“Close Reading”: A Practice for Feminist, Arts-Based Methods in Social Work Education.

Overview: Arts-based practices in Social Work can re-root our critical conversations in intersectional feminism, and invite students to embody the practices of co-creating knowledge. This workshop explores a narrative methodology, “Close Reading,” and analyze how social work educators might implement it to teach students with limited arts-based methods/arts-based research experiences.Proposal text: In alignment with this year's theme of critical conversations, this workshop explores the application of feminist, arts-based methods as deep listening practices that help uncover and disrupt master narratives in social work education and practice settings. These narrative practices re-root our critical conversations in intersectional feminism, and invite our students to embody the practices of co-creating knowledge. Specifically, this workshop will explore a narrative methodology, “Close Reading,” and analyze how social work educators might implement it to teach students with limited arts-based methods/arts-based research experiences.
This workshop will propose that “Close Reading” may be used as a tool for feminist, arts-based methods in social work education to re-center issues of power, privilege, and marginalization. Through the dialogic process of engaging and reflecting on an arts-based artifact, a practitioner can take action, moving their new knowledge forward. The act of Close Reading is core to Narrative Medicine, and supports the capacity “to recognize, absorb, interpret, and be moved to action by the stories of others” (Charon, 2016, 1). Social workers are among the practitioners who engage in narrative medicine (Burack-Weiss et al., 2017), and the application of this tool should align with, and in fact, deepen, our social work practice. In Close Reading, the reader observes the text and, upon soaking up every line and letter, writes a response or reaction “in the shadow” of that text. If others are Close Reading together, then these responses are shared with one another - each story receiving just as much close attention as the original text at the start. With the explicit goals of surfacing of power, social injustices, and multi-voiced reflections on ethical practice, these (and other) arts-based practices may be particularly suited for critical social work (Shimei et al., 2016).
Throughout the workshop, participants will explore the elements of Close Reading, and practice with a template for Close Reading as a method of evaluating arts-based methods in social work, as anything can be a ‘text’ – a dance, a song, a play, a collage, a poem, a painting. Workshop participants will do a Close Reading in a small group, and will reflect on the application of these methods in social work education. Inviting other researchers, participants, or community members to engage in Close Reading–to become “reader, listener, beholder” (Charon, 2016, 194)-- of the artist-researcher’s artifact is an act of vulnerability and humility. Incorporating feedback and insight gleaned from that Close Reading into the final representation is an act of power-sharing. These principles–vulnerability, humility, and power-sharing–are vital elements of social justice work, and aligned with the core practices of social work. Ultimately, we believe that dialogic processes and arts-based artifacts can help social workers reconnect with personal and professional goals, and to "recommit themselves to professional values of social change and social justice" (Shimei et al., 2016, p. 615).