Situating Single Mothers through Values-Based Cartooning

Abstract

This article presents and juxtaposes multiple constructed representations of single motherhood. Combining a case-study approach with ‘values-based cartooning’, as defined and developed in her interdisciplinary, practice-based Ph.D., the author accesses diverse experiences of single motherhood and attempts to portray and disrupt assumptions about single-mother ‘types’. The author then contextualizes her practice within contemporary comics scholarship, adding visual and narrative layers to the discourse on single motherhood. This represents an innovative research method which requires skill in cartooning and graphic facilitation, as well as insight into the complexities of representing social issues through these media.

Keywords:

• comics
• graphic facilitation
• graphic recording
• representation
• single motherhood
• sketchnoting
• values
• visual facilitation
• visual research methods

Acknowledgements

This Ph.D. was supported by a studentship from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.