Use Of Bricolage Research Articles

Beyond formality: a bricolage model to navigate between the conflicting considerations in social impact assessments

Purpose Social enterprises (SEs) are increasingly expected to rely on formal methodologies to assess their social impact. These structured methodologies, which produce objective and evidence-based measures of impact, are sometimes opposed to bricolage approaches that “make do” with what is at hand. This paper aims to question this distinction by identifying the conflicting considerations that arise in the process of implementing a formal methodology, which might lead SEs to rely on bricolage mechanisms. The authors propose a model of “formally-driven” bricolage with core principles to navigate between those considerations. Design/methodology/approach Adopting an inductive approach, the authors draw on the in-depth case study of a work integration SE engaged in a formal social impact assessment (SIA) through collaborative research. Findings First, the authors identify five types of considerations (feasibility, efficiency, ethics, legitimacy and aim) that come into tension with the primary considerations of formality in formal methodologies, leading SEs to still rely on bricolage mechanisms. Second, the authors identify five principles (multidimensional, participative, cultural, mixed-method and adaptive) that permit navigation between those conflicting considerations. Based on the findings, the authors develop a model of “formally-driven” bricolage. Originality/value The contribution is methodological, theoretical and practical. The authors bridge the gap between theory and practice through long-term immersion in an SE. The authors contribute to the understanding of the use of bricolage in SIA by investigating why and how bricolage is still at play in formal assessments. The proposed model of “formally-driven” bricolage can help researchers and practitioners to better grasp the ins and outs of the SIA process.

Entrepreneurial Bricolage and Innovation in Sport for Development and Peace Organizations

Many sport for development and peace organizations operate with limited resources and in low-resource environments. While resource constraints impede some organizations, others demonstrate an adaptive behavior, known as bricolage, to repurpose and flexibly engage existing resources to accomplish their goals. In this study, we ask what distinguishes organizations that engage in bricolage from others. We specifically test whether sport for development and peace nonprofits that engage in bricolage are more likely to engage in social innovation, and we test those findings against organizational size, age, and characteristics of organizations’ operating environments. Using data from an international sample of 161 sport for development and peace nonprofits, we find that organizations employing greater levels of bricolage also demonstrate significantly higher levels of innovation, except for process-focused innovations, which are significantly associated with environmental turbulence. Organizational size itself does not appear to influence the use of bricolage or the relationship between bricolage and innovation.

The Use of Bricolage in a Resource-Constrained Sport for Development and Peace Organization

Despite the growth of the sport-for-development and peace (SDP) field, the sector remains heavily resource-constrained whereby organizations have limited resources but also operate in resource-scarce environments. Given this, we draw on the theoretical concept of bricolage to explore how such resource constraints are overcome. In this study, an organization implementing SDP for refugees and throughout their existence have been confronted with resource constraints is examined. Across the organization’s start-up phase and growth stage, multiple forms of bricolage are identified, which enabled the organization to address the social needs of refugees through SDP. We discuss these findings in relation to existing literature on bricolage as well as social entrepreneurship in SDP, emphasizing the way in which the recombination of resources offers opportunities for organizations and practitioners to effectively manage a scarce resource base.

An Introduction to Educational Research through Scholarly Bricolage

A variety of different approaches, theories and philosophies can be used to engage in diverse range of projects through bricolage (Sharp, 2019). The use of bricolage employs difference in research methods and stimulates creativity (Kincheloe, 2011). Projects have spanned a range of scholarly activities and included learning about an assessment and evaluation research group and supporting KMB of research group activities through reporting and website design. Gathering information on awards, funding as well as activities and publications from our group members enables us to summarize key information and reflect comprehensive work in visual and written reports. We focused on the content, graphics, structure and navigation aspects of our website. Research within assessment and evaluation plays an important role in teaching and learning process. By conducting data analysis on testing student competency development in an evaluation course, we translated the research question into the language of statistical tests of hypotheses. Paired two-sample t-test and two-way ANOVA test are generated using statistical programming language R. After processing the data, we took authorship roles in a peer-reviewed publication and presentation to write the findings based on the results and interpret the ultimate impact. Our findings have identified the evaluator competencies are improved apparently through the evaluation course where the findings are supported by the data of pre- and post-course scores. Overall, this summer learning opportunity allowed us to piece together a different understanding that demonstrated the power of collaboration when diverse skill sets are brought together to advance and make visible educational ideas.
 References
 Kincheloe J. L. (2011). Describing the bricolage: Conceptualizing a new rigor in qualitative research. In Steinberg S. R., Kenneth T. (Eds.), Key works in critical pedagogy (pp. 177–189). Brill Sense. Crossref. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6091-397-6_15
 Sharp, H. (2019). Bricolage research in history education as a scholarly mixed-methods design. History Education Research Journal, 16(1), 50-62. https://doi.org/10.18546/HERJ.16.1.05

Bricolage: A pluralistic approach to evaluating human ecosystem initiatives

AbstractThis article presents a reflection on the use of bricolage in two case illustrations. An eclectic approach, bricolage can be used as a transdisciplinary, mixed paradigm approach for reconciling the different ontological (“real world”) and epistemological (“theory of knowledge”) perspectives that complexity science and systems thinking bring to evaluation. Bricolage can be used in all four elements of evaluation design: (1) theoretical frameworks, (2) inquiry frameworks, (3) methods and metrics, and (4) values and valuing in evaluation. Bricolage can be applied to the choice of conceptual frameworks that define an evaluand; the selection of research questions or lines of inquiry that focus a study; the choice of data collection and analytic methods; and the implementation of strategies for incorporating and assessing value in evaluation.

Evaluating the role of bricolage in US Health Care policy reform

Understanding of the role of ideas in non-paradigmatic policy change has been advanced by the introduction of the concept of bricolage, which suggests that reformers are likely to piece together ideas from disparate sources. However, the current literature is limited in several ways. As such, this article proposes three main contributions to the field. First, the use of bricolage as a pragmatic strategy is perfectly compatible with actors being motivated by relatively fixed policy goals or seeking to imitate policies from elsewhere. Second, the creative use of ideas can be limited by the imposition of narrow frames or problem definitions by the victors of agenda-setting battles. Third, the use of bricolage comes with more potential for conflict and unintended consequences than has been recognised. This argument is illustrated through an analysis of healthcare reform in the United States in 2009/10, focusing particularly on the fate of the ‘public option’.

Editoras en ciernes. El espíritu empresarial de las llamadas escritoras isabelinas.

This article argues for an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the so-called escritoras isabelinas, Spain’s mid-nineteenth century women writers, in order to develop a fuller understanding of their intervention in contemporaneous culture. The cases of Angela Grassi, Faustina Saez de Melgar, Joaquina Garcia Balmaseda and Pilar Sinues de Marco show that their tactical use of bricolage (Michel de Certeau) situates them at the interstices of authorship, the publishing sector and the fashion industry. The complex relations between their authorship and their multiple commercial initiatives would be best captured from the perspective of the new historical biography.

Konflikt rosyjsko-ukraiński: wojna znaczeń

Russian-Ukrainian conflict as the war of meaningsModern informational war is carried out in the transformed hybrid formats. The conflict which is related to the military aggression of Russia against Ukraine demonstrates the transformation of traditional methods of information attacks and propaganda effects in hybrid war. It combines all phases of the conflict — from latent forms to open armed confrontation. Information component of the conflict is appropriated to determine as a semantic war by the theory of George Pocheptsov. The main factors of the Russian-Ukrainian war meanings based of the material of modern media discourse are analyzed at the report. Specifically, that are the confrontation of values and interpretations; figurative, symbolic and emotional components of the conflict discourse naming a semantic eff ective weapon of war; narratives role in changes in behavioral patterns, framing, transformation promotional schemes. The hybrid nature of modern informational war consists into removing the actual relevance of the traditional distinction of journalism and propaganda, in a mimicry process of manipulation and propaganda by the “discourse of truth” and in the attempt to destroy the distinction between truth and false at all phenomenon of fakes. The analysis results show high level of conflict mythologizing in media discourse and this defines a leading semantic of modern war of meanings. Mythological technology of simulacrum, the use of bricolage, collective binary and ritualized patterns of perception, fanatical blind faith are treated as the main instrument of the war of meanings.

Researching sport in a ‘Total Institution’: reflections on research barriers and methodological adaptations in a study of prison physical culture

This paper reflects on the methodological challenges faced during a qualitative research project on sport and physical culture in the Canadian federal prison system, during which the author tried and failed to gain access to observe sport programming and conduct interviews in two prisons. The paper has three principal aims. Firstly, to self-reflexively analyse the experience of failing to gain access to a research site and the subsequent methodological adaptations undertaken. Secondly, to assess the difficulties for scholars of sport and physical culture of researching in a ‘total institution’. And thirdly, to advocate for the use of bricolage in sports studies, as both a methodological tactic for researching difficult-to-access sites or subcultures and an interpretive analytical tool. This paper fills a unique void in the literature on sport research in total institutions, offering a critical and reflexive methodological examination of the barriers to qualitative research at such sites. It will be of particular interest to researchers of sport and physical culture who must find creative methodological solutions to research barriers, particularly in sites, subcultures and organisations to which access is severely restricted.

Post-punk and alternative cabaret: Avant-garde, counterculture and revolution

Abstract Ask anyone to define the term ‘post-punk’ and they are likely to tell you it was a music genre that followed punk. Others will talk of its political voice, its rejection of commercial practices, its use of bricolage and its seriousness. Few will mention other post-punk forms, like alternative cabaret (alt-cab), which had similar cultural objectives that were inspired by the first wave of punk. Punk poetry, for example, straddled post-punk and alt-cab, and was more popular than stand-up comedy during the early years of the circuit. Like their counterparts in the post-punk music scene, many early alternative comedians and cabarettists were bricoleurs who rejected and/or deconstructed traditional entertainment styles, and experimented with form and content. This article discusses the structural similarities between the post-punk fields of music and entertainment, and how alt-comedians and cabarettists fused art, alternative theatre and politics to create new styles and comedy-aesthetic discourses. This article draws from a Bourdieusian paradigm, which is augmented by Wollen’s ‘The two avant-gardes’ and De Certeau’s The Practice of Everyday Life. To illustrate my argument, I will use case study and autoethnography.

Why Marry? The Role of Tradition in Women's Marital Aspirations

While the individualisation trend has given way to a relational, reflexive turn in the sociology of relationships, there continues to be a writing out of convention and tradition in understanding relationship processes (excepting Gilding 2010 ). This paper aims to write tradition back into discussions around relationships by drawing on the accounts of young women and the central role that tradition plays in their relationship narratives. The analysis focuses on: participants’ accounts of marital security reflecting the desire for permanence in an impermanent world; accounts of romance and fairy tales in contrast to pragmatic concerns; and participants’ use of bricolage in combining the desire for ‘invented’ traditions with an emphasis on personal choice and agency. This paper highlights the ambivalent nature of the young women's discourse around relationships, agency and tradition: ultimately, themes of individualisation are revealed in their restatement of tradition. This emerges in three distinct ways: the emphasis on marital security appears as a response to ‘risky’ relationships; participants aspire to the ‘traditional family’ in response to growing fluidity in family relationships; and romance is appealed to in order to counteract their often very pragmatic approach to the life course. Thus, while there are changes in the ways couples can and do live in their relationships, there remains continuity in the ways that tradition is used by participants to articulate relationship aspirations. Tradition becomes reaffirmed in a context of individualism and de-traditionalisation which reflects a pragmatic response to changing social norms and values.

The influence of the media on practice in mental health: a bricolage of a single case study

This paper has its genesis in the convergence of two individuals’ interests – one with a long-standing interest in representations of mental health and one with an interest in the use of bricolage as a research approach. These interests converged around the ways in which mental health care practitioners might react to and subsequently reflect on images of mental health they came across in the media. A bricolage was developed relating to newspaper coverage of a homicide carried out by someone with a mental health problem. The bricolage draws on the assumption that practitioners will have immediate reactions to material they come across, take a more considered overview of this material, and subsequently attempt to contextualize this reflection in terms of academic literature. The bricolage as presented mirrors this process for an experienced practitioner. Suggestions are made concerning the use of newspaper reports on mental health, to enable both novice and experienced practitioners to gain vicarious experience through reflection on these reports.

Bricolage in research nursing education: Experience report

Introduction: This article presents an experience report on the use of bricolage (or DIY do it yourself) in an educational nursing research. Objective: To report the experience of the use of bricolage. Methods: Firstly, a bibliographical survey on the term and its use in scientific circles was made; then the authors present the experience of the application of the method in a master's nursing research. Bricolage has made possible the combination of strategies for building data such as participant observation, semi-structured interviews, document analysis, and the recording of audio tutorial sessions. Data analysis was a peculiar and creative stage in which the authors, supported by bricolage, created their own analysis process. Conclusions: Among the main results, it can be highlighted the advantages offered by the use of bricolage, as the capture of multi-logical aspects of the phenomena and challenges. Implications for practice: This report contributes to the new methodological options for nursing studies.

Combining Qualitative Research Perspectives and Methods for Critical Social Purposes

This article discusses the broad-based use of bricolage to examine the neoliberal childhood policy discourses and forms of implementation that are currently practiced in the United States. Diverse, traditionally marginalized understandings such as Black feminist thought, Chicana feminism, and feminist analysis of capitalist patriarchy are combined with a Deleuze/Guattarian critique of capitalism and qualitative methods of situational analyses. We do this to identify childhood assemblages within the childhood public policy behemoth in the United States and compare these assemblages to capitalism more broadly, including how neoliberal practices are facilitated.

Looking to the future: producing transdisciplinary professionals for leadership in early childhood settings

This paper reports on an Australian initiative Developing and Sustaining Pedagogical Leadership in Early Childhood Education and Care Professionals, where academics and professionals shared knowledge, experience and research about transdisciplinary practice. The project aimed to develop an understanding of the strategies and skills early childhood professionals and practitioners required to strengthen pedagogical leadership when working in multi-agency organisations. The conceptual framework underpinning the design, analysis and evaluation of the project was bricolage. Bricolage enabled the researchers, professionals and practitioners and other organisational members to consider the principles of multiplicity, complexity, relationality and criticality. The use of bricolage created an opportunity for a more comprehensive level of analysis to occur. A model of professional development emerged from the analysis of the data and was subsequently used to develop an open source learning website.

Optimization or Bricolage? Overcoming Resource Constraints in Global Social Entrepreneurship

Resources play a vital role in the development of an entrepreneurial venture. For ventures operating in the public interest, the process of effective resource mobilization can be especially critical to the social mission. However, there has been limited empirical examination of the approaches used by social ventures to mobilize critical resources. We study two processes of resource mobilization—optimization and bricolage, and examine the antecedent conditions that influence a venture's selection of these processes. Our theory predicts that environmental munificence and organizational prominence have U‐shaped associations with the use of bricolage and positive associations with the use of optimization. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 202 technology social ventures from 42 countries and discuss implications for the social entrepreneurship and broader entrepreneurship literatures. Copyright © 2013 Strategic Management Society.

A Bricoleur or Two in the Consulting Room

In popular contemporary use, the French term bricolage refers to the activities of the home handyman. It is sometimes used in a disparaging way to refer to work that is improvised, uninformed by expertise or specialist knowledge, and probably inferior in its results when compared with the work of a tradesman or professional. In 1962, anthropologist and philosopher Claude Levi-Strauss argued that bricolage is a modality of human thought. Since then, the importance of bricolage as a mental activity has been identified in relation to art and architecture, as well as other fields of cultural activity. In this paper I consider bricolage as an activity of the ego and explore its role in the consulting room. I argue that by necessity the psychoanalytic work undertaken between patient and analyst relies on this modality of thought and, furthermore, that the use of bricolage is entirely compatible with evidence-based practice.

Constructing a bricolage of nursing research, education and practice

Drawing upon post doctoral reflections of a shared methodology, the authors explore the use of bricolage as a way of better understanding the inter-related connections between theory, nursing practice and the felt experiences of service users. The origins of bricolage can be traced back to the work of Levi-Strauss, and Denzin and Lincoln's contribution to qualitative methodologies. Bricolage is a multifaceted approach to the research process. Differing epistemological positions and mixed methods of data collection are utilised to bring a richer understanding of human beings and the complexities of their lived experiences. For the bricoleur the object of inquiry, cannot be separated from its context, that is the language used to describe it, its historical situatedness and the social and cultural interpretations of its meaning as an entity in the world. The paper discusses the importance of being able to move beyond the notion of the research method being merely a procedure, to one that respects the complexities of the lived world.

Not Quite Acceptable

Re:membering can be used as a research tool for messing with notions of “self.” As a tool of autobiographical narrative, textual fragments may be useful in peacing/piecing together some ways in which memories efface and, alternatively, reinscribe themselves on postcetera (including, but not limited to, postmodern, poststructural, and postcolonial) identities. This article is inspired by two previous works by James Haywood Rolling, Jr., published in Qualitative Inquiry: “Messing Around With Identity Constructs: Pursuing a Poststructuralist and Poetic Aesthetic” and “Searching Self-Image: Identities to Be Self-Evident.” Through the use of bricolage as method, it is written as a response to “death” and as a re:generation of possibilities for disrupting identity constructs with/in autobiographical research writing.