Creative Research Methods 2e. Kara, Helen
technology and society, to find more useful ways to explore the world around us. The next chapter will explore these in more detail.
1.How creative is your approach to research?
2.How creative would you like your approach to research to be?
3.If there is a difference between your answers to questions 1 and 2, what might you do about that?
4.Which of the five key areas of creative research methods do you find most interesting? Why do you think that is?
5.In your own approach to research, how and where does informal research contribute?
1I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for highlighting the usefulness of this term.
Creative research methods in practice
Chapter summary
This chapter gives a more in-depth introduction to arts-based research, embodied research, multi-modal research and research using technology. It also introduces autoethnography, which can include all four approaches. The aim is to show some of the opportunities offered by these methods, as well as some of the challenges they present in practice.
In the arts, the creative and the scholarly are often one and the same (Krauth and Nash 2019: 283), and this is also often the case in research. Most arts-based research methods draw on forms of creative writing and/or the visual arts: drawing, painting, collage, photography and so on. Other art forms used as the basis for research include music, drama, textile arts and sculpture. Some commentators have suggested that this could equally well be called research-based art (Gergen and Gergen 2019: 54). Research and art are natural bedfellows in some ways, because the creative process works similarly for both (Edwards 2008: 96; Salvatore 2018: 267). But there are also tensions between them. For example, ‘truth’ in art is a link between a unique artwork and a recognisable aspect of the human condition, which is acknowledged by individual producers and consumers of art (for example, Edwards 2008: 111; Raingruber 2009: 261; Gabriel and Connell 2010: 517). The ‘truth’ in an artwork is not necessarily experienced in the same way by everyone, so this formulation presents truth as multiple and contestable. Conventionally, in research, ‘truth’ is a finding that can be replicated if the research is repeated. This depicts truth as a single, shareable and indisputable viewpoint. However, some researchers have been considering that truth may be as complex as artists suggest – multiple, partial, context dependent and contingent – and, so, best explored by ‘looking intensely from multiple perspectives’ (Sameshima and Vandermause 2009: 277), such as through multi-modal research.
Embodied research is research that overturns the conventional dominance of the mind in scholarly activity by acknowledging the role of the body. In so doing, it also negates the body/mind binary, because the mind – and the emotions and senses – are encompassed within and stem from the body. Embodiment researchers point out, quite reasonably, that none of us can do research without our body (Thanem and Knights 2019: 7), although for years Euro-Western researchers aspired to ‘disembodied research’ (Ellingson 2017: 6; Thanem and Knights 2019: 10). Yet, even in the most cerebral activities, such as computer-assisted data analysis, our fingers or voice are needed to operate the computer. Then, too, the researcher will make analytic choices in part as a result of physical sensation: the increase in muscle tension when something is interesting, the yawn when boredom strikes (Ellingson 2017: 156).
Embodied research spans a wide range of academic disciplines and research fields (Thanem and Knights 2019: 1). At present only some researchers acknowledge the role of their bodies, although all research has potential elements of embodiment (Ellingson 2017: 35). To date, embodied research often focuses on topics where embodied knowledge is highly relevant, such as pregnancy and childbirth (Oparah et al 2012), cancer survivorship (Ellingson 2017: 102) or the performing arts (Snowber 2019: 252). Yet, an embodied perspective is potentially relevant to any research topic.
As the discussion of informal research in Chapter 1 suggested, physical and emotional data processing is a constant and inescapable part of our lives. This is becoming more widely recognised, with more researchers privileging the informal research of their embodied experience and using their own sensory data as the starting point for creative investigation of a wide range of subjects, such as dance (Barbour 2012) and emotion (Stewart 2012). Other researchers take a different approach, applying the concepts of embodied research more formally to topics that do not focus directly on the body or aspects of the body (Vacchelli 2018: 49).
However, embodied research – like all research – has its challenges. For example, researchers’ own embodiment can lead us into experiences that may at times be disorienting, even disturbing (Pink 2015: 52). Also, it takes effort and time to come to understand our own ‘sensorium’, let alone those of others (Pink 2015: 60). Data gathering may be particularly complex if there is a need to disentangle a participant’s embodied responses in the moment from their account of past embodied experiences (Chadwick 2017: 56). Then, too, there are challenges from potential audiences who may, for example, see embodied research as self-interested and apolitical (Thanem and Knights 2019: 9).
Specific types of embodied research methods are beginning to develop, such as sensory ethnography (Pink 2015: 28). Also, embodied research can be used in conjunction with other creative approaches, such as arts-based research (Vacchelli 2018: 37). These kinds of distinctions and connections are likely to increase over time.
Research using technology includes internet-mediated research, such as research through social media, as well as research supported by other kinds of technology, such as mobile devices or apps. Some technology is devised specifically for research purposes. This includes various types of data analysis software, such as SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Scientists) for quantitative data or NVivo for qualitative data; the online research management and sharing program Mendeley; or dedicated online survey providers such as SurveyMonkey®. It also includes more creative options such as the ‘provocatype’ (Bowles 2018: 24), a one-off artefact intended to act as a ‘research probe’ by stimulating discussion about how design choices might interact with individuals and communities in an imagined future (Bowles 2018: 24). Researchers also use technology devised for non-research purposes, such as e-mail for communicating with a team of co-researchers, a spreadsheet program for managing questionnaire data or Twitter for gathering data from all over the world.
Technology itself has an influence on people’s creativity, yet the role of technology in the creative process has not yet been fully understood or theorised (Gangadharbatla 2010: 225). Also, technology is one topic in which students are often ahead of their teachers (Paulus et al 2013: 639). Research using technology is a very fast-moving field. This poses an authorial dilemma because, on the one hand, it is not realistic to leave this topic out of a book on creative research methods but, on the other hand, writing about technology is likely to be out of date by the time it reaches readers. This book addresses that dilemma by focusing primarily on the more creative uses of technology in research, rather than, for example, rehearsing the pros and cons of different types of software or hardware.
The rapid development of technologies can be daunting for researchers. While some people are fluent in web scraping, algorithms, APIs (application programming interfaces), mash-ups, blog mining, apps and data visualisation, for others this is a foreign language. Unfamiliarity can be a deterrent; it can feel safer to stay in the well-trodden land of surveys, interviews and focus groups. But it may be reassuring to know that nobody can keep