Knowledge Hub

Navigating Chaos: A research trip tale

26 September 2024

Embarking on a research trip is always an adventure, but it can suddenly become a rollercoaster of challenges. Today, I'll tell you one of the many unheard stories in research planning, where things did not go as planned. It all started when one of the Ibali ethnographers – Katie had her passport stolen a few weeks before the trip, sending the Ibali team into a frenzy. This is how I joined Ibali – as a last-minute addition with a Nigerian passport and skills in qualitative methods.

“But here, we think in pictures first”: principles and practices for text-free storytelling workshops

13 June 2024

Storytelling is gaining popularity in research, as a tool for understanding how people make sense of their lives and experiences. Many storytelling research approaches rely on the development of written story-scripts. But what if the storytellers can’t, or would prefer not to, read and write?

Beyond binaries: navigating inclusion/exclusion at the intersection of our personal and professional lives

15 May 2024

Inclusion is often discussed in the abstract: what it means for other people. But the duality of inclusion and exclusion defines all our individual and communal existences, consciously, sub-consciously and pervasively.

International Research Teams and Vis-aaaaaaaaaarghs

15 October 2023

A key focus in Ibali is how academics from different parts of the world research in different parts of the world. We are asking: how does our positionality shape how storytelling research is carried out, critiqued and taken forward in different contexts? This means that the team travel between Nigeria, South Africa and the UK.

"It feels more real than the other activities we do": community-engaged storytelling with youths in the United States

5 October 2023

I am not a traditional scholar. As University of Minnesota Extension faculty, my role is to translate research into practical educational programs to address critical community needs and to study the impact of these programs.

Justice-Centred Storytelling and Research

11 August 2023

For this Ibali Knowledge Hub feature, we are excited to have engaged with Professor Anna CohenMiller. In this feature, she shared her work, ideas and insights with Dr Jennifer Agbaire and Dr Faith Mkwananzi. Anna specialises in arts-based research to facilitate and amplify voice of marginalised, overlooked/misheard, and colonised communities, focusing on guiding and empowering early career researchers and demystifying justice-centred research.

Storytelling Inside and Outside the Classroom – Reflections by Margaret Ismaila

4 August 2023

Storytelling has been a doorway to information, education, social development and moral ethics in my practice. I use storytelling as a means of engaging, entertaining and captivating my target audiences. Over the years it has been an effective approach in engaging with students in my lectures. Outside the classroom, it is useful during community outreach programmes and engaging with communities. Within the African context, where I work, I can delve into much more than just the narrative aspects of the craft, but also to tap into the unique aesthetics of African art.

Shedding light on educational inclusion and exclusion through storytelling

27 July 2023

Ibali’s Faith Mkwananzi and Jennifer Agbaire had the opportunity to engage Mikateko Mathebula about the outstanding work she has been doing. Mikateko is Associate Professor at the Higher Education and Human Development Research Programme, at the University of the Free State, South Africa. Her work examines through a capabilities lens, the relationship between processes of higher education, ‘development’ and human flourishing in the South African context, with a focus on youth from low-income households and/or rural areas.

Empathy in facilitation

20 July 2023

Empathy is described as an emotional connection between people that is used to understand the experiences, thoughts and feelings of another as if you were “in their shoes”. I’ve always valued empathy as a way of softening myself towards others. It encourages reflexivity and patience. It moves me towards being non-judgemental and taking the lived experience of others in a serious and heartfelt way. For a very long time I did not see a fault with empathy. In fact, I tried my best to learn it better because it had a positive effect on my relationships.

Naira, Naira: last stop, Benin City

6 July 2023

Movies we see on TV, the bikes, the traffic, the busy people each getting on their daily lives. The musicians we know, Burna Boy, Wizkid, Davido, and many more whose songs we only know… Then hearing about Egusi soup and jollof rice can only lead to wandering. Wondering about the atmosphere, the food, the music, the people, and a motorbike ride. So, a trip to Nigeria had always been something that we both had to tick off our bucket list at some point. The Ibali project storytelling fieldwork on educational inclusion with young people and teachers presented an opportunity to do so.

13 practical tips for online Storytelling workshops

8 June 2023

As storytelling research facilitators, we have supported hundreds of people to create and share their own stories across many different contexts over the past fifteen years. Our storytelling process has centred on face-to-face creative workshops. In these workshops, we relied on being physically close together (for example to perform drama or dance), and the ability to work with creative techniques such as drawing, collage, sculpting and making things with materials participants can touch.

Fictionalisation

17 May 2023

I had just finished giving a seminar about the ethical complexities of supervising doctoral researchers who were using narrative approaches. I had spoken very briefly about whether I was being unethical by suggesting to one researcher that she consider using fictionalisation to re-present some data that she had found troubling – a young participant in her research had spoken about the cruelty of one of his teachers.

The eternal ups and downs of ‘doing’ Storytelling

6 April 2023

We present an exciting engagement with Dr Helen Hanna who has had a most interesting chat about storytelling with Dr Jennifer Agbaire for the Ibali project. Helen is a Lecturer in International Education at the University of Manchester. She is passionate about citizenship education, education rights, and educational inclusion, particularly of migrant learners and those from racial, ethnic and cultural minorities, as well as using creative visual methods.

On ethically inclusive international research: whose values, whose standards?

3 April 2023

Ethical reviews for research involving human participants are instituted for good reason. A review is an important process to check that proposed research does not violate the dignity, rights and welfare of the participants. It protects researchers too; a well-structured review formally gives researchers opportunity and support to reflect deeply and respond robustly to the ethical dimensions and implications of their research proposal.

Ethical storytelling: another development buzzword or a real chance for change?

10 March 2023

There is growing attention in the development sector on how to improve the use of stories. Guides to make storytelling more ethical and responsible are proliferating. Recently, Degan Ali and Mary Ana McGlasson convened and launched a Pledge for Change with growing number of signatories from the development sector. The pledge includes a commitment to “authentic storytelling” in which “We will use our platforms to show people’s strength and amplify their stories by putting local people at the centre of the story.”

Storytelling Matters to Me

13 February 2023

We are so thrilled to have had the opportunity to chat with Dr Marguerite Muller who is very passionate about story and has published quite extensively around her storytelling work. Marguerite is a lecturer in the School of Education, Communication and Society at King’s College London, and a Research Fellow at the University of the Free State. She holds a BA in Fine Arts, a PGCE, a Master of Education, and a PhD in Higher Education studies.

Stories, Here I come again!

11 February 2023

Stories. I have always loved stories for as long as I can remember. When my late father noticed my fascination with stories, he ensured that I had a constant supply of books and newspapers to read. As a secondary school student, I would read novels in the days leading up to and during exams, rather than the academic materials that would be assessed.

Sijuade Yusuf on Stories for Researching Feminism and Social Media in Nigeria

6 January 2023

Through the Ibali Knowledge Hub, we are sharing our thoughts, reflections and learnings while also showcasing the work and perspectives of people around the world who are using storytelling in various ways to research, teach, generate or communicate knowledge about complex social issues. In this feature, we hear from Sijuade Yusuf, a Doctoral Researcher in the School of Art and Media at the University of Brighton, UK.

Researching in the Open: what this means to the Ibali team

29 November 2022

There is no space for storage in my home-office, a corner of the living room partitioned off by shelves of houseplants. Through the frame of the camera in work meetings it looks nice, tidy – calm, even: the greenery, the glimpse of bookshelves in the background. But unseen by colleagues, the floor is a bit chaotic.

Ethnography off the record: Moments of Being

15 November 2023

The moment I first thought about ethnography and moments, I was making what you might call a field note. Technically, I wasn’t in the field; I was in a room in the Stuart Hall building on the Open University’s main campus.

Ibali: co-creating learning spaces in and through storytelling research activities

18 October 2023

Using storytelling to understand how people make sense of their world is increasingly presented as a tool for providing richer insights into international education and development challenges.

Storytelling research in international education and development: a resistance to, or reproduction of coloniality?

10 October 2023

Storytelling is gaining popularity as a methodology in the field of international education and development. It is seen to offer an antidote to modernist, big-data research that positions people at the centre of interventions as homogenous and, instead, connect the field with ‘real’ versions of people.

Students as Co-researchers and Storytellers in South Africa: Decolonial Approaches (Part 3)

10 November 2023

Based on experiences and lessons from the Southern African Rurality in Higher Education (SAHiRE) project, this is the third episode of a three-part series reflecting on the potential of co-creative methodology to contribute to decolonial research approaches. Hosted by Jennifer Agbaire (Ibali researcher and Project Manager), members of the SAHiRE team engage in further conversation exploring broader challenges around power – including the negotiation of funding regimes and multiple partnerships. This episode features Nathi Madondo (Academic Literacy lecturer) of Mangosuthu University of Technology and Kibbie Naidoo (Director of the Centre for Academic Staff Development in the Division for Teaching Excellence) of the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. It also features Sheila Trahar (Professor Emerita of International Higher Education), Lisa Lucas (Associate Professor in Higher Education and Co-Director of the Centre for Higher Education Transformations) and Sue Timmis (Associate Professor in Education) of the University of Bristol in the UK. The podcast series was produced by Jennifer Agbaire and Motunrayo Oladeji. For more about the SAHiRE project, visit SARiHE – Southern African Rurality in Higher Education. For other engagement activities from Ibali, visit Knowledge Hub | Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (open.ac.uk).

Students as Co-researchers and Storytellers in South Africa: Decolonial Approaches (Part 2)

10 November 2023

Welcome to the second of a three-episode series with Ibali researcher and Project Manager, Jennifer Agbaire, in conversation with five team members of the Southern African Rurality in Higher Education (SARiHE) project from the UK and South Africa - Sue Timmis (Associate Professor in Education), Sheila Trahar (Professor Emerita of International Higher Education) and Lisa Lucas (Associate Professor in Higher Education and Co-Director of the Centre for Higher Education Transformations) of the University of Bristol as well as Kibbie Naidoo (Director of the Centre for Academic Staff Development in the Division for Teaching Excellence) of the University of Johannesburg and Nathi Madondo (Academic Literacy lecturer) of Mangosuthu University of Technology. Leading from the first episode on the background and decolonial perspectives informing the SARiHE project, this episode focuses on the research design of working with participants as ‘co-researchers’. The conversation highlights issues around access and power as well as the processes of navigating important ethical implications and managing data analysis in context. This podcast series was produced by Jennifer Agbaire and Motunrayo Oladeji. For more about the SARiHE project, visit SARiHE – Southern African Rurality in Higher Education. For other engagement activities from Ibali, visit Knowledge Hub | Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (open.ac.uk).

Students as Co-researchers and Storytellers in South Africa: Decolonial Approaches (Part 1)

10 November 2023

Thank you for listening to Talking Story with Ibali. We are excited to bring you a series of this podcast hosted by Ibali researcher and Project Manager, Jennifer Agbaire. In this three-part series, Jennifer is joined by a dynamic team of researchers and scholars in South Africa and the UK - Kibbie Naidoo (Director of the Centre for Academic Staff Development in the Division for Teaching Excellence) of the University of Johannesburg and Nathi Madondo (Academic Literacy lecturer) of Mangosuthu University of Technology in South Africa as well as Sue Timmis (Associate Professor in Education), Sheila Trahar (Professor Emerita of International Higher Education) and Lisa Lucas (Associate Professor in Higher Education and Co-Director of the Centre for Higher Education Transformations) of the University of Bristol. Throughout the series, the team shares experiences and lessons from their innovative project, titled Southern African Rurality in Higher Education (SARiHE). This introductory episode highlights the background and decolonial aims of SARiHE. The team also introduces their interesting positioning of student participants as ‘co-researchers’ within an eclectic methodological approach involving storytelling. You can find out more about SAHiRE on SARiHE – Southern African Rurality in Higher Education. For other engagement activities from Ibali, visit Knowledge Hub | Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (open.ac.uk). This podcast series was produced by Jennifer Agbaire and Motunrayo Oladeji⁠.

Storytelling as Fluid Folds: Moving Universes of Meaning from within and Outside Academia (Part 2)

2 August 2023

This is the second of a two-episode series featuring Carmen Martinez Vargas in conversation with Ibali researcher, Faith Mkwananzi.  The series was produced by Jennifer Agbaire and Motunrayo Oladeji. Carmen is a transdisciplinary scholar whose work is focused on the politics of knowledge and knowledge inequalities embedded in higher education practices, especially focusing on participatory research and the Capability Approach. Her research and writing are rooted in a lifelong ongoing conversation between Western and Southern thinkers but especially embedded in recent years within decolonial, cultural hybridity and intersectional lines of thought. In this episode, Carmen shares her thoughts on sustainability in relation to storytelling and participatory approaches. You can get in touch with Carmen by sending a message to ⁠martinezvargas.carmen@gmail.com⁠.

Storytelling as Fluid Folds: Moving Universes of Meaning from within and Outside Academia (Part 1)

2 August 2023

We bring to you a two-episode series of Talking Story with Ibali, involving a conversation between Ibali researcher, Faith Mkwananzi, and Carmen Martinez Vargas.  Carmen is a transdisciplinary scholar whose work is focused on the politics of knowledge and knowledge inequalities embedded in higher education practices, especially focusing on participatory research and the Capability Approach. Her research and writing are rooted in a lifelong ongoing conversation between Western and Southern thinkers but especially embedded in recent years within decolonial, cultural hybridity and intersectional lines of thought. In this first episode, she talks about the transdisciplinary potential of storytelling work. If you would like to continue the conversation, you can drop Carmen a message: ⁠martinezvargas.carmen@gmail.com⁠. This series was produced by Jennifer Agbaire and Motunrayo Oladeji.

Stories are not the answer but they can shape our imagination towards the answer...

2 February 2023

Hosted by Alison Buckler and produced by Motunrayo Oladeji and Jennifer Agbaire, this episode of Talking Story with Ibali features Baeletsi Tsatsi, a South Africa-based storyteller, facilitator and writer. Baeletsi’s stories are distributed by FunDza, Cover2Cover and Book Dash. In 2020, she was a storyteller in residence at Play Africa's African Storytelling Project, happening in collaboration with ASSITEJ SA.

Storytelling and the Ibali Project

15 October 2022

This episode explores the use of storytelling in education research through conversation with the Ibali project research team.

Originally published in the BAICE student podcast, exploring issues of interest to students studying international and comparative education.