Left Write Hook: A Conversation with Dr Shannon Owen
Description
This session is hosted by Melbourne Social Equity Institute's Community Engaged Research Network and is only open to staff and graduate researchers based at the University of Melbourne. Please use your @unimelb or @student.unimelb email address to register.
Left Write Hook is a survivor-designed, peer-led program that aims to empower adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse or other gendered violence to reclaim their bodies and rewrite their stories. It began in 2019 when film producer and academic Dr Donna Lyon started a small grassroots program at her local boxing gym in Ferntree Gully, Victoria. She wanted to connect with other survivors and find a way to release and express trauma through writing and boxing.
In 2020, Donna teamed up with colleague Dr Shannon Owen, a filmmaker and researcher whose work investigates the power of nonfiction storytelling to foster dialogue and social change. Together they began developing a documentary film project with a small group of survivors who were participating in the program. What was initially conceived as an observational documentary following the participants across the eight-week program evolved into something much more.
At this special event for the Community Engaged Research Network, Shannon will join Professor Karen Block, Deputy Director of Melbourne Social Equity Institute, in conversation to reflect on the co-creative process of Left Write Hook, the importance of centring lived experience in research, and the ethical and methodological challenges of conducting this work in a university research environment.
Please note: this event will not include a screening of the documentary which is currently available on Netflix. Attendees are not all expected to have watched the film in full, though are encouraged to visit the film’s website for further background.
Speaker Biography
Dr Shannon Owen
Dr Shannon Owen is a documentary filmmaker and researcher whose work investigates the power of nonfiction storytelling to foster dialogue and social change. Her films bring personal narratives into conversation with broader cultural and political issues, often developed through close collaboration with participants. Her award-winning projects include Left Write Hook (2024), Guy Bourdin: Image Maker (2021), Miss South Sudan Australia (2011) and Just Punishment (2006), which have been screened internationally at film festivals, conference settings, on broadcast television, and in gallery exhibitions. Shannon is a Senior Lecturer in Film and Television at the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music. Her research focuses on creative practice as a research methodology, documentary filmmaking ethics, and the role of documentary in social change. She integrates teaching, filmmaking, and scholarship to create meaningful connections between students, audiences, and communities.
Professor Karen Block
Professor Karen Block is head of the Migration and Health Unit, Nossal Institute of Global Health in the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health. She is also the Deputy Director of the Melbourne Social Equity Institute (MSEI) and the Academic Convenor of the Anti-racism Hallmark Research Initiative. For the MSEI, she leads work across the priority area of Migration and Mobility and Community Engaged and Coproductive research. Prof Block has a strong national and international profile in the area of migration studies, exploring the interplay between host communities and migrants and the complex ways in which this interaction affects health inequalities, integration, inclusion and social cohesion. Her recent and current research includes a range of projects involving immigrant and refugee-background young people, women and families focused on social inclusion across the life course, health inequalities, gender-based violence, anti-racism, and working in collaborative partnerships with communities and community-based organisations. Prof Block also has a keen interest in cross-disciplinary, coproductive, participatory, innovative and ethical qualitative and mixed methodologies for working with migrant children and youth and their families. Her research and related activities in this field have strengthened understandings of factors supporting wellbeing and inclusion for refugee and migrant populations post-settlement; stimulated discourse around ethical and appropriate methodologies for working with this population; and influenced policy and practice.
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