I am a PhD Candidate in the Theatre & Performance Studies program at York University, and maintain an active relationship / mentorship with the Graduate Program in Social Anthropology. I am also affiliated with the CCGES (Canadian Centre for German and European Studies) at York University.
My doctoral research seeks to examine and describe the diverse inner life of Polish Canadian early-life migrants (individuals that migrate during their formative years prior to reaching adulthood) and, specifically, how they experience, construct and perform that inner life, in everyday contexts. Methodologically, my work engages in imaginative and experimental interventions into ethnographic practice that seek to facilitate knowledge construction about those aspects of individual perceptions of culture that cannot be easily expressed in discursive statements or that cannot be expressed at all, but, that are nevertheless deeply felt at the limits of what can be thought and fashioned. Thus, like other imaginative and experimental ethnographers, I employ theories and methods that advocate nonverbal, embodied, and indirect means of expression. I am concerned with facilitating collaborative, participatory and empowering research processes, wherein research participants can take the lead in articulating their individual life experiences, stories and worldviews in ways that privilege their interior dialogues, personal agendas and concerns. My work is inspired by imaginative / experimental discourses and practices that encourage ethnographers to ‘listen’ to the lives of the participants by working with and learning from their interlocutors, and by creating spaces that critique traditional power relations between ethnographer and participant(s).
Email: w@kulinski.ca