Arts-based research (ABR), “so hot right now”
Go-to research methods
All scientists have, depending on their disciplines, go-to research methods. Cellular biologists do things with microscopes. Chemists combine elements, create molecules, and observe reactions. Neurologists scan and survey and poke around in our brains. Etc, etc. (Yes, this is terribly oversimplified. Perdóname, por favor, but my focus lies elsewhere in this post.)
In cultural anthropology, our go-to’s are 1) Participant observation, 2) Interview technique, and 3) Textual analysis (whether we call this archival research, literature review, or some combination of both). Related to textual analysis, and no doubt an inevitable outcome of living in a world with rapidly improving audio and visual technologies, methods like 4) film analysis and 5) audio sampling are, arguably, more-recent-yet-by-now-established go-to methods of today. In addition to the original go-to’s, I mean.
But anthropology, and the social sciences in general, have gotten even cooler in the past 40 years, as alternative, creative and (if you want to, say, coin a new term to sell your new book) “imaginative” research methods have started to acquire not just legitimacy, but in some social scientific spheres, preference.
Centre for Imaginative Ethnography
The Centre for Imaginative Ethnography co-curators, for example, write in the introduction to their book (linked above):
We take imaginative and experimental ethnography as points of departure — an invitation to live differently, to animate spaces, classrooms, and stages, to listen carefully to the lives of others, to use humor and imagination to write, picture, and perform the world alive. We chose the terms imaginative and experimental ethnography because we seek to shift our attention from the results of our research to include the very processes which enable and shape knowledge co-creation and circulation.
As we use it, the term “imaginative” refers to a recognition of imagination and creativity as central and significant practices in human social relations. Taking “imagination” seriously is necessarily accompanied by a commitment to open-ended inquiry that can embrace risks, challenges to orthodoxy, and anticipations of unintended outcomes.
“Ethnography,” in our usage, refers to a methodology: embodied, affective, relational processes of knowledge co-creation [sic] and circulation that develop from, elaborate and enrich, and challenge and subvert conventional ethnographic methods such as participant observation and observant participation, interviewing, documentary and archival research.
Next, let me show you just a bit of who’s doing what with creative research methods these days. And while I dig the word “imaginative,” I’m going to stick to calling these arts-based methods. (“Imaginative” got annoying as soon as the CIE group got overly-invested in selling books, imo, but this is just me, here, venting out of context. Note that I still cited the CIE group. They do many things well.)
Beyond the traditional go-to research methods: A list of who’s, what’s, and how’s
- Anthropologist Jean Hunleth (who you will read in the science case study for this module if you choose “skits, sketches, and sculptures”) gave prompts like “sickness” and “care” along with crayons and paper to Zambian children living in households where one or more adults were diagnosed with Tuberculosis. She then asked the children to sketch their responses to each prompt. Hunleth also organized workshops at which she asked children, with their and their parents’ consent, to perform skits in response to prompts like “living with a sick person.”
- Media Studies prof and researcher, David Gauntlett, asked participants in his research to build things, including their own identities, out of legos. (I won’t explain here, as you will see a video of this work, too, in the “skits, sketches…” science case study just after this. For any of you NOT choosing that path and who want to see Gauntlet’s work with legos, click here.)
- Anthropologist Cristina Moretti, citing Michel de Certeau, used walking as a research method in her study of the daily lives and understandings of residents of Milan (and, later, specifically, of the Romani people).
- DANCE. Ohmygoshohmygosh, dance is a HUGE deal in research methods these days, and I almost spaced it here. See Jasmine Ulmer, who thinks about “choreographic writing” as embodied writing (2014), or see Margaret Wilson who used dance methods (combined with journaling) to answer her research question, “How do dancers come to know their bodies?” (2009). Or see the explosion of social scientists using dance to study PTSD, especially with veterans of war, right now. Google (or keyword search in JSTOR) dance and PTSD to get to this “explosion.” Can I include one more? I especially like the work of researchers who use dance in their (still experimental, often autoethnographic) attempts to decolonize knowledge, like this work by Trish Van Katwyk and Yukari Seko (2017).
- And then there is needlework as research method. My colleagues insist this happens; I will circle back and add citations as soon as I figure out who’s doing it.
ABR, “so hot right now”
This was a lot of different methods, described in very small amount of space. Here’s the takeaway: the methods by which scientists seek answers to their questions grow in number every single day, and this is only possible because scientists are increasingly creative in thinking about how to get from their questions to data / information that is interesting and usable to them. As a result, art and science have more in common today than they did 50, or 100, or 150 years ago.
Need more proof that ABR is suddenly a big deal? Here is how scientists tell each other about ABR these days — it’s a list, taken from a chart explaining what ABR is, when it gets used, and why it matters. I include here only a selection of the entire chart, which was forwarded to me by Dr. Jean Hunleth (who does ABR and who I cited above) on March 18, 2019. The title of the email is “Amazing Resource.” Original source unknown.
Arts Based Research
Transdisciplinary approach to knowledge building that combines the tenets of the creative arts in research contexts
ABR Practices
Methodological tools used by researchers across disciplines during any or all phases of research, including problem generation, data or content generation, analysis, interpretation, and representation
Process of Inquiry
Involves researchers engaging in art making as a way of knowing
Art Forms
ABR may draw on any art form and representational form that include but are not limited to literary forms (essays, short stories, novellas, novels, experimental writing, scripts, screenplays, poetry, parables)
Performative forms (music, songs, dance, creative movement, theatre)
Visual art (photography, drawing, painting, collage, installation art, three-dimensional art, sculpture, comics, quilts, needlework)
Audiovisual forms (film, video)
Multimedia forms (graphic novels)
Multimethod forms (combining 2+ art forms)
Epistemiology of ABR
Assumes the arts can create and convey meaning
Recognizes art has been able to convey truth(s) or bring about awareness (both knowledge of the self and of others)
Recognizes the use of the arts is critical in achieving self-other knowledge
Values preverbal ways of knowing
Includes multiple ways of knowing, such as sensory, kinesthetic, and imaginary knowing
Advantages of ABR
New Insights & Learning: offers ways to tap into what would otherwise be inaccessible, makes connections, and interconnections asks and answers new research questions, explores old research questions in new ways, and represents research differently to broad audiences.
