The Use of Social History Narrative and Fiction in Academic Research
With Teresa Capetola
Drawing on her doctoral research Il Buale: Carrying Stories of Distance, Post War Second Generation Italian Australian Middle-Aged Women, Teresa presents the pivotal role of storying in eliciting complex, rich and challenging experiences of the Italian women diaspora in Australia. Teresa’s research utilised storying and narrative in a multimodal qualitative study through use of story extracts and co-creating a short work of fiction with research participants.
In her presentation, Teresa will also share her use of Ursula Le Guin’s Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, to interpret and understand research participants’ multiple and diverse lived experiences of migration legacies and Italian cultural heritages.
The Zoom link will be sent to members and non-member ticket holders a day or two before the event.
Members Free
Non-members $15.00
Speaker: Teresa Capetola is the inaugural President and co-founder of Ascolta Women Inc., a collective of Italian affiliated women across Australia, Canada and London focused on creative works, academic research, community engagement and activism related to diasporic Italian communities. Ascolta Women Inc. have published five annual creative writing anthologies with the sixth volume, Stories from Il Corpo (Stories from the Body) to be launched in 2026 on International Women’s Day. Ascolta is the Italian word for listen. Teresa is a current academic and award-winning teacher and researcher in the School of Health and Social Development, Deakin University, Australia. Ascolta Women Inc. originated from Teresa’s doctoral research - Il Baule: Carrying Stories of Distance, Post-World War II Italian Australian Middle-Aged Women. The importance of narrative, through Arts Based Research and the Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, informs her research and Community Based Participatory Research informs Teresa’s practice. Teresa is a proud daughter of Italian immigrant parents and lives and works on the Lands of the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation, Naarm. Forthcoming publications: Capetola, T., Paolino, A., Callipari, F., Callipari Marcuzzo, L., Lolicato, K., Stellato-Pledger, J., Pallotta-Chiarolli, M. (2025) Ascolta! Intergenerational Stories of Challenges and Resilience. In M. Gindidis, Southcott, J. & Wake, R. (Eds.) Women of the Diaspora: Generational Transformations. Bloomsbury. Capetola, T. (2025) Storying Distance: Lived Experiences of Post War Second Generation Italian Australian Middle-aged Women. In M. Gindidis, Southcott, J. & Wake, R. (Eds.) Women of the Diaspora: Generational Transformations. Bloomsbury.