Paper short abstract:

This paper explores Jacques PhD methodology, combining collaborative and ethical anthropology to communicate with traumatised persons. This method seeks to redress the power imbalances between researcher and participant and empowers the storytelling capacities of traumatised individuals.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores Jacques PhD methodology, combining collaborative and ethical anthropology, as a way of communicating care to traumatised persons with an experience of terrorism. This paper argues that such a methodology seeks to redress the power imbalances between researcher and participant and empowers the storytelling capacities of traumatised individuals. This method led to a re-framing of the original research questions focused on storytelling and agency to ethical questions focused on the ways in which participants storytelling became a part of their ethical response to terrorism. The study was conducted by Jacques with six persons (two as a couple) who have an experience of terrorism; it sought to understand how the impacts of terrorism on the everyday lives of the participants. This paper contributes to the fields of Communications, Anthropology and practitioners working with traumatised persons. The methodology is currently being employed by Multicultural New South Wales to construct Australia’s first survivors of terrorism against violent extremism web-based platform.