Where external representations meet embodied experiences

In this lecture, Carol Rivas will explore how people who are marginalised because of identities as ethnically/racially different, abused, sick or disabled, navigate the worlds of health and community care and education. She will consider the communication work they do to express embodied experiences as societally accepted external representations and the structures that exclude them. She will also explore how professional staff should respond, when faced with this, to ensure they give the best care. Drawing on her different studies, methodologies and theoretical models, she will describe both problems and practical approaches that include diverse voices within research and practice. Future experiences can be improved for both practitioners and those they seek to support if the experiential knowledge that is so often subjugated becomes more visible through such approaches, less marginalised (more centred) and thence more accepted.