abma TA. Emerging narrative forms of knowledge representation in the health sciences: two texts in a postmodern context. Qual Health Res. 2002;12(1):5–27.
Alcoff LM. The problem of speaking for others. In: Jackson AY, Mazzei LA, editors. Voice in qualitative inquiry: challenging conventional, interpretive, and critical conceptions in qualitative research. Hoboken: Routledge; 2008. p. 117–35.
Bakhtin MM. Discourse in the novel. In: Holquist M, editor. The dialogic imagination: four essays (trans: Emerson C, Holquist M). Austin: University of Texas Press; 1981. p. 259–422.
Bakhtin MM. The problem of speech genres. In: Emerson C, Holquist M, editors. Speech genres and other late essays (trans: McGee VW). Austin: University of Texas Press; 1986. p. 60–102. (Original work published 1979).
Bauer DM, McKinstry SJ, editors. Feminism, Bakhtin, and the dialogic. Albany: State University of New York Press; 1991.
Becker D. Women’s work and the societal discourse of stress. Feminism Psychol. 2010;20(1): 36–52.
Berger M. Workable sisterhood: the political journey of stigmatized women with HIV/AIDs. Princeton: Princeton University Press; 2006.
Bolen RM. Child sexual abuse: its scope and our failure. New York: Springer; 2001.
Bordo S. Unbearable weight: feminism, western culture and the body. Berkeley: University of California Press; 2003.
Burns M. Eating like an ox: femininity and dualistic constructions of bulimia and anorexia. Feminism Psychol. 2004;14(2):269–95.
Burr V. Social constructionism. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge; 2007.
Chen LP, Murad MH, Paras ML, Colbenson KM, Sattler AL, Goranson EN, Zirakzadeh A. Sexual abuse and lifetime diagnosis of psychiatric disorders: systematic review and meta-analysis. Mayo Clin Proc. 2010;85(7):618–29.
Clarke J, Febbraro A, Hatzipantelis M, Nelson G. Poetry and prose: telling the stories of formerly homeless mentally ill people. Qual Inq. 2005;11(6):913–32.
Francis D. Gender monoglossia, gender heteroglossia: the potential of Bakhtin’s work for re-conceptualising gender. J Gend Stud. 2012;21(1):1–15.
Frank AW. What is dialogical research and why should we do it? Qual Health Res. 2005;15:964–74.
Furman R. Poetic forms and structures in qualitative health research. Qual Health Res. 2006a;16(4):560–6.
Furman R. Poetry as research: advancing scholarship and the development of poetry therapy as a profession. J Poet Ther. 2006b;19(3):133–45.
Furnam R. Using poetry and narrative as qualitative data: exploring a father’s cancer through poetry. Fam Syst Health. 2004;22(2):162–70.
Gannon S. (Re) presenting the collective girl: a poetic approach to a methodological dilemma. Qual Inq. 2001;7:787–800.
Guillemin M. Understanding illness: using drawings as a research method. Qual Health Res. 2004;14(2):272–89.
Hodge L. Lost for words: drawing as a visual product and process to give voice to silenced experiences. In: Chonody JM, editor. Community art: creative approaches to practice. Champaign: Common Ground Publishing; 2014. p. 60–76.
Hooper CA. Mothers surviving child sexual abuse. London: Routledge; 1992.
Kleinman A, Das V, Lock MM, editors. Social suffering. Berkeley: University of California Press; 1997.
Kress GR, van Leeuwen T. Reading images: the grammar of visual design. New York: Routledge; 1996.
Lafrance MN, McKenzie-Mohr S. The DSM and its lure of legitimacy. Feminism Psychol. 2013;21(1):119–40.
Lahman MKE, Rodriguez KL, Richard VM, Geist MR, Schendel RK, Graglia PE. (Re)forming research poetry. Qual Inq. 2010;17(9):887–96.
Lahteenmaki M. On meaning and understanding: a dialogical approach. Dialogism. 1998;1:74–91.
Lather P, Smithies C. Troubling the angels: women living with HIV/AIDS. Boulder: Westview; 1997.
Lawrence M. The anorexic experience. London: The Women’s Press; 1984.
Leavy P. Method meets art: arts-based research practice. New York: Guilford Press; 2009.
Malchiodi CA. The art therapy source book. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2007.
Malson H. The thin woman: feminism, post-structuralism and the social psychology of anorexia nervosa. New York: Routledge; 1998.
Malson H, Burns M. Re-theorising the slash of dis/order: an introduction to critical feminist approaches to eating dis/orders. In: Malson H, Burns M, editors. Critical feminist approaches to eating dis/orders. London: Routledge; 2009. p. 1–6.
Oiler C. Nursing reality as reflected in nurses’ poetry. Perspect Psychiatr Care. 1983;21(3):81–9.
Patton MQ. Qualitative research and evaluation methods. 4th ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage; 2015.
Peter T. Exploring taboos: comparing male- and female-perpetrated child sexual abuse. J Interpers Violence. 2009;24(7):1111–28.
Pink S. Doing ethnography: images, media and representation in research. London: Sage; 2001.
Poindexter CC. Research as poetry: a couple experiences HIV. Qual Inq. 2003;8(6):707–14.
Probyn E. The anorexia body. In: Kroker A, Kroker M, editors. Body invaders: panic sex in America. Montreal: New World Perspectives; 1987. p. 201–12.
Probyn E. Blush: faces of shame. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press; 2005.
Radley A. What people do with pictures. Vis Stud. 2010;25(3):268–79.
Ramm A. What is drawing? Bringing the art into art therapy. Int J Art Ther Formerly Inscape. 2005;12(2):63–7.
Reavey P, editor. Visual methods in psychology: using and interpreting images in qualitative research. New York: Routledge; 2011.
Reavey P, Gough B. Dis/locating blame: survivors’ constructions of self and sexual abuse. Sexualities. 2000;3(3):325–46.
Riessman CK. Narrative methods for the human sciences. Thousand Oaks: Sage; 2008.
Rose G. Visual methodologies: an introduction to the interpretation of visual materials. 2nd ed. London: Sage; 2008.
Sanci L, Coffey C, Olsson C, Reid S, Carlin J, Patton G. Childhood sexual abuse and eating disorders in females: findings from the Victorian adolescent health cohort study. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2008;162(3):161–7.
Shapiro J. Can poetry be data? Potential relationships between poetry and research. Fam Syst Health. 2004;22(2):171–7.
Smolak L, Muren SK. A meta-analytic examination of the relationship between child sexual abuse and eating disorders. Int J Eat Disord. 2002;31:136–50.
Stoltenborgh M, van Jzendoorn MH, Euser EM, Bakermans-Kranenburg MJ. A global perspective on child sexual abuse: meta-analysis of prevalence around the world. Child Maltreat. 2011;16(2):79–101.
Warin M. Primitivising anorexia: the irresistible spectacle of not eating. Aust J Anthropol. 2004;15(1):95–104.
Warin M. Abject relations: everyday worlds of anorexia. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press; 2010.
Warner S. Understanding the effects of child sexual abuse: feminist revolutions in theory, research and practice. New York: Routledge; 2009.
Wooley S. Sexual abuse and eating disorders: the concealed debate. In: Fallon P, Katzman MA, Wooley S, editors. Feminist perspectives on eating disorders. New York: Guilford Press; 1994. p. 171–211.
Yang LH, Kleinman A, Link BG, Phelan JG, Lee S, Good B. Culture and stigma: adding moral experience to stigma theory. Soc Sci Med. 2007;64(7):1524–35.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this entry
Cite this entry
Hodge, L. (2018). Capturing the Research Journey: A Feminist Application of Bakhtin to Examine Eating Disorders and Child Sexual Abuse. In: Liamputtong, P. (eds) Handbook of Research Methods in Health Social Sciences . Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2779-6_131-2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2779-6_131-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-2779-6
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-2779-6
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Social SciencesReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences
Publish with us
Chapter history
-
Latest
Capturing the Research Journey: A Feminist Application of Bakhtin to Examine Eating Disorders and Child Sexual Abuse- Published:
- 15 December 2017
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2779-6_131-2
-
Original
Capturing the Research Journey: A Feminist Application of Bakhtin to Examine Eating Disorders and Child Sexual Abuse- Published:
- 21 August 2017
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2779-6_131-1