Programme full

Poster Presentations
THURSDAY 16 APRIL 2015 15:00-15:30
POSTER 14
Photographing Everyday Life: Ageing, Lived Experiences, Time and Space
Martin, W., Pilcher, K.
(Brunel University London)
This poster presents the key findings from the empirical study Photographing Everyday Life: Ageing, Lived
Experiences, Time and Space, funded by the ESRC. The focus of this project was to explore the significance of the
ordinary and day-to-day and focus on the everyday meanings, lived experiences, practical activities, and social
contexts in which people in mid to later life live their daily lives. In particular, the project focused upon the very
ordinariness, the habitual, the mundanity of daily living. The research involved a diverse sample of 62 women and
men aged 50 years and over who took photographs of their different daily routines to create a weekly visual diary. This
diary was then explored through in-depth photo-elicitation interviews to make visible the rhythms, patterns and
meanings that underlie habitual and routinised everyday worlds. The data was analysed using the software Atlas Ti.
The poster illustrates the five interconnected but distinct themes that emerged: (1) Time and Routines; (2) Public and
Private Space; (3) Health, Risk and the Body; (4) Connectivities and Relationships; and (5) Work, Volunteering and
Leisure. The research elicited insights into the daily lives of people from their own perspectives and allowed the
participants to reflect on their own routines, use of space, interactions with family and friends, and meanings
associated with their daily activities. Moreover, the focus on daily life allowed us to show how the participants
negotiate with, and at times resist, dominant ideas and discourses surrounding ageing, gender, and the body.
POSTER 15
Sexual Relationships of Women with Learning Disabilities: An Exploration of Views and Experiences
Ndadzungira, C.
(Open University)
Women with learning disabilities are women too, just like other women without disabilities. They desire to love, to be
loved and to express their sexuality. Yet during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, their sexuality was
perceived negatively which resulted in segregated living in institutions to stop them from having sex with men. This
denied women with learning disabilities of the right to reproduce. Most were and are still perceived as 'unfit' mothers or
they are caught up in a myth that assumes that they risk giving birth to children with disabilities. There have been
some positive changes in attitudes towards the sexuality of women with learning disabilities in the last twenty years.
Yet despite this, some women with learning disabilities still face conflicting stereotypes which either portrays them as
asexual or oversexed. As a result, most women with learning disabilities are involuntarily sterilised or put on
contraception without their consent. There are a few studies that seek the views of women with learning disabilities on
their sexual relationships. My research is a qualitative study which will seek the views and experiences of 10 women
with mild or moderate learning disabilities on sexual relationships through semi-structured one to one interviews.
Participants are women 18 years and over who are current or previous members of a dating agency of people with
learning disabilities. Data will also be collected through participant observations during chaperoned dates or social
activities. All the interviews will be audio- recorded with participants' consent.
POSTER 16
Storytelling as a Trigger for Sharing Conversations
Parfitt, E.
(University of Warwick)
I define sharing conversations as something personal that to qualify must incorporate the following four elements:
personal (situating the speaker in the narration), private life (something not necessarily shared out with the group),
relationships (any relationship from close family connections to strangers), and emotions. I propose that oral
storytelling within a school context may have triggered emotional sharing in groups of young people from 12-14 years.
My poster utilises pictures from Alice and Wonderland, like the Mouse's Tale, to guide the reader through the
storytelling research method. The poster outlines the research in an easy to read way, outlining the method (The
Storytelling Space), defining a sharing conversation -- a tightened definition from my previously published paper
'Storytelling as a Trigger for Sharing Conversations', and outlining new NVivo results in a simple graph which
compares sharing conversations between three different schools in Warwickshire.
(Publication: http://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/exchanges/index.php/exchanges/article/view/25).
BSA Annual Conference 2015 52
Glasgow Caledonian University