Lost in Translation

The chapter examines the role of practice-related research in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. It will extend existing debates regarding the academic rigour of such methodologies as arts-based research and consider their impact on future research culture, using Zen arts as an example of a subject of study within such a methodological framing. It also discusses complimentary methods used by Zen arts researchers such as ethnography to examine why qualitative techniques are not only useful but imperative in the study of such fields. While practice is the key to Zen arts research, neither of the practice-related method types, practice-led or practice-based, currently defined describes how such practice or the writing function in PhD investigations, where together such components are the subject of investigation as well as the method of research and presentation. The chapter thus suggests an additional category of PRR, “practice-reflexive,” when describing such research whose focus is on the distinction of (or the lack thereof) the written exegesis and the notional artefact.

Mapping Reproductive Health Policy Using Arts-Based Research Methods: A Model of Pedagogical Transgression

This chapter presents a model and a qualitative analysis of an applied health humanities assignment that used arts-based methods to introduce health science undergraduates to the intersectional barriers connected to reproductive health policy in the U.S.

Single Motherhood, Media, Methods, And Messiness: Exploring Virtual Reality As A Tool For Autobiographical Expression

<div>This research/creation project documents my experiences of living as a single mother with minimal financial, family, and social support. Since research suggests that virtual reality (VR) can generate heightened empathetic response in users, I chose to develop my story using VR as the primary creative tool. This study required engagement with the creative and methodological approaches of arts-based research—a process of learning-by-making that prompts questions and reflections on ethics, techniques, aesthetics, value, and subjectivity. The finished project, then, is an exploration of my journey not only as a single mother, but also as a researcher exploring emerging technological affordances and their capacity to engender empathy and serve as tools of autobiographical expression. In this way, the work could further be understood as contributing to the emerging field of autotheory, in which the researcher’s subjective and embodied experience is integrated with theoretical and philosophical approaches.</div><div><br></div>

Single Motherhood, Media, Methods, And Messiness: Exploring Virtual Reality As A Tool For Autobiographical Expression

<div>This research/creation project documents my experiences of living as a single mother with minimal financial, family, and social support. Since research suggests that virtual reality (VR) can generate heightened empathetic response in users, I chose to develop my story using VR as the primary creative tool. This study required engagement with the creative and methodological approaches of arts-based research—a process of learning-by-making that prompts questions and reflections on ethics, techniques, aesthetics, value, and subjectivity. The finished project, then, is an exploration of my journey not only as a single mother, but also as a researcher exploring emerging technological affordances and their capacity to engender empathy and serve as tools of autobiographical expression. In this way, the work could further be understood as contributing to the emerging field of autotheory, in which the researcher’s subjective and embodied experience is integrated with theoretical and philosophical approaches.</div><div><br></div>

Beyond Disciplines: Spoken Word as Participatory Arts-based Research

For many, the arts and sciences stand at opposite ends of an unbridgeable divide: the sciences, rigid, objective, systematic and authoritative; the arts, fluid, subjective, dynamic and capricious. Yet, there is a long history of productive dialogue and interconnection between these fields. Arts-based research represents a particularly fertile form of arts/science interaction. This paper interweaves poetry, theoretical discussion and empirical research to make the case for spoken word poetry as an arts-based method of inquiry that can provide a radically different way of doing, being and collaborating in and through research. With reference to the innovative method of ‘collaborative poetics’ and to the work of youth slam/spoken word educators, I argue that social scientists and spoken word practitioners can learn much from one another’s tools, techniques and ways of thinking, creating new forms of knowledge, redefining the audience/author relationship, and facilitating a ‘critical resilience’ which enables both individual fortitude in the face of adversity and a means through which to challenge the conditions that give rise to this adversity. The paper thus considers how spoken word as participatory poetic inquiry enables participants, researchers and poets to address the critical complexities and challenges of contemporary life.

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.

Embodied Reflection of Images as an Arts-Based Research Method: Teaching Experiment in Higher Education

This paper discusses a teaching experiment in which 20 university students in Finland participated in the course Critical and Novel Approaches to Management and Organisational Studies, which familiarized them with the method of embodied reflection of images. First, the paper presents the method and the teaching experiment. Then, it presents and discusses the students’ experiences while experimenting with the method. The students’ written reflections form the data of the study, which were analyzed qualitatively using content analysis. The findings of this small-scale study show that the method of embodied reflection of images provided students with a novel perspective into management and organization, fostered collaboration, and promoted critical thinking. In addition, rational knowledge was furnished with experiential and affective modes of knowledge. Based on students’ positive feedback, the experiment succeeded in elucidating the method and its applicability in research on management and organization. This study promotes teaching arts-based research methods in higher education.

Evaluation for Arts-Based Research Performance: Audience Perceptions of Rising from the Ashes

The purpose of the study is to understand how audiences evaluated an arts-based research performance called Rising from the Ashes. Audience evaluation promises egalitarian and pluralistic perspectives that may assist artist-as-researchers with gaining new insight into out of performative arts-based research results. Rising from the Ashes was performed several times between 2015 and 2019. Evaluations were provided to six different audiences and consisted of rating-scale and open-ended questions based on general criteria for judging arts-based research: incisiveness, concision, generativity, social significance, evocation and illumination, and coherence. Descriptive rating scores and thematic analysis of open-ended questions aided in the artist-as-researcher’s understanding of how audiences responded to the performances. Descriptive scores showed that audiences strongly agreed that the performance was concise, incisive, and evocative and illuminating. The performance was less likely to support audiences’ understanding of the social issues addressed in the study, which implied decreased generativity and social significance. Open-ended questions enhanced and supported rating-scale responses as well as revealed specific elements of the performance that addressed its coherence. The results deepened the artists-as-researcher’s understanding of potential strengths and limitations of Rising from the Ashes based on the audience evaluations. Implications for arts-based research evaluation in music therapy, particularly related to music performance, are discussed.