Stories of faith, stories of humanity: fusing phenomenological research with digital storytelling to facilitate interfaith empathy

ABSTRACT

“Stories of Faith, Stories of Humanity” is an arts-based, phenomenological research project that transformed research participants’ lived experiences of faith into artistic digital stories to cultivate empathy toward people of different faith backgrounds. As a phenomenological researcher, I interviewed nine participants with diverse spiritual and religious affiliations about their lived experiences of faith. As a digital artist, I then transformed their interviews into artistic digital stories that were sent to them as a “gift of empathy” as well as uploaded onto the website www.storiesoffaithstoriesofhumanity.com to facilitate widespread empathy among the general public. This article outlines the research with digital storytelling to foster both individual and sociocultural healing—to facilitate a therapeutic sense of being empathically listened to among individual participants regarding their faith experiences as well to facilitate widespread interfaith empathy among general society as a whole.

KEYWORDS:

• Aesthetic phenomenology
• arts-based research
• digital storytelling
• interfaith dialogue
• interfaith empathy
• phenomenological research
• social advocacy
• social media

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nisha Gupta

Nisha Gupta is a PhD Candidate at Duquesne University’s clinical psychology program. Along with practicing psychotherapy, she experiments with using the media arts to express psychological and oppressive experiences, evoke empathy and compassion for marginalized communities, initiate dialogue about societal topics, and bridge sociocultural differences.