Collective ‘I’-poem around themes of virginity loss. (19 May 2021)

Collective ‘I’-poem around themes of virginity loss. Created by participants at the 'DIY Academic Archiving' workshop organized by Niamh Moore. The poem uses transcripts from the Women's, Risk and Aids Project, specific interviews can be found in the padlet below.

The I-poem method (see Carol Gilligan and colleagues ‘Listening Guide’) is an analytical tool that collates participants ‘I’ statements across interview transcripts. It’s useful for thinking through how participants talk about themselves and their experiences and identifying ambivalence or contradictions in their talk.

We have adopted this method to create a collective poem on virginity loss using extracts from WRAP London interviews. We invited participants to choose their own ‘I’ statements from across selected interviews. What happens when you go back to the archive today – what sticks and shifts over generations and what still feels familiar and relevant thirty years after WRAP had been conducted? Our I-poem acts both as a way to reflect on ‘social change’ and as a tool to revisit and reanimate the WRAP archive.

19 May 2021