Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
by Meizi Tan
Abstract
This paper explores the use of collective narrative methodology in a two-day group
retreat organised for women who had experienced gender violence in their intimate
relationships. The women developed ‘recipes for life’ by using the skills and knowledge
they had developed through responding to gender violence. Outsider-witness practices
were used to acknowledge the women’s alternative stories of resilience and resistance
to gender violence. Narrative practices of collective documentation, externalising the
problem, and deconstructing social discourses that support gender violence, were
incorporated through the creative use of food metaphors. This supported the women in
breaking their silence and reduced the sense of isolation, shame and disempowerment
that often surrounds gender violence.
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testimonies and sharing her own, my client suggested having
Gender violence: Responding to a support group where women could get to know others who
its effects on women had been through similar experiences.
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associated with it. The questions used to facilitate the included their skills, beliefs, hopes and dreams, and what
discussion were from Wood’s (2012) recipes for life process: they turned to (Wood, 2012) to get through the domestic
violence experience. The ingredients listed by the participants
• What is your favourite food?
included:
• What do you like about this food?
• bravery
• Who cooks it?
• support from friends and family
• What is the story behind this food?
• patience
• Is there any specific person, time, place, event, family
or cultural history or meaning that is associated with this • positivity
food? • hopes and dreams for their children.
Two participants shared how their favourite food was One participant shared about the key ingredient, ‘hopes and
associated with their family history and memories of dreams as a mother to the children’, which had supported her
significant persons in their family. One participant shared in getting herself and her children out of a domestic violence
how her favourite dish, Hainanese chicken rice, reminds situation. She spoke about her hope that her children would
her of her father’s commitment to and care for her and her grow up in a safe and secure environment, and how this
siblings as her father used to buy Hainanese chicken rice for fuelled her determination and bravery to end an abusive
them for breakfast every Sunday. Another participant spoke relationship and enter a new living environment. Another
about how her favourite food, biryani, is usually served in participant described the support and encouragement she had
wedding banquets back in her hometown in Sri Lanka and received from her friends and family, which had kept feelings
the special meaning of community bonding and togetherness of self-doubt and isolation away and motivated her to pursue
that is represented by this food. The participants spoke about her hopes and dreams.
how recipes for these foods have been passed down from
one generation to another as a family legacy, and said they The participants were asked about what made these skills,
would like to continue the family tradition. These valuable values, beliefs and hopes special. This helped them to
stories created meaningful and rich linkages with family and connect with special memories and meanings that these
cultural traditions and further supported the participants in ingredients represent. The group work facilitators employed
easing into the next section on in which the participants’ double listening (White, 2007) as the participants’ shared
skills, knowledges, values and beliefs were ‘interwoven with stories and actions that they had taken, and more absent
the stories of others’ (Morgan, 2000, p. 15) as they started to but implicit (White, 2000) ingredients were elicited, including
trace their source or history. determination.
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Most of the participants traced the history of their skills to their • Is there a name you would like to give to this [particular
parents and other family members, including those who had action or skill]?
passed on. One participant shared a story of how she learnt • A
s you think about the steps that you have taken, what
the value of love and care from her grandmother and mother, does that say about you as a person?
including specific times when they had shown love and care • W
hy is [particular value, skill, hope or commitment]
towards her. The facilitator engaged in a re-membering important to you?
conversation with her, using the following questions:
• If you were to carry [particular value, skill, hope or
• W
hy do you think your grandmother taught you the commitment] with you into the future, what steps would
value of love and care? you be taking?
• W
hat do you think your grandmother noticed or
Through these questions, events were mapped through
appreciated in you to share this value of love and care
time according to a theme or plot (White, 2007), supporting
with you?
the processes of meaning-making and preferred identity
• H
ow do you think you have contributed to your development.
grandmother’s life?
• B
y spending quality time with your grandmother,
showing your love towards her by hugging her and Uninvited ingredients
being a ‘respectful girl who listens to your grandmother’,
how do you think all that contributed to how your According to White (2007), ‘externalizing conversations can
grandmother saw herself as a person? provide an antidote to internal understandings by objectifying
the problem’ (p. 9). This allows people to feel safe and free
As the participant purposively revisited the history of her from blame when talking about the problem, as it has been
relationship with her grandmother (see White, 2007), she separated from their identity. White and Epston (1990) further
was able to see herself in a new position as someone who spoke about how ‘as persons become separated from their
has contributed to her grandmother’s life and identity as a stories, they are able to experience a sense of personal
loving and caring person. This provided an opportunity for agency’ (p. 16) in working towards their hopes and dreams.
her to reconstruct her identity (White, 2007) in relation to
significant members in her ‘club of life’ and to further thicken Many women who have experienced gender violence in
her alternative story. their intimate relationships experience an internalised sense
of blame that appears to be a product of social discourses.
White (2007) argued that ‘the habit of thought that constructs
... internal understandings of people’s lives is significantly a
Methods cultural phenomenon’ (p. 25). When the participants were
asked to list common cultural beliefs about women’s roles
The participants were asked to talk about how they would use
and family violence, many of them spoke about how society
and bring out the best in their ingredients. They were invited
has certain expectations of women as ‘good wives’ and ‘good
to share how they had used these ingredients to manage the
mothers’ who should spend their time at home taking care
difficult situations they had faced. The identification of these
of children and attending to household needs. When women
unique outcomes provided an entry point to re-authoring
‘fail’ to meet these expectations and responsibilities, they are
conversations that helped to thicken the alternative stories
negatively judged by others as ‘lousy mothers’ or ‘bad wives’.
that were beginning to emerge. Guided by the re-authoring
Perceptions of ‘womanhood’ and ‘motherhood’ appear to be
conversations map (White, 2007, p. 78), participants were
fused together. Some of the participants talked about the
asked the following questions: control that men exert over women, and how women are often
• A
s you shared with me about this [particular action] that expected to submit to men in their culture. Failure to submit to
you have taken when [particular incident] happened, their male partners would result in the use of gender violence
what does that say about what is important to you or and feelings of fear, self-blame, powerlessness, and shame.
what you value? One participant spoke about how women are not given equal
rights as compared to men and are often restricted in their
• A
re there any other times when this [particular value]
freedom of choice.
has made a difference in your life?
• W
hat steps did you take at that time to prepare yourself Extending the recipe metaphor, I suggested ‘uninvited
for that? How did you do that? What sort of skills does ingredients’, such as bacteria, as a way to externalise and
it involve? personify the problem, and help participants see the problem
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as separate from their identity and their recipe for life. • W
hat does resisting [name of uninvited ingredient]’s
Bacteria cannot be seen with our naked eyes and often enter advice say about you as a person?
our food without our conscious awareness. Social discourses
similarly enter and influence our perceptions of our lives and Participants wrote their responses to these questions on large
identity without our conscious awareness. By externalising pieces of paper and presented their points to the large group.
social discourses that support gender violence as food Participants identified their male partners, society, friends
bacteria or uninvited ingredients in our recipes, participants and relatives as the sources of these uninvited ingredients.
were able to see and safely discuss the effects of harmful The selected uninvited ingredients affected the lives of
social discourses on their skills, values, hopes and identities. participants, and their recipes and self-identities, by evoking:
• a sense of helplessness
With reference to Greenwell’s (2016) ‘troublemaker cards’
and McPhie & Chaffey’s (1999) work with women survivors of • a sense of isolation and being alone
sexual assault, we listed five social discourses that had the
• a feeling of being unable to achieve hopes and dreams
greatest influence on the participants’ lives:
• ‘own-her-ship’ • a sense of powerlessness
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One participant described her preferred identity in direct
response to ‘own-her-ship’. She disagreed with the idea
of women as men’s property, which results in women Chef Karen’s
being disempowered. She stated her belief in women’s
capacity to achieve what they hope for in life and shared her Recipe For A Good Life
determination to work towards her preferred identity. She
had already taken steps in this direction, including raising
Ingredients
two young children on her own without seeking maintenance
support from her ex-husband. Such acts of resistance • Support from my father and friends – 25 kg
and preferred identity development illustrate double-story • Hope for my children – 100 kg
development that focuses on women’s responses to gender • Dream to be a good mother – 100 kg
violence and moves away from a single dominant story of the • Desire to learn – 100 kg
effects of gender violence and victimhood.
• Smiles – 100 cups
• Strength and independence – 100 kg
• Care and protection – 25 kg
The participants were asked to think of a name for their recipe Serving
for life and with whom they would like to share it. All the My children
participants said they would like to share their recipes with My parents, brother and sister
their children. Some also wished to share their recipes with
People who have been through similar situations
their friends and other family members, including siblings and
parents. One participant wanted to share her recipe with other
women who had been through similar situations.
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evoked. During the process of re-telling the re-telling (White,
Part 3: Presenting and re-presenting 2007), the presenters were interviewed about what they
the recipes had heard from the re-telling and what stood out to them the
most. Most presenters commented on the images that were
evoked and where in their lives these images took them to.
Outsider witnessing: Participants One participant shared the image of Wonder Woman, which
reminded her of independence, confidence, strength, and
and group work facilitators as an the great capacity of women to overcome challenges in life.
This image further inspired her to take the next step towards
introduced audience getting her own place to stay and having faith that she would
After the participants completed their own recipes for life, be able to overcome potential challenges independently
they took turns presenting their recipes to the group. They without depending on her mother for help. Another participant
were heard by an outsider-witness group consisting of a shared about the image of the Japanese cartoon character
reflecting team (Morgan, 2000), made up of social workers Doraemon, which stayed with her because it reminded her
who were the group work facilitators, and the other group of drawing on her own resourcefulness and creativity when
work participants. All the members of this outsider-witness facing challenges in life. She reflected on her own strengths
group were unknown to the presenters prior to the group and how they could be used in her life.
work. They constituted an introduced audience (Lobovits &
Freeman, 1993). When the outsider-witness group members were invited
to consider the last category of enquiry, on transport, most
The participants were first briefed on the rules of listening members in the group talked about how the sharing reminded
and responding to one another’s stories. They were told to them about their commitments and what they would like to
respond personally, by speaking about why something caught continue doing in their lives, rather than what they would do
their attention and the impact on their lives, and not to make differently. This got me thinking about rephrasing the question
any personal judgements or give advice or opinions (White, on transport to further scaffold the conversation with the
2007). One facilitator interviewed the rest of the group using participants:
questions guided by the four categories of enquiry in outsider-
witness practice (White, 2007, pp. 190‒191): • W
hen you mentioned that Selene’s sharing on
Women-ship and independence caught your attention,
1. Expression: What caught your attention as you listen to how does that encourage you to do something different
[person’s name] sharing? in your own life?
2. Image: What image or picture came to your mind? What • H
ow do you see yourself using the ideas of Women-
does this tell you about this person’s values, beliefs,
ship and independence in your own life? What would
hopes or commitments?
you want to do instead?
3. Personal resonance: What is it about your own life that
accounts for why this sharing caught your attention? The responses from this relatively large outsider-witness
4. Transport: What difference has this made for your life? group enabled the participants to experience a sense of
What will you do differently in your own life as a result of katharsis (White, 2007, pp. 194‒195. They were able to
hearing [person’s name] sharing? gain a new perspective on their life and identity, and to
identify knowledge and skills that they were previously
When the outsider witnesses were invited to share what hardly aware of.
stood out to them, different things resonated with each. The
diversity of responses among the eight outsider witnesses As the participants were interviewed about how the outsider-
provided a variety of acknowledgements of the presenter’s witness responses had made a difference to their lives, there
alternative story. When a significant number of other group were some pleasant surprises and new discoveries about
members resonated with a response, this provided a richer their skills, knowledges, values and beliefs, which had been
and ‘louder’ voice of acknowledgement and validation of the elicited and acknowledged by others for the first time. As
presenter’s skills, knowledge, values, or commitments. White (2007, p. 183) wrote, ‘it is the audience response to the
stories told and performed in these forums that is verifying of
The second category of enquiry, eliciting images, seemed to these stories’. Preferred identities are authenticated by ‘the
leave a lasting impression on the women. A range of images audience’s acknowledgement of the identity claims expressed
that reflected differences in culture, religion and age were in these stories’ (p. 183).
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a social issue that requires social action, and to move away
Rojak of life: A form of definitional from internal understandings and self-blame. This recipe will
ceremony and collective docu mentation be displayed at our centre and perhaps shared with other
social service agencies in Singapore. It serves as a form
Rojak is a traditional fruit and vegetable salad, and one of public education and social action, and outsider-witness
of the signature Singaporean dishes. Rojak means responses will also be invited to further thicken these stories
‘mixture’ in Malay (Tan, 2014). More significantly, rojak of resistance and resilience.
is also a colloquial term used to describe our multicultural
society and the mixed languages that form a unique
Singlish language that represents a sense of unity in
diversity or communitas (Turner, 1969/2008). The different Master Chef: An outsider-witness
recipes for rojak also served a metaphor for our lives, in
which we decide on the specific ingredients that we prefer
practice with children as a known
to use, according to our own preferred taste or ways of audience
living and sense of identity.
The children of the participants were invited to be a known
The participants were invited to select the most significant audience (Lobovits & Freeman, 1995) to their mothers’
or representative ingredient from their own recipe for life ‘cooking’ and preparation of their recipes for life. The women
to present and contribute to a collective document: ‘A rojak selected craft materials to represent their various ingredients
of life’. Each selected one actual rojak ingredient to represent and symbolise their skills, knowledges, values and hopes.
their significant recipe for life ingredient. They prepared the Cooking utensils were set up and the women dressed up in
food ingredient and shared a story with the rest of the group. chef outfits with aprons and chef’s hats to fit the theme of the
The following questions were used to guide the participants Master Chef cooking show.
in sharing their story. These questions were based on David
Denborough’s (2008) article, ‘Collective documents as a The main group work facilitator doubled as the cooking show
response to collective trauma’: host and introduced all the participants as master chefs of
their unique recipes for life. While the participants prepared
• W
hat is the name of the special skill, knowledge or their dishes, the host went around interviewing the chefs
value that sustains you or your family through the about their unique recipes, ingredients, methods of cooking,
difficult times (domestic violence)? and with whom they would like to share their recipe. As
• W
hat is the story of this skill, knowledge or value? the children watched, they started cheering their mothers:
Share a story about a time when this made a difference ‘Go, go, Mummy!’ It was a heart-warming scene. When the
to you or to others. participants were interviewed after the cooking show about
how they felt about the experience and the effect of their
• W
hat is the history of this skill, knowledge or value? children’s responses, all of them said that they felt touched,
How did you learn this? Who did you learn it from? encouraged and motivated to work towards their hopes and
dreams.
• Is this skill or value linked in some ways to family or
cultural traditions? Are there proverbs, sayings, stories,
images from your family, community and/or culture with When the children were interviewed by the host as outsider
which these skills and knowledges are linked? witnesses to their mothers’ recipes for life, the children mostly
reflected that they liked their mother’s recipe simply because
Finally, the participants took part in a ceremony where they it was prepared by their mummy. The following simplified
put in and mixed all the rojak ingredients together to form a questions were used to facilitate the children’s outsider-
rojak dish, which the participants and their children feasted witness responses:
on. The skills, stories, history and collective traditions 1. Expression: What do you like about your mummy’s
(Denborough, 2008) that were represented in the rojak recipe?
ingredients were then recorded to form a collective recipe
2. Image: Why do you like this ingredient/recipe? Did any
(see Appendix I).
picture come to your mind?
With this collective document, we aimed to address the 3. Personal resonance: How do you use this ingredient [for
effects of both trauma and isolation (Denborough, 2008), example Hope] in your life, for example when you face a
which are often experienced in the context of gender violence. difficulty? Is there any story that you want to share about
The process helped participants to see gender violence as this ingredient?
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4. Transport: How do you want to use this ingredient in
the future?
Certificate of special culinary arts
The women handed their completed recipes for life document
in surviving difficult times
to their children as a representation of passing on their skills, Special certificates that documented each woman’s
values and knowledges to their children as a form of legacy skills, values, beliefs, knowledges, hopes, dreams and
and sharing. This helped the women to further experience a commitments were given to the participants at the end
sense of contribution to others’ lives. of the group work.
Each certificate recorded specific acts of resistance against translated, especially in the case of participants from minority
the influence of uninvited ingredients. The certificates not only groups who did not have English as their primary spoken
served as another form of definitional ceremony, in which the language. In subsequent runs, I will explore collaborating
women’s preferred identities were elaborately acknowledged with other agencies to engage their staff or volunteers from
and honoured; they also served as a form of therapeutic minority groups to ensure greater cultural sensitivity.
documentation. According to David Epston (as cited in White,
1995, p. 200), ‘a good therapeutic document is worth During the Master Chef segment, the outsider-witnessing
4.5 sessions of good therapy’. questions need to be shortened and simplified significantly.
The children did not seem to understand the last two
questions on personal resonance and transport. Perhaps
the questions could to be simplified even further:
Considerations for further group work • Personal resonance: What do you think this [specific
This group work program was limited by the lack of cultural ingredient, e.g. Hope] looks like? How has it appeared
diversity and ethnic minority representation among the in your life? What did it say to you? What did you do
group work facilitators, as all the staff at my agency are with it?
Chinese. Hence, certain expressions and experiences of the • Transport: What do you think you will do with Hope
participants may not have been adequately represented or in the future? How will you use it?
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Due to the lack of funds and difficulty in securing a Halal- Collective narrative practice allowed participants to better
certified kitchen venue and cooking utensils in time, we had to recognise and respond to gender violence collectively as a
change our initial plan to have the participants each prepare social issue (Denborough, 2008). This furthered a sense of
an actual dish and share a communal feast. In Asian cultures, solidarity, reduced any sense of isolation or self-blame, and
be they Chinese, Malay or Indian, communal eating is a key assisted in moving away from internal state understandings
feature, as numerous conversations are exchanged and it (White, 2004). Bringing women together in a group setting
promotes community bonding. In subsequent programs, it allowed them to hear more varied outsider-witness responses
would be preferable to have a larger group of participants generated through group interactions. This enriched
and have them each cook a dish for communal eating and alternative story development. Enabling participants to make
sharing. This would further add to the cultural resonances in a contribution to the lives of others (Denborough, 2008) by
the Singapore context. providing outsider-witness responses increased their sense of
personal agency and empowerment.
Responding to gender violence also requires that men who
have enacted violence cease to do so. Most of the time, men
are involuntarily referred by the courts under the Mandatory
Counselling Programme when violence has been enacted Acknowledgements
and their partners have made a Personal Protection Order.
Although various social service agencies in Singapore I would like to acknowledge the group work participants and
try to engage these men in individual counselling, few other MWS-Tampines Family Service Centre clients who
agencies have developed group work practices with the contributed to this project, especially the collective document
men who are less forthcoming. There is still ample room for ‘Rojak of life’. I would like to thank Natale Rudland Wood
the development of group work practices with men. More and Ryan Greenwell for sharing their inspiring work with
community outreach and publicity projects could also be me. Thanks to my co-workers at MWS-Tampines Family
developed to raise community awareness and responsibility in Service Centre for co-facilitating this group work. I would
breaking the silence and ceasing violence. also like to thank the following people who have given me
key ideas and feedback: David Denborough, Cheryl White,
Applying narrative principles to group work with women Manja Visschedijk, Shantasaravanan K, and Jocelyn Lee.
who had experienced gender violence supported the Special thanks to my colleague and friend, Jocelyn Lee, for
overall objective of achieving self-empowerment by bringing her generous support and encouragement in making the
forth the women’s insider knowledge and resources while collaboration between Recipes for Life and My Happy Ending
decentring facilitators’ ‘expert’ knowledge (White, 1997). group work a success.
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moving. You have to keep moving. By telling myself that I will Pineapple: Hope
be able to provide for my kids, I keep moving. I have learnt I see my life as a tough life but I believe that at the end of it,
self-motivation from my mother because, since we were it will be a sweet one. My life is like a pineapple. From the
young, we have seen her go through a lot but she has never outside, it’s hard and thorny. But I believe that I have to get
given up. She did part-time cleaning to feed and educate us. through the tough layer first before I get to the sweet flesh
She had to give the best to me and my sister. So I learnt to inside. I still live in the hope that my son will get better. Even
persevere and provide the best for my children as well. though I have 50% fear that his behaviours might worsen,
I still choose to have positive rather than negative thinking.
Persevere and never give up There is still hope because there are people who are able to
I never give up, no matter how hard it is. When I was at help, like my daughter and siblings. I will try my best to help
risk of losing my kids and my house, I kept appealing to the my son as a mother to him. I like this quote:
authorities and sought help. I know that nothing is impossible (Heaven never cuts off a man’s means; there is always a way
or unachievable as long as I keep trying. From the time I out), and I believe that a rainbow comes after a storm.
was young, I felt that I wasn’t loved by my family. I don’t want
my kids to experience the same thing as me. I have done
all I could to provide for them. I depended on myself and I
persevere. When times get tough, I have a good cry and still
stand up on my own and continue trying. I learnt that through
my own experience.
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