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Narrative As Communication Activism: Research Relationships In Social Justice Projects, Elizabeth A. Curry, Deborah Cunningham Walker

Library Faculty Presentations & Publications

When they talk about CASA or the project, Deb and Elizabeth use the words “we, our, or us,” not “them or they.”
Deb and Elizabeth are part of CASA because they understand us. They get it.
Lots of people study domestic violence, but they were the first researchers interested in us, the workers. We felt validated because university researchers thought what we did was important, and they asked us to help them understand our work.
They didn’t lecture us; they listened to us.

These are some of the staff’s observations about our participation in the University Community Initiative Project (UCI), …

Collaborative Research: Narratives Of Domestic Violence Workers & Volunteers, Elizabeth A. Curry

Library Faculty Presentations & Publications

My research paper focuses on multiple layers of retrospective sensemaking based on a university colloquium about “Developing the Research Relationship.” The original idea for the colloquium panel was a presentation by two research assistants about our research relationship with staff members of CASA, a community organization that works against domestic violence. When we expanded the panel to include two staff members from the research site who actively participated in the research project, it became an enactment of the relationships. The panel became a relational experience that was part of the continuing relationships and an occasion for reflexivity on my identity …

I Yelled At My Mother: Narrative Introspection Into The Multifaceted Emotions Of Sympathy & Compassion In Care-Giving, Elizabeth A. Curry

Library Faculty Presentations & Publications

Sympathy, empathy and compassion have been widely studied in many different disciplines but there has been little agreement among researchers. Studies often address the process of giving sympathy but little has been done with the process of receiving sympathy or the complex intersection of the two. This paper is an autoethnography that explores the relational way we develop an understanding of sympathy and compassion. I use an introspective process to study how I have come to understand compassion and sympathy in care giving for my mother. I seek a different approach to compassion and sympathy as a social process of …

Narratives Of Workers On The Crisis Line: Dialogic Conversations About Domestic Violence, Elizabeth A. Curry

Library Faculty Presentations & Publications

This paper is my exploratory study of the interpersonal communication between domestic violence workers who answer crisis calls and the callers who seek help. I am focusing on the perception of those who answer the crisis lines. This is part of my on-going research into the meaning and experiences of the women who work against domestic violence. There are approximately 1,900 local domestic violence programs and state coalitions in every state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. This paper is based on the experiences of women working in one local program, CASA. I will briefly compare the CASA advocates …

Voices Of Engaged Scholarship: Relationships & Research In University-Community Project, Elizabeth A. Curry

Library Faculty Presentations & Publications

This paper is about engaged scholarship and a university-community initiative as an example of research collaboration. It addresses the negative perceptions community activists hold concerning researchers, the development of the research relationship with the community organization and the reactions of academic researchers within the research team. The paper covers the first four months of developing a partnership between the University of South Florida (www.usf.edu) and an organization that works against domestic violence, CASA (www.casa-stpete.org). Using narratives, I explore issues such as incentives and barriers for the community agency to collaborate with the university and for university faculty to pursue a …