Women's Talk: A Critical Bricolage

This is a recording of the CQ Virtual Seminar held on January 29, 2021, featuring Drs. Ramya Kumar and Rona Macdonald, winners of the Joan Eakin Award for Methodological Excellence in 2019.
Abstract: Bricolage is both a methodology and a form of rigor in qualitative research, demanding examination of phenomena from diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives. In this presentation, we draw on notions of critical bricolage to explore the possibilities of working with counter-hegemonic forms of analyzing women’s talk. Ramya employs a Third World Marxist feminist methodology to interrogate neocolonial understandings of healthcare access and reform from the perspective of a group of women in Sri Lanka while Rona draws on critical discursive psychological approaches to connect Canadian women’s singleness accounts and deeply held sociocultural beliefs and values related to womanhood that continue to privilege marriage/coupledom and motherhood. After presenting the theoretical/methodological underpinnings of our research projects, we dialogue about issues and tensions relating to representation, language, the research process, and implications for our respective disciplines of (global) public health and occupational science & therapy.