ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the situation of female family members residing in the Asylum Centre in Ljubljana, Slovenia who as asylum seekers deal with long waiting periods for the outcomes of the International Protection Procedure. The author, who started as a facilitator of dance and movement (DM) activities at the Asylum Centre, focused on how these women overcome their pause of life into action and renegotiate family relations and, in documenting their behaviours and expressions, soon became a researcher. Her research examines how DM workshops encouraged these women’s self-expression and self-esteem and transformed their status from being ‘an object’ under other people’s control to becoming ‘a subject’ using their own narration. Using a participatory research approach, the author recorded also her own reflexivity in describing her transformation from facilitator to researcher. Dance movement therapy and Paulo Freire’s concept of critical consciousness frame the complex yet energising process expressed by these females of their own individual, group and family relationship narratives. Such expressions help us critically understand their need to deal with uncertainty, traumatic experiences and to eventually break their silence.
