Karen Hanrahan: A Change of Habit - Life Writing

Welcome to our first episode in our new series on Life Writing. In this epsiode, Morag chats to Karen about her fascinating research.Karen’s doctoral research explores the lives of former Irish nuns, one of whom is her mother. Her work is located at the interface between a number of disciplines (history, sociology, narrative psychology and Irish Studies) and draws on narrative and life history methodologies to consider these life stories in context. These former nuns entered a religious congregation in 1950s Ireland and Karen’s study considers how they came to re-imagine an alternative self and how they navigated the transgressive process of leaving convent life decades later to re-enter the secular world they had renounced as teenagers. Her research is concerned with representations of the past and how ethical memory can challenge the imposing ideologies of the present. Karen is a principal lecturer in Education at the University of Brighton, UK. Her other research interests include the role of reflective practice in professional becoming and how biographical and arts-based methodologies can lead to transformative learning in Higher Education.---Episode transcript: https://drive.google.com/file/d/14pKXF9Z4RtabjtAX_nHsvBepLXEfdbfF/view?usp=share_link--- If you would like to share your research on this podcast, get in touch at [email protected]