- Scribbling While Walking Through Hybrid Arts-Based Research Methodologies
- My researcher position(s)
- Being a Teacher
- Being a Mother
- Being an Artist
- Being a Researcher
- Togetherness: Ethnography, theory, subjects, objects, pedagogy, and ethical considerations
- Ethics
- Ice Cracks as Ruptures for Scribbling a Dynamic Research Map
- Intersections in the Research Territory
- Encounter Resistance
- Wandering on/in/around Cracks with Ethnography, A/R/Tography, and Art-Based Research Methodologies.
Pushing Forces and Circulation of Power
Some pushing forces that triggered my research and the use of hybrid methodologies are that I am concerned about the lack of critical thinking and the impact of neo-liberalization in the media on the youth while forming their identities. I am also worried about the standardization of our gaze concerning how we look at each other. As a teacher, I believe in the importance of developing empathy through understanding diversity as a strength at school. That said, I need to know where I stand as a researcher and teacher of art to design and teach a curriculum combining critical, creative, and technical skills. Understanding that research is not a linear process but an unfolding set of inquiry directions that have to be framed, I posed the overarching research question: How can intersectionality and possible connection to environmental issues be addressed through the art curriculum in a multicultural class?
But particularly for this reflection about the research methods I employed, I wonder: How do I walk through research in arts?
Scribbling While Walking Through Hybrid Arts-Based Research Methodologies
Framed by post-qualitative research theories, I started to reflect on arts-based research methodologies by acknowledging who I am in and within the research territory. In my research, I look to dissect some of the power structures circulating in it by following Foucault’s ideas. To do that, I designed an organic ice-cracked inspired research map where I argue about the importance of ruptures in and out of it. The intersections of disciplines, situations, positions, and individuals in my research help me weave different hybrid research methods in the arts. The territory where I stand is inclusion in school through art as a subject. I believe I am connected to my students' lives, the school, and the academy because these are connected territories. The research map+diagram, I present in this reflection helped me to determine how I pedagogically approach intersectionality and environmental issues as the themes of my doctoral research. Another important factor to mention in this type of research is trust. Without an established relationship with the school community –including teachers and students– opening dialogues about social inclusion, may not be useful. I will be only touching a shell but not bringing out or getting into the core of the problems I want to address. I would also like to clarify that the relation between the themes of intersectionality and the environment in my doctoral research presents a complex Foucaultian circulation of power that needs to be understood and addressed in detail. Yet, this paper will not discuss that context but how I selected and used hybrid research methodologies.
Directions
To begin, I consider my research to be multidirectional and interdisciplinary because it is expanding around complex social and environmental themes. I didn’t know how to start drawing these wandering directions of research and make sense of them, so I scribbled lines and ideas grounding them to the ethnographic approach described in Angelo et al (2021), Couture (2017), Hannula et al. (2014), Desai (2002), Jenssen & Martin (2021), and Spry (2001). To continue, I followed the theoretical frameworks of A/R/Tography (Irwin, 2013, 2014, 2019) and artistic research (Michelkevičius, 2018, Irwin, Triggs et al., 2014, and Yip, 2020) to visually define research as a scribbling dynamic process (Smith & Dean, 2009). I did this to be able to generate-produce-analyze data leading to knowledge. Because research is not static, I walked the research in multiple directions applying the principle of juxtaposition to explain and justify the qualitative and quantitative paradigms of the performative research (Hasseman, 2016, Østern et al., 2021). The map incorporates Foucault’s theory of how power circulates within a structure (Mazzei & Jackson, 2012, and Østern et al., 2021) and addresses ethical issues and pitfalls within the power dynamics and other factors affecting the research.