Browsing by Author "LaMarre A"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    An open invitation to productive conversations about feminism and the spectrum of eating disorders (part 1): basic principles of feminist approaches
    (BioMed Central Ltd, 2022-04-19) LaMarre A; Levine MP; Holmes S; Malson H
    Despite the long history of feminist research in the field and the clear relevance of questions of gender to this sphere, many continue to question the relevance of feminism for understanding and treating eating disorders in 2022. In this set of two papers, we explore some of the tensions, omissions and misconceptions which surround feminist approaches to eating disorders. At the core of these two papers is our assertion that such approaches can make significant contributions in the eating disorders field along six key lines: enriching the science of eating disorders, unpacking diagnostics, contextualizing treatment and prevention, attending to lived experiences, diversifying methodologies, and situating recoveries. In this first paper, we outline what feminist approaches are and dig into some key tensions that arise when feminist approaches come to the table. These include critiques of sociocultural approaches to understanding eating disorders, the relationship between feminist approaches and biological and genetic attributions for eating disorders, and the role of men. We then offer a key contribution that feminist approaches have made to eating disorders scholarship: an invitation to unpack diagnostic approaches and situate eating disorders within the landscape of food, weight, and shape concerns in the twenty-first century.
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    An open invitation to productive conversations about feminism and the spectrum of eating disorders (part 2): Potential contributions to the science of diagnosis, treatment, and prevention.
    (BioMed Central Ltd, 2022-04-19) LaMarre A; Levine MP; Holmes S; Malson H
    The role of feminism in eating disorders research, treatment, and advocacy continues to be debated, with little agreement in sight about the role—or lack thereof—of feminist eating disorders work. In these debates, the opportunity to open fruitful conversations about eating disorders that generate new possibilities for researching, treating, and preventing them is missed. This article is the second in a series of two papers that invite such a discussion. In this article, we focus on five key contributions that feminist eating disorder work has made and can make moving forward. These are contextualizing treatment, attending to lived experiences, expanding the meanings of “sociocultural influences,” diversifying methodologies, and situating recoveries. We do not propose to offer a “final word” on feminisms and eating disorders, but instead to start conversations about how we understand, research, and treat eating disorders.
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    Conceptualizing eating disorder recovery research: Current perspectives and future research directions
    (BioMed Central Ltd, 2022-11-15) Hower H; LaMarre A; Bachner-Melman R; Harrop EN; McGilley B; Kenny TE
    Background How we research eating disorder (ED) recovery impacts what we know (perceive as fact) about it. Traditionally, research has focused more on the “what” of recovery (e.g., establishing criteria for recovery, reaching consensus definitions) than the “how” of recovery research (e.g., type of methodologies, triangulation of perspectives). In this paper we aim to provide an overview of the ED field’s current perspectives on recovery, discuss how our methodologies shape what is known about recovery, and suggest a broadening of our methodological “toolkits” in order to form a more complete picture of recovery. Body This paper examines commonly used methodologies in research, and explores how incorporating different perspectives can add to our understanding of the recovery process. To do this, we (1) provide an overview of commonly used methodologies (quantitative, qualitative), (2) consider their benefits and limitations, (3) explore newer approaches, including mixed-methods, creative methods (e.g., Photovoice, digital storytelling), and multi-methods (e.g., quantitative, qualitative, creative methods, psycho/physiological, behavioral, laboratory, online observations), and (4) suggest that broadening our methodological “toolkits” could spur more nuanced and specific insights about ED recoveries. We propose a potential future research model that would ideally have a multi-methods design, incorporate different perspectives (e.g., expanding recruitment of diverse participants, including supportive others, in study co-creation), and a longitudinal course (e.g., capturing cognitive and emotional recovery, which often comes after physical). In this way, we hope to move the field towards different, more comprehensive, perspectives on ED recovery. Conclusion Our current perspectives on studying ED recovery leave critical gaps in our knowledge about the process. The traditional research methodologies impact our conceptualization of recovery definitions, and in turn limit our understanding of the phenomenon. We suggest that we expand our range of methodologies, perspectives, and timeframes in research, in order to form a more complete picture of what is possible in recovery; the multiple aspects of an individual’s life that can improve, the greater number of people who can recover than previously believed, and the reaffirmation of hope that, even after decades, individuals can begin, and successfully continue, their ED recovery process.
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    Embodying Artistic Reflexive Praxis: An Early Career Academic's Reflections on Pain, Anxiety, and Eating Disorder Recovery Research
    (FQS, 2021-01-01) LaMarre A
    Writing about our bodies, as researchers, does not always do justice to their ebbs and flows—their entanglements with the processes and "products" of our research journeys. In this piece, I share my reflexive engagement with artistic praxis over the course of my early career. Engaging with embodied reflexive praxis through dance, film, and writing enabled me to not only produce but also to feel research and to work through messy and painful experiences. Beyond simply unearthing my spaces of belonging in relationship to participants, reflexivity has meant examining and re-examining my relationship to pain, disability, recovery from eating distress, and research itself.
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    Honouring Differences in Recovery: Methodological Explorations in Creative Eating Disorder Recovery Research
    (MDPI (Basel, Switzerland), 2023-04-01) LaMarre A; Healy-Cullen S; Tappin J; Burns M; Parton N
    What would it look like to honour differences in eating disorder recovery? Recoveries from eating disorders and eating distress are enacted in relation to discursive, material, and affective flows that open and constrain different possibilities for differently embodied people. Yet, the pull toward establishing consensus on “what recovery is” continues to dominate the landscape of both qualitative and quantitative eating disorder recovery work. While researchers from a variety of perspectives, disciplines, and methodological traditions have sought to establish consensus on what recovery “is”, a singular definition remains elusive. Indeed, when researchers continue to adopt the same methodologies—which largely emphasize establishing patterns of sameness—the opportunity to dig into contradictions and tensions that enliven recoveries is missed. In this paper, we reflect on our experiences conducting creative, collaborative, generative research to re-write, re-design, re-draw, and otherwise re-imagine recoveries. The knowledge generated in our research is co-constructed with people with living experience of disordered/distressed eating/eating disorders who spoke back to mainstream recovery discourses (e.g., the idea that recovery is about perfection, that recovery is linear, that one is either recovered or not, that the word “recovered” encapsulates the experience, etc.). We engaged with 12 participants: four in an online group workshop and eight in individual online sessions. Participants held a variety of experiences and backgrounds from Canada, the United States, and Aotearoa New Zealand. We explored their journeys into this conversation with us, the meaning of recovery, and their thoughts on what makes recovery im/possible. Participants were offered several options for creative engagement and took up the idea of “creativity” in ways as different as the stories they shared. Participants created collages, short stories, poems, drawings, and told stories about their experiences. Here, we discuss methodological insights gained from asking participants to lead the creative process. We also explore how this project potentially enables different ways of thinking about and doing eating disorder recovery. Delving into the differences in both method and content opens up opportunities to take seriously the different relational, material, and affective constellations of participants’ living experiences of eating distress/disorder “recovery”.
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    Innovating qualitative research methods: Proposals and possibilities
    (Elsevier Ltd, 2022-11) LaMarre A; Chamberlain K
    We reflect on the current state and growth of qualitative research in psychology alongside the development of publications, publication venues, and research societies for qualitative research that have facilitated that growth and enhanced interest in qualitative research within the discipline. We also argue that much contemporary qualitative research is formulaic in nature, frequently as a result of relying on checklists and guidelines in a misguided attempt to ensure methodological rigour. We argue the need for more innovation in qualitative research and showcase the range of articles accepted for this special issue on qualitative research innovation. We discuss these articles under four headings: Addressing challenges in a new era of qualitative research; Considering ethical practice; Dynamic practices of data collection; and Rethinking analytic practices. Our hope is that these articles excite readers' psychological imagination, leading them to engage with and take up the ideas and practices promoted by the articles, to diverge from prescribed methods and to journey into the unfamiliar and embrace innovation in their research.
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    Letting Bodies be Bodies: Exploring Relaxed Performance in the Canadian Performance Landscape
    (Brock University Press, 2021) LaMarre A; Rice C; Besse K
    There is an increasing movement toward accessibility in arts spaces, including recent legislative changes and commitments at individual, organizational, and systemic levels to integrating access into the arts across Canada. In this article, we explore Relaxed Performance (RP) in the context of this movement. We present the results of a reflexive thematic analysis of interviews conducted with participants who completed RP training offered by the British Council to . understand the training’s effectiveness and impact. We explore the significance of the training, and of RP in general, and in relation to disability studies and cultural and political activism. We undertake this exploration against a backdrop of interrogating who RP is for and by. The themes we describe are: Committed to Access, Training is Critical, Inviting Bodies to be Bodies, and Imagining Audiences. These themes tell a story of how RP relates to broader access work, the importance of training grounded in and led by disability/difference, the need to consider the relationships between bodies and spaces, and the tensions inherent to billing RP as “for all.” We conclude with an exploration of possible modifications, enhancements, or theoretical imaginings that could help RP to become more radically open to difference as it emerges, shifts, and changes.