I’m so pleased to have recently published the results of a project I led in my previous postdoc. In this project, I investigated how participatory methods and creative practice can be used to sensitively explore lived experience of past disaster among people living beside persistently active volcanoes. I worked with older people in communities west of Fuego volcano, Guatemala, many of whom I have worked with and known for years. The paper is an exploration of these creative participatory methods – including their strengths and some challenges in transforming research theory into practice – so the “results” of this study are much more evaluative and reflective than in previous papers I’ve contributed to. This is also my first paper as solo author, which has been a strange and enlightening experience! You have complete creative control, but collaborating on a co-authored paper brings a sense of shared purpose that enlivens the writing process in a different way.

The main questions that the paper aims to answer are:

• (How) can illustration be used as a tool for exploring memories of volcanic disaster? 
• (How) can illustration be used to share these memories with at-risk people who have not experienced such disaster?

You can judge for yourself how I answered them – the paper is available open-access here. (Look out for the Spanish version, available as Supplementary Material 4 here.) To tantalise, here’s my favourite figure from the paper:

_{[Caption from paper] Development of one of the zine pages, from (top left) first doodle in storyboard to (bottom left) more evolved sketch to (right) final version in ink and watercolour. The text translates as, “Ever since I was born, the volcano was erupting. But it only bathed itself in fire. One could walk by the light of the volcano.”}

If you’re interested in the process behind the paper, I’ve previously written about the work involved in this project here and here.

Both the paper and the research that went into it represent a deeply personal connection to Fuego and the people that live around it. I am very grateful to them for sharing their time with me, and for the University of Bristol and the Ixchel project (led by the University of Edinburgh) for supporting me to do this research. I now work at the Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS), which has been an illuminating adventure so far. I’m excited to continue growing here in Singapore while working to maintain my connections with colleagues in Bristol, Edinburgh, and Guatemala!