Sally Campbell Pirie

I have been working on this paper in my head for years, because it is the story of both how I believe stories can and should work when we are doing research with vulnerable or otherwise marginalized or even hidden populations, and also the story of being a researcher who is also a mother doing research in which her child is the “wedge.” As a single mother of three, getting out into the world to do research has almost always meant working around my wedges in this way. Politically, putting my motherhood and vulnerability forward into my field work has been important, and relevant for the work of gathering stories of this kind. It is a complicated web that I have worked and worked, like Penelope labouring over Laertes’ shroud, and unworked, for years. I wrote it and unwrote it, thinking about scholarly work in the context of life’s turbulence, until finally an opportunity came to bring it to a publishable format for Health Promotion Practice’s most recent special issue, which can be found in its entirety here.

Here’s the abstract!

This piece of comics-based research (CBR) details the use of arts-based methods in ongoing research with young transgender or otherwise gender diverse children. Drawing from both the anthropology of childhood and draw–write–tell research in public health, the central innovation of this methodology hinges on gathering children’s narratives in a less coercive manner that holds their stories intact and produces better, more trustworthy research. Discussion includes problematizing and problem-solving contemporary “child friendly” methodology, exploring the role of the child informant in qualitative research, and illustrating how arts methods can inform deeper understanding of participant data when applied in a systematic format. To access the entire comics-based research article, visit the supplemental material section at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/15248399211045974.

My piece is comics-based, and may be one of the first comics-based pieces in HPP. And, in keeping with what we know about arts- and comics-based research, I needed to tell the story in pictures to really tell it in its most communicable and clear way, with all the complexities and pain and confusion and flashes of understanding intact. Or at least I hope so. Here’s the link to my piece in particular, and from here you can follow breadcrumbs to the other pieces. Enjoy the read. It was a delight. You can also follow HPP on Twitter @TheHPPJournal

Here is what the editors said, which was very nice:

Our first section explores the ethics of participation and representation in CNI processes in projects using comics, graphic novels, and story booths. We open with “Wedges: Stories as Simple Machines.” Sally Campbell Galman presents the Gender MOXIE project, which used comics-based research to explore the experiences and resiliencies of transgender, nonbinary, and other gender-diverse young people. We have chosen to begin this collection with a predominantly visual contribution because it perfectly encapsulates how CNI approaches cultivate empathy, resistance, and hope—among participants and viewing audiences alike.

Galman, S. C. (2021). Wedges: Stories as simple machines. Health Promotion Practice https://doi.org/10.1177/15248399211045974

I went to Copenhagen some years ago to give a paper about mermaids. This was made all the more magical because I gave this paper in the city of everyone’s favorite mermaid, surrounded by other people interested in mermaids (such as the amazing Megan Dunn), with the gray Danish sea set against a backdrop of glowing hygge cheer. It was magical. Here in the depths of Covid isolation I miss eating fishy Smørrebrød in the rain, knowing it is possible I won’t travel again for longer than any of us thought.

Anway, even though I was there for mermaids (and I wrote the paper, and published it, and it is pretty great: https://sallycampbellsilverman.com/uncategorized/mermaids/) I found much more (which is what travel is for, after all). In my long walks around the city (one of my favorite things to do anywhere I go) I found a museum about sailors and learned that their tattoos had specific meanings. In particular I was drawn to the common knuckle tattoo — HOLD FAST.

HOLD FAST. As in, hold on tight. How many times, and how tightly had I held on in the wild ride as a student feeling terribly, terribly out of my depth at my prestigious prep school, liberal arts college and finally PhD program. I knew I wasn’t just doing the academic work like everyone else, but also the wrenching work of holding fast. Holding fast was difficult, but the drop was deadly. It’s true in lots of places, then and now, and not just in the academy; But do look around and if you really look you will see lots of people holding fast with all they’ve got– in addition to just doing the tasks at hand. Like me, they need all the luck they can get.

I was mesmerized by this idea, the idea of holding onto the middle spaces when the academy, like so much of of the world, constituted a middle space for me and yet another realm of trying and failing to fit in. And just like the ship at sea, the water was full of dangerous and sharp-toothed creatures ready to feast on those who fall.

So, when QI did a call for works on transnationalism and the flawed idea of “home” in academia, I jumped at the chance to participate. They were able to publish this comic-based piece about home and away, danger and safety, friends and enemies, and– best of all– sustaining magic. Rabbit in the moon reminds us of who we are, tattoos on our knuckles give us the strength to hold on, and paper bags hide the faces and heads of Scylla and Charybdis. Don’t forget to clap twice at the torii gate. And whatever you do, don’t let go.

You can find the whole article here:https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/10778004211002764?journalCode=qixa

(Psst! Here’s the abstract:

In the world of maritime lore and practice, tattoos were both commemorative and magical. Sailors frequently tattooed the words H-OL- D F-A-S-T onto the skin above each knuckle in the hopes of strengthening their grasp on the ship’s rigging. It gave sailors an edge at saving their own lives when the winds would howl and the ship tossed wildly on the waves, and they must hold fast or be thrown into the dark cold sea. This illustrated autoethnographic work will draw on the metaphor of the ship in transit, the slippery rigging, storied magic and the dangers of the chasm below, to interrogate the idea of the academy as literal and figurative home for transnational academics. In it, I will combine words and pictures to tell two stories of being. The piece concludes with problematizing the notion of “home” as a desirable construct in the context of the academy.)

It’s Trans Day of Visibility. Just yesterday my daughter had her hormone blocker implant topped up. No big deal at all. But as we were leaving the surgeon said, “I’m so glad you don’t live in Arkansas. Then this wouldn’t be allowed.” So very right. The accident of geography means that my child gets to live.

Transgender people constitute something like .2% of the population and yet the right wing hatemongers in the United States are obsessed with them, or so their hate legislation suggests. I call it “hate legislation” because a lot of it is introduced or even passed knowing that it cannot last– either it will be struck down by higher courts, or it won’t even make it that far– but the point is to scare, to intimidate, and to signal to a malevolent base. Meanness is the point.

My father’s home state of Tennessee is a hotbed of hate legislation, and consistently has some of the worst outcomes for American trans and gender diverse people on every available index ever since we started keeping records. That’s massively bad. And it is no accident. I’m ashamed of you, Tennessee. https://www.cnn.com/…/transgender-rights…/index.html

I keep fighting hard and you can too. Donate to the ACLU. Call your legislators. Write letters to the courts. If you know anyone who votes in these places, get them to call their legislators. Organize boycotts of products from these places. Scream in the streets. Refuse to cooperate. Get unruly.

Check out this link, which is from February but if you scroll all the way down, you can find information not just about hate legislation, but also places to donate to stop it cold: https://www.marieclaire.com/…/anti-transgender…/

Let’s show these bastards what we’re made of and who we are fighting for. I see you.