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6 Research as Performative Inquiry
Mary M. Gergen
The purpose of this chapter is to explore the ways in which social science research practices have conjoined with the arts, and the place of social construction in these emerging explorations. In my view this conjoining brings to light the potentials of seeing research as a form of performance, and thus an attempt to evoke a responsive action. However, given the rapid acceleration of interest in allying the arts with research practice, performative inquiry is virtually synonymous with ‘arts-based research’. Patricia Leavy, a well-known advocate of arts-based research, defines the field as ‘any social research … that adapts the tenets of the creative arts as a part of the methodology. So, the arts may be used during data collection, analysis, interpretation and/or dissemination’ (Jones and Leavy, 2014, pp. 1–2).
Compendiums emphasizing performative inquiry include Playing with purpose: Adventures in performative social science (Gergen and Gergen, 2012), Creative research methods in the social sciences: A practical guide (Kara, 2015) and many chapters in various editions of The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000, 2005, 2011, 2018). The Handbook of arts-based research is a major resource for performative inquiry (Leavy, 2019) and extends its reach into the health sciences, natural sciences, business, and education. Early performative handbooks include The SAGE handbook of performance studies (Madison and Hamera, 2006), and the Handbook of the arts in qualitative research (Knowles and Cole, 2008). Other important contributions include Arts-based research (Barone and Eisner, 2012) and Qualitative inquiry at a crossroads (Denzin and Giardina, 2019). Journals especially receptive to performative work include Qualitative Inquiry, International Review of Qualitative Research, Journal of Mixed Methods Research, and two online journals, Forum: Qualitative Social Research and Qualitative Research. In what follows I shall first provide a brief account of the development of performative inquiry. Now a powerful catalyst in the social sciences, performative work is of relatively recent origin. How, one might ask, did such flowering occur, and how has its development bolstered by social constructionist ideas? We may then take a more focused look at developments in several areas of inquiry, including those relying on textual, embodied and visual arts. Finally, I will touch on some salient achievement and aspirations.
Performative Inquiry: Emergence and Development
One might legitimately trace the origins of performative studies to the publication in 1632 of Galileo's Dialogue concerning the two chief world systems. In this volume, Galileo effectively justifies his Copernican view of the universe, that the earth revolves around the sun. In this account, however, he draws from the full range of rhetorical devices available at the time: formal scientific articulation, irony, drama, comedy, sarcasm, and poetry among them. By rolling his manifesto into this rich mix of genres, and the like, Galileo was able to give voice to his view of the cosmos, while simultaneously protecting himself from the ire of the Pope and the Catholic Church, for which his views would be anathema.
Over the next three centuries, Galileo's research came to be a centerpiece in the emergence of a self-conscious empiricist science. However, the all-important rhetorical devices had grown into discredit, now regarded as ‘bells and whistles’ as opposed to carrying real objective substance. Science, it was said, was engaged in the pursuit of literal as opposed to rhetorical truth. This was indeed the received view within the burgeoning social sciences of the 20th century. The hope of many scholars was that the study of social life would constitute a science with a status approximating the natural sciences. Such research might provide the scientific basis for generating effective institutions of education, commerce, and governance; they might lead the way in eradicating poverty, mental illness and other social problems. The effort to create and sustain this dream of the social sciences as kin to the natural sciences remains dominant in psychology, sociology, and economics, especially.
Cultural Transformation: Protest and Pluralism
As widely documented, a major shift in the political landscape took place in the second half of the 20th century in both the United States and across Europe. Where there had been widespread trust in the existing political institutions, a steadily expanding chorus of protest emerged. In the United States the first major wave of protest was embodied in the civil rights movement in the 1950s. This was followed by the equal rights movement, and most vociferously in the anti-war movement in the 1960s. One might say that, anti-establishment protest virtually became a way of life, with gay and lesbian activists, anti-psychiatry advocates, environmental activists, and pro-life/pro/choice combatants soon participating.
One important outcome of these movements was the questioning of all established forms of authority – not only governmental, but scientific and religious as well. All groups, great or small, voiced the right to speak out, to claim a legitimacy equal to others. While conflict was pervasive, there was also an emerging understanding and appreciation of the potentials of a pluralist society in which new ways of life could emerge, forms of life that favored inclusion, accommodation, and collaboration.
Widely recognized for their liberal political leanings, social scientists were often in the vanguard in nurturing such pluralism. And in the same spirit of critique and protest, traditional definitions of scientific knowledge and method came under attack. Ideological and political critique was already under way in Europe, but was soon joined by a powerful wave of feminist scholarship. Soon joining in were scholars concerned with the homophobic, individualist, capitalist, and Eurocentric biases of the social sciences. As common within the culture at large, there was an accompanying urgency to act. The possibility of combining scholarly work with social activism became increasingly plausible (Conquergood, 1982, 2002). The impact of this confluence remains robust in performative social science today (Keifer-Boyd, 2011).
Yet, the possibilities of conjoining the arts and sciences for such purposes must be traced to what was taking place within the artistic communities themselves. Many such communities thrive on challenging tradition. Indeed this has been the leitmotif of what we call modern art. However, during this period of broad political unrest, many artists from across the spectrum sought ways of using their various media for purposes of social and political change. Thus making their way into the scene were movements in performance art, pop art, disposable art, political art, street art, and more. In the groundbreaking films of Frederick Wiseman (Titicut Follies, Ballet, In Jackson Heights), and Jennie Livingston's award-winning Paris is Burning the lines separating ethnography, politics, and entertainment were erased.
The Constructionist Turn
It is during this same historical period –sometimes heralded as postmodern – that dialogues on the social construction of knowledge also erupted. One central idea within these dialogues was that our understandings of what we call reality emerge from relationships among people, especially through language and other meaningful activities (see Chapter 1). It is through relational processes – situated within particular historical cultural and physical contexts – that our understandings are created and stabilized (or not), and through which we come to trust one another (or not) as knowable entities acting in what we see as reasonable ways (Gergen, 1994).
From this point of view, there is no group of people that can make claims to transcendent truth, that is truth beyond what anyone might think or wish. There may be multiple and competing claims to what is the case, each legitimate within a socio-historical context. Importantly, this applies as well to the sciences. Scientific descriptions are constructed within sub-cultures of scientists, and serve their particular purposes and values. This is not to say that all descriptions are equal, but rather, to ask what purposes and values are served by their work. Thus, if one agrees with the assumptions and values of Western medicine, one can legitimately compare the outcomes with various indigenous forms of medicine. Yet there