Arts-based Research Methodology Research Articles

Arts-based methods as a critical and decolonising process in global mental health: Reflections on popular discourse, artistic rigour and limitations.

Due to masculine expectations and cultural perceptions, Luo and Busoga men, in their respective countries of Kenya and Uganda, can experience a range of mental health conditions which can lead to violent and problematic behaviours. Over an 18 month period in 2022/23, Masculinities and Mental Health used bottom-up, culturally responsive, arts and health workshops to seek to understand the cultural causes of stress and depression reported by men in Luo and Busoga cultures. The project included a two month arts-based residency in Osiri village, Kisumu County (Kenya) and a four week residency in Walukuba, Jinja (Uganda) working with groups of men to explore definitions of mental health via arts-based research methodologies. This article will present examples from the research whilst critically interrogating the possibilities of arts-based research contributing to an ongoing process of decolonising mental health practices in East Africa. The paper is focused on three dilemmas and learnings that occurred during the project; balancing the relationship between popular and progressive ideas in health care research, the complications of developing the 'art' in arts-based research and the inherent limitations of arts-based research in developing impact. I argue that arts-based research can effectively contribute to wider efforts of decolonising mental health by enabling participatory spaces to explore indigenous knowledge and lived experience. However, such efforts could be advanced if arts-based research engaged with systemic structures which enforce Global North practices and ignore culturally specific understandings of mental health.

The Resistance is Always Black and Queer: Leadership as Resistance in Black Male Initiative and Men of Color Mentorship Programs

Defining leadership and student leader identity often brings a complex and complicated reality for Black students in higher education settings. Leadership identity, models, and practices are often grounded in Whiteness, heteronormativity, and cis-heteropatriarchy, which causes complex ways of understanding leadership. Thus, the purpose of this research is to explore how Black gay, bisexual, and queer men (BGBQM) redefine leadership as resistance and nuanced activism within Black male1 initiatives (BMI) and Men of Color (MoC) mentorship programs, given their Blackness and queerness identities. Using arts-based research (ABR) methodology, this research explores the following research questions: (1) How do BGBQM define masculinity and queerness and (2) how do BGBQM experience and enact nuanced activism in challenging heteronormativity and cis-heteropatriarchy in BMI and MoC mentorship programs? Findings are presented in a podcast script format to illuminate how these men center queerness and femininity, while challenging hegemonic masculinity and heteronormative notions of leadership engagement and development within BMI and MoC mentorship program settings.

AR Portrait Painting in Dialogue with Woman, Life, Freedom

This paper introduces AR portrait painting in Dialogue, a novel arts-based research methodology that integrates Augmented Reality (AR) technology with portrait painting to effectively analyze and visualize data while fostering collaborative and democratic knowledge construction. The methodology leverages the interpretive, analytic, and performative potentials of AR portraiture to illuminate complex sociocultural contexts of the research. Central to this approach is the acknowledgment and valorization of diverse subjective interpretations, inviting researchers, participants, and viewers in the co-construction of knowledge through dialogue. The intersubjective and open-ended knowledge construction is particularly pertinent for investigating ongoing and intricate social and political issues. Furthermore, the multiplicity of subjective perspectives and diverse interpretations within the AR portrait painting methodology enhances the credibility, authenticity, and truthfulness of the generated knowledge. To exemplify the utility of this innovative methodology, a case study is presented that showcases how AR portrait painting in dialogue effectively represents and communicates the experiences of Maryam, an Immigrant woman, as a resident of transnational spaces. Finally, discussing the potential and challenges of employing the AR portrait painting methodology provides valuable insights for art educators seeking to integrate AR art into their pedagogical practices.

Inclusive Classrooms: A Confessional Tale on a Métissage

This article is written as a confessional tale of the authors’ experience of conducting a métissage research process on inclusive classrooms within a course as part of a graduate program. Amanda, the lead author, is a queer elementary school teacher, researching the 2SLGBTQIA+ community within local classrooms and schools, and the Tim is their instructor in a research methods course. Together, we worked to explore the métissage methodology through a confessional tale to unpack the process and to frame the performance piece shared as an anonymously read métissage based on three participants’ voices: (a) a teacher and parent of a child with a disability, (b) an Indigenous teacher and (c) the lead author’s voice as a queer teacher. As Kluge (2001) explained, confessional tales represent the researcher’s personal account through the reflexive process that they experienced in the beginning, during, and at the end of the research process. Confessional tale is the postscript that follows the research progression in a highly personal diary-like format (Van Maanen, 1988). A métissage is an arts-based research methodology where a series of narrative writings by single authors are woven together to create a larger, thematic text, with the intent of “transformation from the inside out” (Worley, 2006, p. 518). In this article, therefore, we offer insights from Amanda's reflective comments, with their critical friend Tim (course instructor), on both the métissage process and their commitment to use research to create safer spaces for all through promoting participatory lived experience insights on inclusivity. Keywords: confessional, métissage, inclusion, queer, LGBTQ, Indigenous, disability, performance, participatory

Setting the Agenda: Poetic Inquiry as Critical Family Communication Methodology

ABSTRACT I use the erasure poems in the poetry chapbook, “Bringing Up Baby,” as Critical Interpersonal and Family Communication (CIFC) research to critique white middle-class notions of mothering and motherhood. Poetic inquiry is a form of Arts-Based Research (ABR) methodology that offers Critical Family Communication (CFC) researchers a way to highlight the aesthetics of personal experience, focus on embodiment and participatory measures, and use artistic forms to meld scientific and humanistic understandings of relationships. I argue that poetic inquiry as CFC methodology adds to family communication studies and offers a research and practice agenda using poetic inquiry as (a) everyday theorizing, (b) critique of traditional understandings of family relating and relationships, and (c) an evocative, embodied form that positions author reflexivity and engages dialectics. I provide suggestions for incorporating poetic inquiry into CFC research.

Emerging Professional Identity Formation: Exploring Coloniality in the Rehabilitation Professions

This paper explores professional identity formation in undergraduate education. The paper positions professional identity formation within coloniality. A qualitative case study was conducted using critical theory as a guiding conceptual framework. Data collection included document reviews, observations and arts-based research methodologies. We present a case study of a speech-language pathology student, Aqueelah, transitioning from a traditional clinical placement to a learning site which encourages the development of an emerging practice. The paper focuses on how Aqueelah forms her emerging professional identity through her learning. We foreground the concept of “centring the self” as essential in developing patient-centred care and challenge coloniality of being embedded in clinical education. The paper argues that liminal spaces are necessary to allow students to explore different ways of thinking and doing to support new ways of being. The paper advocates for arts-based methodologies and critical reflection as essential pedagogic tools in shaping professional identity.

Schools Often Fail to Expect Trans and Nonbinary Elementary Children: What Gender Independent, Nonbinary, and Trans Children Desire

Background/Context: This article is drawn from a doctoral research study that involved co-research between as adult trans academic and their child, a nonbinary 11-year-old. It mounts an epistemic challenge to education that assumes children to be cis, and either boys or girls. GIaNT children (Gender Independent, and Nonbinary, Trans) are often talked about but seldom directly engaged about their wants and desires in education, but my study addresses this problem and centers their agency. Purpose/Research Question/Focus of Study: The purpose of the study was to generate knowledge and insight into how 2SLGBTQ children, and children from 2SLGBTQ families, envision education spaces and programs that meet their needs. It also investigates the potentiality and significance of a parent-and-child researcher team to engage caregivers and children in co-imagining liberatory education spaces as 2SLGBTQ cultural spaces. Participants: Participants were 17 children (ages 4–12 years) and 12 adults from 11 households; the focus in this article is on the 12 children who identified their gender as other than cis. Research Design: A qualitative, arts-based participatory research methodology was employed. While the parent-child research team of a trans adult and a nonbinary 11-year-old conducted semi-structured interviews with both children and parents, the focus in this article is on the former. Participants were also invited to draw their ideal learning space. Interviews were video recorded, transcribed, and coded. Findings/Results: GIaNT children in this study desired learning spaces that are ready for them, that affirm their self-assigned genders, and that understand that people define their own genders. They wanted to be believed as who they said they were. They wanted safe access to bathrooms and schools to be communities, not just places of learning, and they recognized that learning happens outside of school. They desired an end to gender policing in schools, and in online learning, participants wanted schools that were safe and celebratory of all their identities and of all their peers. They wanted schools that are antiracist and decolonizing, that practice universal access, that teach queer and trans history and culture, and that provide meals and transportation. Conclusions/Recommendations: The study highlighted the creative potentialities of GIaNT children to provide generative insights into gender-affirming school spaces. It advocates for children to be engaged in processes of creating their own learning experiences. GIaNT children called for schools to be more equitable, antiracist, and decolonizing, committed to practicing universal access, teaching queer and trans history and culture, and providing meals and transportation.

Students’ E-Learning Domestic Space in Higher Education in the New Normal

The objective of this study is two-fold. Firstly, to analyse and discover the ability of HE students to use the physical home context for e-learning via ICT during the new normal; and secondly, to ascertain the underlying patterns of the adequacy of such domestic spaces. The authors offer a multidisciplinary approach combining pedagogic, architectural backgrounds with considerable experience in didactics, organization management of education, and ICT applied to education. A qualitative, arts-based research methodology that analyses photographs was used. A total of 220 domestic work environment photographs sent by higher education students were analysed. Results and conclusions show that students are able to attend virtual classrooms in a domestic atmosphere. Bedrooms and studies are usually the most-used spaces. Laptops and smartphones are the most frequent central hubs of student learning sessions. Students use other training resources (desktop computers, tablets, etc.) to supplement the most common digital devices. An intense relationship is observed between Space (bedroom and other rooms) and the Sofa and Beds variables, while a moderate one is observed between Age and Care items. The relationship between other variables is weak or non-existent.

Developing creative methodologies: using lyric writing to capture young peoples’ experiences of the youth offending services during the COVID-19 pandemic

PurposeThe COVID-19 lockdowns (2020–2021) disrupted all aspects of usual functioning of the criminal justice system, the outcomes and impact of which are largely still unknown. The pandemic has affected individuals across the wider society, this includes a negative impact on the social circumstances of children and young people involved within youth offending services (YOS) (Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation, 2020; Criminal Justice Joint Inspectorates, 2021). This population frequently represents those from marginalised circumstances and are rarely given the opportunity to participate meaningfully in the services they are involved in. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of the young people serving orders with the YOS during Covid19 lockdowns and requirements.Design/methodology/approachThis paper outlines a creative methodology and method used to uncover the experiences and perceptions of young people undergoing an order within a YOS during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The arts-based approach entailed a novel and creative method using a lyric artist to engage with young people through a virtual platform, supporting them to create lyrics about their experiences of the YOS during this time.FindingsThe artist developed a successful rapport with young people based on familiarity with, and passion for, music. He promoted their strengths, improving their confidence which was perceived to elicit more in-depth perspectives that might not have otherwise been obtained using more traditional methods. As such, the method and methodology outlined developed the young people’s social and communicative skills whilst producing meaningful feedback that can contribute to the YOS recovery plan and thus future of the service.Practical implicationsThis paper reports on a novel arts-based research methodology, implemented to capture meaningful data from participants during the COVID-19 pandemic.Originality/valueThis paper reports on a novel arts-based research methodology, implemented to capture meaningful data from participants during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Developing arts-based participatory research for more inclusive knowledge co-production in Algoa Bay

This paper outlines the development of an arts-based participatory research (ABPR) methodology in the context of marine spatial planning (MSP) in Algoa Bay, South Africa. Exploring participatory research approaches where Indigenous and local knowledge holders are engaged co-researchers, this research investigates how contextualised photovoice and digital storytelling can offer a creative platform for alternative knowledge systems to be conveyed and eventually included in ocean governance processes. This paper is a reflection on the processes of developing these methodologies in a transdisciplinary research team and the importance of contextualising, incorporating aspects of social learning, reflexivity and ‘slowness’ in the unravelling, meshing and ravelling processes of knowledge co-production in ocean sustainability research. The study finds that the use of photography and storytelling can support the coming together of different ways of knowing the ocean and coast, necessary to produce contextually-oriented approaches to more inclusive area-based ocean management. The characteristics of ABPR, being conducive to aspects of social learning, slowness and reflexivity have been helpful in contextualising and learning ways in which we can reimagine ocean and coastal management in Algoa Bay. The study concludes that people involved in knowledge production need to unlearn historically colonial methodological processes and ways of producing research, and rather encourage methodological advances that better collaborate with Indigenous and local knowledge holders in contextually relevant sustainability research.

Online Dignity Therapy and Photo Collages: The Narratives of Israeli and Italian Older Adults in the COVID-19 Era

The social isolation imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic has significantly affected older adults, and has impacted both their physical and mental health. The pandemic has led to an increase in ageism associated with poorer mental health and a lower sense of dignity, self-esteem and contribution to society. This cross-cultural study involved 24 participants from Italy and Israel aged 79 to 92. The aim was to develop a brief art-based online intervention to enhance the participants’ sense of dignity and sense of meaning in life during this time of crisis. The process focused on the creation of digital photo-collages that captured the participants’ values through three perspectives: their past experiences, legacy, and future perspectives. It employed an arts-based research methodology to explore the participants’ experiences by analysing their relationship with the artistic expression, the photo collage, and its creative process.

Drawing your way into ethnographic research: comics and drawing as arts-based methodology

ABSTRACT This article outlines an attempt to use drawing and comics as an arts-based research methodology during an ethnographic project relating to sport and social change in South Africa. The use of drawing within fieldnotes has a long history, and more recently the use of comics as a form of research and dissemination has received increased attention. The purpose of this article is to introduce the potential that drawing and comic making provide as unique arts-based methodologies within ethnographic research. Through examples of comic vignettes, comic panels, and drawings, I illustrate how drawing(s) operated as a site of departure and arrival. My drawings and comics began to trace the entanglements that inevitably develop through ethnographic research. As I started to trace the lines of myself and community members moving and playing within soccer spaces, I was drawn into dialogue and relationship with people, places, and histories.

Contributors’ Notes

Contributors’ Notes

Cardography as a research method through writing and drawing in higher education workshops

This article is supported by the author’s experience through a methodology created during her Ph.D. thesis ‘The experience of book’s place at the university’, also during COVID-19 restrictions. The student transformed public presentations into collaborative research workshops, where new interrelations and concepts occurred rooted in arts-based research methodologies, exploring art and education, in its scope. Cardography is an invented designation based on a/r/tography, as a creative living research methodology that uses cards as a device for a visual inquiry, considering that each book’s page is a card to be written or drawn (digital or paper), documenting the dialogic process during each research workshop. The research result contemplates an artistic object, which is displayed afterwards in university and art exhibitions. The reader is invited to follow a fil rouge alignment, inspired by a book structure, reflecting upon concepts and research methods not yet implemented at the art education doctoral course.

Sustainability and creativity through mail art: A case study with young artists in universities

Universities around the world are making considerable efforts to contribute to sustainable development through their institutional frameworks, education, research or community awareness. This article discusses how young artists connect with sustainability problems through an analysis of individual artistic creativity (visions, sources of inspiration, messages and communicative strategies) by means of a novel interpretive arts-based research methodology: mail art. A collection of mail art individually created by 29 young artists who also provide self-reports on the meaning of their work, the creation process and its intent are analyzed using a qualitative content analysis methodology complemented by an aesthetic inquiry into the artistic qualities and creative techniques of the collection. The research concludes that the collection reproduces but also produces messages promoting a sustainability culture. It promotes individual actions for sustainability with everyday creativity using expert knowledge and describes visions and attitudes expressed by young people to detect gaps and to develop a more informed education for sustainable development in universities. Although there are individual differences, the participants generally show appropriate values -such as universalism-, and a desire for ethical action within an ecocentric worldview, displaying constructive hope. However, the collection stands out for a collective, global and future-oriented, versus individual, local and present-oriented framing, running the risk of becoming visions that can delay transformative actions. Some of the most conclusive recommendations of the study are the need to work on the issues of equity and equality in universities today, to enhance the critical perspective of students and to change their current role from that of merely observers to agents for change.

Exploring the experiences of sexual abuse survivors engaged in non-formal, arts-informed adult learning, using an arts-based research methodology

This paper explores the challenges and successes of engaging female survivors of childhood sexual abuse and sexual violence in community-based, arts-informed adult learning. The study presents the complex physical, psychological and emotional barriers to participation that were encountered during the fieldwork period. The rationale for using an arts-based research (ABR) methodology is outlined, detailing the delivery of weekly visual arts sessions and the use of women’s creative outputs to enhance the qualitative research process. The critical role of the facilitator ‘crafting’ the women’s engagement with the visual art and the research process is highlighted, emphasising the need to work reflexively and with flexibility. The paper concludes by outlining the benefits of using an ABR methodology to enhance the dissemination of the study findings and reflects on the importance of creating spaces to celebrate and platform the achievements of marginalised adult learners.

Digital storytelling methodologies: Recommendations for a participatory approach to engaging underrepresented communities in counseling psychology research.

While counseling psychologists made substantial proposals to advance qualitative research since the special issue on related methods was published 15-years ago (Haverkamp, Morrow, & Ponterotto, 2005), the field continues to demonstrate an overreliance on quantitative methods. Though important for producing knowledge we can depend on, excessive use of these methods poses a barrier for counseling psychologists to address the needs of the communities that are at the core of our discipline's values-those who are marginalized and underserved in society. In alignment with our values of social justice, advocacy, and empowerment, we propose counseling psychologists adopt a methodology within a critical paradigm to better address issues of inequality and inequity when working with underrepresented communities, such as digital storytelling. Rooted in a movement to increase access to art for marginalized communities in the 1970s and 1980s, digital storytelling is an arts-based research methodology that captures first-person narrated accounts of peoples' lives through the use of stories, photos, and videos, and empowers communities to be a part of research to create social change. We provide recommendations for using digital storytelling in counseling psychology research as outlined through 5 phases, including Phase I) digital storytelling's critical paradigm, Phase II) project development, Phase III) implementation, Phase IV) data analysis, and Phase V) dissemination. While doing so, we draw on examples from 2 digital storytelling projects we are familiar with, Immigrant Stories and OrigiNatives, providing a framework for a digital frontier in counseling psychology research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Audience interrogator: constructing meaning about mathematical learning experience in filmed research

ABSTRACT This paper argues that an Arts-Based Research (ABR) methodology, drawing on the Ethnofiction work of filmmaker Jean Rouch, can facilitate new ways of researching mathematics, science and education more generally by: (i) making past learning experiences more accessible and (ii) considering the affective engagement of the audience as interrogator of research to open up myriad understandings of research data. Here, dissemination and impact are positioned as ‘inside’ the research process, rather than ‘informed by’ or directed by the outcome of research. The paper discusses the research film Performatics: Performing stories of mathematical identity through filmed drama Performatics https://vimeo.com/147449932, and a scene which shows Claire (a postgraduate student studying quantitative analysis), in a scene entitled ‘Sum Anxiety’, as she dramatizes an experience from the secondary school mathematics classroom. A moment, which Claire expresses as pivotal in negatively affecting her as a mathematics learner; an experience still viscerally felt.

A\xa0turn to arts-based research methodology in psychodrama research

A tendency in psychodrama research is the focus on proving effectiveness. This article in the Zeitschrift für Psychodrama und Soziometrie aims to propose arts-based research (ABR) methodology through a theoretical approach by a brief literature review of psychodrama research, a glimpse into discourses in applied theatre research and an introduction to arts-based research (ABR) methodology. How moments of participation and self-identified significant experiences by the participants from a psychodrama group can be investigated through ABR methodology will be exemplified through performative inquiry (Fels 2012), inspired by poetic inquiry (Faulkner 2018). In this way, the article aims to shed light on the question: How might arts-based research methodology in combination with qualitative research methodology contribute to the psychodrama research field? The article also presents empirical and ontological perspectives relating to the pilot study and give a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of applying ABR methodology exemplified in the article. This way, the paper aims to illuminate how ABR methodologies can be applied together with qualitative research methodology to contribute to psychodrama research.

Performatividad en la academia: Una aproximación genealógica al concepto de escritura performativa y a su uso en el relato de la investigación basada en artes

Este artículo es una aproximación epistemológica al concepto de escritura performativa, forma narrativa considerada aquí como tecnología para dar cuenta de los resultados de la Investigación Basada en Artes. El origen de este tipo de escritura lo situamos en las reflexiones sobre los enunciados performativos del filósofo John L. Austin y en las sucesivas réplicas y tensiones que sus ideas han encontrado en la filosofía, en la sociología, en la antropología y en el arte. El artículo ofrece una genealogía del concepto y sugiere respuestas a preguntas problemáticas en el ámbito de la investigación artística como ¿qué es la performatividad? o ¿Qué elementos caracterizan la escritura performativa y qué papel desempeña en el contexto de las metodologías de Investigación Basada en Artes?