A change of view: arts-based research and psychology

Qualitative research in psychology, although becoming more visible and growing in stature, continues to remain a minority endeavor within the discipline (Gough & Lyons 2016; Harper 2012; Ponterotto 2005; Rubin, Bell & McClelland 2018). Mainstream psychology continues to demonstrate limited acceptance of qualitative research (Roberts & Castell 2016) and would likely give even less credence to any forms of research with an arts-based focus. Psychology considers itself to be a science, the methods of science are paramount (see Marecek 2003), and arts-based research is the polar opposite to science—art. And, as Barone and Eisner (2012, p. 45) point out, art and science live in “a contested zone”. But even in articles that offer a positive outlook on the development and future of qualitative research in psychology (e.g., Demuth 2015; Demuth & Terkildsen 2015; Gergen, Josselson & Freeman 2015; Gough & Lyons 2016), we find virtually no attention given to arts-based research. However, Brinkmann (2014) acknowledges this as a new direction alongside a strong argument for psychology to transcend disciplinary boundaries, and a few articles that do directly address arts-based research topics and their relevance for psychology (e.g., Smythe 2017) can be identified. Looking across the social sciences more generally, Gergen and Gergen (2014) challenge the traditional separation between art and science, arguing that performative forms of inquiry enrich social science research and enhance research communication. Barone and Eisner (2012) also reject the art-science separation, positing that science involves imagination, qualitatively assessed sensitivity to variation, and applied artistic judgment, a position that would be supported by many studies of science and technology (e.g., Felt et al. 2016).

But what is arts-based research, and could it have value within psychology? Only a brave person would try to offer a definitive statement of what constitutes art. It is the same for arts-based research; this field of research is extraordinarily varied, covers all aspects and forms of art practice, is related to research practice, and even offers some strong challenges to the nature of research. However, broad definitions of the field have been proposed. Knowles and Cole (2008, p. xi) argue that arts-based research represents “an unfolding and expanding orientation to qualitative social science that draws inspiration, concepts, processes, and representation from the arts, broadly defined.” McNiff (2008, p. 29) makes this more explicit in proposing that arts-based research involves “the systematic use of the artistic process, the actual making of artistic expressions in all of the different forms of the arts, as a primary way of understanding and examining experience by both researchers and the people that they involve in their studies.” Given that much psychological research attempts to understand experience, arts-based research in this sense would appear to have significant potential for psychology.

Arts-based research can involve all forms of artistic endeavour (Chilton & Leavy 2014). Fiction-based approaches, using forms such as flash fiction, short story, or novella, may be derived from research data (collected through interviews, diaries, or social media texts) translated into a fictional account, or the fiction writing may itself be the method of inquiry and analysis (researched through literature and other material). Poetic approaches are similar and use different poetic forms or presentations, perhaps either generated, crafted by researchers as a consequence of engaging with participants’ accounts, or found, created by researchers using the actual words of participants. Drama-based approaches are often divided by whether they are to be performed or not; ethnodrama involves translating research data into a play script of some kind, not intended for performance, while in ethnotheatre, the performance is paramount and performative aspects of presentation are foregrounded. Visual art genres, based on some form of visual image (e.g., photographs, collage, drawing, painting, sculpture), are equally diverse and may involve presentation forms such as essays, journals, or exhibitions, where the images may be created by the researchers, the participants, or jointly by both. Film and video approaches fall somewhere between theatre and visual, depending on form and intent. Other approaches involve music or dance, used for storytelling and representation. Whatever the approach or form, issues of aesthetics and audience are always fundamental in arts-based approaches to research.

Arts-based research steps away from scientific method, eschewing measurement, causality, and the certainty of interpretation. In fact, arts-based research could not be more opposite to, and different from, “scientific” research. Barone and Eisner (2012) argue that the attempted precision of the scientific approach in disciplines such as psychology has been misguided. As they and others note, the boundaries between art and science are quite porous, the knowledge we gain is inevitably shaped by the tools we use, and “a certain price is paid for the neglect of what has been omitted” (Barone & Eisner 2012, pp. 1–2). However, arts-based research has a strong synergy with qualitative approaches to research, allowing for socially constructed understandings and contextual linkages. Some writers, such as Leavy (2015), argue that arts-based research is a separate research paradigm.

Arts-based research differs in at least one important way from the common forms and approaches to qualitative research in psychology, in leaving the interpretation of research findings largely to the reader or consumer of the research. Qualitative research, in its best practice, attempts to be interpretative, that is, to offer the considered, argued, and theorized interpretations of the researcher from a rigorous examination and analysis of the data (Trent & Cho 2014; Willig 2014). Arts-based research, in contrast, usually leaves interpretation wholly open to the reader; the “findings” may be quite ambiguous in the meanings offered to the reader, and they allow considerable freedom for readers to make interpretations that can extend well beyond the research aims and intent (Boydell et al. 2017; Savin-Baden & Wimpenny 2014). Meanings are to be inferred rather than conferred. Frequently the point of arts-based research is not to answer questions or offer final meanings but rather to provoke questioning, deepen engagement, open debate, and inspire social action (Bagley & Castro-Salazar 2017; Barone & Eisner 2012). Arts-based research can also take critical forms, where arts-based practice is used in the pursuit of social justice, political resistance, and emancipatory outcomes (see Finley 2018), employed within an activist-researcher tradition (Lancione 2017), or used to broaden engagement with social issues and effect change (Bagley & Castro-Salazar 2017; Bridger, Emmanouil & Lawthom 2017; Coemans & Hannes 2017). Arts-based research interventions and disseminations, in particular, can engage audiences and evoke emotional reactions (Parsons et al. 2017).

Whatever form and approach to arts-based research is taken, a key argument for its use is based on its value in extending our methods in exciting and creative ways and, more importantly, in extending our capacity for understanding the human condition. By using arts-based methodologies and methods in psychology that allow for creative expression, we can obtain knowledge that may otherwise remain obscured or covert, gain better access to the emotional, affective, and embodied realms of life, cultivate empathy, and challenge and provoke audiences to engage with complex and difficult social issues. The use of research utilizing art forms can also lead to change in how we think about the nature, value, and outcomes of research activity, in effect, challenging what counts as research.

Why a special issue on arts-based research?

The idea for developing a special issue on art-based research arose in a planning session held for members of the Critical Health and Social Psychology (CHaSP) research group in the School of Psychology at Massey University. The decision to take this up reflected the research interests and values of this group and their agenda to provide professional development opportunities for their student members. Accordingly, four members of CHaSP, the authors of this article, volunteered to become the editors of the special edition.

The rationale for the special issue on this topic, arts-based research, arose largely from considerations about the nature of research directions within psychology. As noted earlier, arts-based research is largely invisible within psychology, and the call for a special issue was intended to provide an opportunity for psychology researchers to engage with this topic. Barone and Eisner (2012) have argued that people communicate in diverse ways, including through talk, music, dance, imaging, and so forth; therefore, it makes sense to research human understanding “through the conscious pursuit of expressive form” (p. 7) and allow individuals viewing the outcomes of research to engage with it empathically. These arguments seem to have a central value for a psychology that is interested in going beyond the discovery of facts and generalized laws, a psychology that is concerned with understanding the complexities and nuances of human beings and living.

Further, the presentation of research findings, discussions of research methods, and debates about research processes within psychology are frequently framed within traditional, structured forms of research publications. As Parker (2004, p. 100) has noted, “the standard format of a research report is a secure framework for many writers, but it is itself a particular genre of writing that can turn into a constraint and inhibit innovative work.” Arts-based research can challenge this format, allowing for different representations of research to be produced, and we sought to give these alternate forms more visibility though the special issue. However, we did have to accept that submissions for the special issue were constrained by journal requirements, to offer printed word and image, and that the performativity offered by much arts-based research (e.g., film, video, theatre, music) would necessarily be largely absent from the issue. Regardless, arts-based research offers potential for different forms of knowledge production, “broadening our conception of the ways in which we come to know” (Barone & Eisner 2012, p. 4), accomplished by positioning an art form as central for data collection, interpretation and representation.

Arts-based research may also take up a more direct concern with knowledge translation, using arts-based forms and approaches to disseminate research findings in alternative ways. A further rationale for the special issue was to prompt more engagement with the idea that translating academic research into arts-based forms can make such research more accessible and useful beyond the academic (e.g., Bagley & Castro-Salazar 2017; Lancione 2017). Additionally, arts-based approaches have appeared for some time in relation to therapeutic and applied work (e.g., Wilson et al. 2016), and this work has importance for the practice of psychology. Accordingly, we wanted to give research of this nature more visibility.

Finally, we also wanted to stimulate interest in arts-based research in psychology beyond offering a publication venue for interested authors. We were motivated to deliver a special issue that could inspire readers to take up this form of research in psychology more readily, to encourage researchers to adopt arts-based approaches in planning and conducting theses and research projects, and to identify Qualitative Research in Psychology as a viable outlet for such work.

The complexity of the arts-based research field was reflected in our call for articles for this special issue. The stated objectives of the special issue were to provoke researchers to think more deeply about arts-based forms of research, to promote alternative forms of research representation, and to provide a venue for psychology researchers to produce research representations in arts-based forms. We invited submissions that used arts-based forms in illustrating creative representations of qualitative research and qualitative research issues, with the aim of highlighting new ways of knowledge production and of giving greater visibility to research informed by arts-based approaches. We suggested that submissions could involve purely creative accounts informed by research, creative art-based forms with an accompanying commentary, or theoretical, methodological or practice-based examinations of art-based research. We were open to receiving any and all forms of arts-based work as it related to research and practice, involving fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, essays, theater, performativity, visual forms of all kinds, or anything else proposed by authors that could be considered arts based. In addition, we invited submissions to a special section using flash fiction writing, which addressed the topic of research engagement in exactly 55 words.

The scope of the special issue

This call obviously struck a chord. We were overwhelmed with enquiries and responses, and we received numerous positive comments from both authors and reviewers about the value of this special issue. We received more than 60 submissions for the issue, plus a number of 55-word flash fiction pieces. A few submissions did not make it past editorial triage, and others fell by the wayside as a consequence of the peer-review process. But in the end, we received more publishable articles than we could possibly include in a single issue of the journal. The editors accordingly agreed to allow a double issue, but even then we had more acceptable submissions than could fit within the page limits available. That led to a difficult editorial meeting, where we had to make very hard choices about the composition of the issue. Our criteria were twofold: to select strong articles and to provide a good cross-section of the variety of articles submitted in terms of approaches and methods. The result is the 27 articles that make up this special issue. That meant that some very good articles did not make it into the special issue directly, but these have all been accepted for publication in later issues of the journal.

We were pleased to have such an overwhelming response. We ran into a number of tensions in editing the material for the issue, especially about the expected or desired content of articles. Many reviewers were psychology researchers and often requested submissions to include more detailed information about participants or methods and expressed a degree of discomfort with accepting purely creative pieces, such as stories, poems, or photo-essays, without some accompanying explication. They struggled with the openness of interpretation that many articles offered to readers. Other reviewers were based more strongly in arts-based research, and their challenges to authors were often to delete content about participants and methods and to let the pieces speak for themselves. There were also the journal demands for each article to have a title and an author, author bio, and abstract. These were all straightforward, except for the abstract. Does a fictional short story or a set of poems on a theme require an abstract? We thought not, so some of these articles do not include (or need) an abstract; others include the equivalent of an abstract in an endnote, where the authors felt some explanation for the article was necessary but should not appear at the front. We thank the editors of the journal for their understanding and support for these issues.

We received accolades from authors and reviewers alike, for opening this door into arts-based research and for recognizing its value for psychology. We hope the special issue lives up to their expectations. The articles accepted in the issue represent a cross-section of arts-based research and are difficult to categorize unequivocally, as several use multiple forms. Expressive written forms, using various styles of poetry and fiction, feature prominently; poetry was a particularly popular form. The flash fiction challenge was not taken up as much as we expected, but it produced some highly engaging short (55-word) pieces. Image-based work also features strongly, in photo-essays and other visual forms. Many articles use images to illustrate their arguments and processes. A few take up more performative forms, including theater. A number of articles adopt a more standard format to offer discussion and debate around methodologies and issues relating to arts-based research. Several take a critical approach to the research, highlighting inequality and social injustice. The specific topics addressed by the articles are varied and reflect the diversity of psychological issues that can be addressed by arts-based research.

These articles are presented in the special issue in no particular order. We did consider theming them by approach (e.g., fiction, image-based) but decided that the spirit of the issue demanded surprise and variety. We hope the special issue delivers this, alongside its other objectives. Finally, we hope it contributes to a shift in the field and stimulates other psychology researchers to try their hand at arts-based research.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kerry Chamberlain

Kerry Chamberlain is a Professor of Social and Health Psychology at Massey University, Auckland. He is co-leader of CHaSP and a critical qualitative researcher with interests in innovative qualitative research methodologies and methods. His research interests relate to health and the everyday, with specific interests in poverty and disadvantage, medications, media and health, and food and health.

Kathryn McGuigan

Kathryn McGuigan is a Ph.D. candidate and Senior Tutor at Massey University and a member of CHaSP. Her areas of research interest are motherhood and feminism, medications, everyday life, dementia, media representations and health, and health and place.

David Anstiss

David Anstiss is a Researcher in the Centre for Person-Centred Research at Auckland University of Technology. He is a member of CHaSP, with research interests in the areas of critical health and social inequalities. He also teaches in the areas of social psychology as well as defense and security studies.

Kayla Marshall

Kayla Marshall is a Ph.D. candidate at Massey University and is interested in critical feminist issues related to gendered embodiment on social media. She is currently researching gendered subcultures on Instagram to problematize overly simplistic, heteronormative understandings of gender and the body and their reinforcement of gender inequality. She is also a member of CHaSP.