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More than “Just Learning About the Organs”: Embodied Story Telling as a Basis for Learning About Sex and Relationships

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Abstract

Ethnographic approaches offer deep insights into the lives of people, and as anthropologists are our preferred approaches for our work with young people. Extended participant observation is, however, not possible in all research settings and other approaches are needed which still aim to capture the ideas and voices of young people. This chapter explores two youth-friendly methods for exploring sexuality, relationships and sexual health with young people. We document the development of a scenario-based body-mapping exercise and a participatory community-mapping exercise to form the basis of embodied story telling.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Our Lives: Culture, Context and Risk was a three-year study of sexual health and relationships carried out in the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia. It was an Australian Research Council Linkage project and was jointly funded by the health departments of all the states and territories who were involved, as well as 20 other government and non-government partners.

  2. 2.

    This study included one capital city, three regional towns, one urban setting on the outskirts of an urban area and two remote Aboriginal communities.

  3. 3.

    Shame is concept with extremely complex meanings in Aboriginal contexts and can be understood to mean more than a passing experience of embarrassment. Shame is understood as a regulatory mechanism encouraging group conformity and is a sanction against attracting attention (removed for blind review).

  4. 4.

    The Indigenous males and females were usually segregated, reflecting the emphasis on keeping male and female business separate.

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Senior, K., Chenhall, R. (2017). More than “Just Learning About the Organs”: Embodied Story Telling as a Basis for Learning About Sex and Relationships. In: Allen, L., Rasmussen, M.L. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Sexuality Education. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-40033-8_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-40033-8_5

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