Dr Elizabeth Ascroft

Professional biography

My research explores co-creative approaches with young people to develop sexuality education materials in Aruba, the Caribbean. I’m interested in studying ways of knowing and following an anticolonial approach to dominant forms of sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR) knowledge within the international development sector. My research considers how creative dialogic spaces influence knowledge production, whilst reflecting on concepts of participation, power and affect. The research is a hive of dynamic and playful workshops, including storytelling, model making, crafting and zine making. 

I am guided by post-humanist philosophy and new materialist theory, and am motivated by understanding the affective potentials of the materials we use in our research methods. As a researcher, I take great pleasure in slow learning with a group, to critically reflect on how we generate knowledge and the assumptions underlying it. 

As a facilitator, I am guided by pedagogies of compassion and an ethos of care. And, I love to laugh!

Find out more about my consultancy work, building collaborative spaces for social justice: www.elizabethascroft.com. 

Research interests

Research as activism; creative methods; co-creation; participatory action research; decolonising methodologies; transformation and praxis-based research; critical pedagogies; sexuality education; youth participation; rights-based approaches; SRHR as activism and resistance; storytelling; island studies; normative discourses around gender and sexuality in the Caribbean.

External collaborations

My PhD research project is funded through the ESRC Grand Union Doctoral Training Programme and is a collaborative studentship with International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and Open University. I am working in partnership with the Family Planning Association (FPA) of Aruba.