The Wisdom Project

The Wisdom Project attempts to create space for story-telling, poetry and listening for those with life-altering illness, people with spinal injuries that changed their lives, caregivers, frail, elderly people as well as the bereaved. This new section draws on my deep interest in palliative care.

It has been the experience of researchers, practitioners and healthcare professionals (Chochinov, 2011, Norkunas, 2013, Michelle Winslow, Sam Smith, 2019, and Sara Jane Ruggles, forthcoming) that engaging with patients through their life stories offers a form of palliation that also restores identity and dignity by nurturing personhood over patienthood. As an oral historian, when I went about seeking out people to conduct life story interviews with, I found my perspective shifting rapidly. I realized that what fascinated me about the stories was their focus on how my narrators had lived their lives. I realized that to approach patients, elders, caregivers or the bereaved with the idea that we could offer relief by letting them tell their stories, was a flawed approach. Besides, it was not even what I really wanted to do. Elders who are frail or weakened by illness, those living with life-altering illness or injury, caregivers and those who suffer the loss of a loved one remain valuable and often untapped sources of knowledge, experience, expertise and wisdom. My own experience in using oral history as a means of collecting stories had used this form of interaction to tap into these resources. I enjoyed doing oral history because I was curious about people’s experiences and felt enriched by what they shared. The process of oral history interviewing involves deep listening and empathy which fosters a shared space for the listener and the narrator. It also struck me that when palliation or healing happens in the process of story-telling (listening and telling) it happens because of the shared human connection between the listener and the narrator and not because those with a terminal diagnosis or those who are weakened by age are being offered a form of therapy through recollection of their achievements or success. It is us, the story-collectors who gain from the opportunity of listening to their stories. There was so much to be learned, so much wisdom to be gathered from these life stories. This was a flash of understanding that changed my perspective on the uses of oral history in the context of palliative care. I realized that one had to approach these conversations in the spirit of learning. This is what gave rise to The Wisdom Project.

In the last year, I have interviewed caregivers, those experiencing serious health related suffering, doctors, nurses, psychologists, counsellors and social workers who work in palliative care in India, including a healthcare clown, as well as a toy and book librarian who works in a paediatric palliative care unit. I am hoping over time, the interviews that are a part of the Archives of this project could be used as a resource for scholars researching on palliative care and all its associative aspects: care-giving, coping with a difficult diagnosis or life altering injury, those with terminal illness contemplating death, reflections on end of life and dying in the Indian context. Scholars of oral history working in these areas could focus on how we listen, what changes in us or what makes us vulnerable and issues of intersubjectivity.