Network
NW 29 Research on Arts Education
Title
Experimental and risky formats to present ‘research other’ in arts and education
Abstract
Arts-Based Research in education invites researchers to explore other onto-epistemologies, formats, methods as well as ways to approach and create knowledge, which is also in line with performative inquiry. It entails an openness to carry out another research, through relations, experimentations and, above all, taking risks. Given the current tendency to block authenticity and sincerity in research, this special call invites arts and educational researchers to present research in experimental and risky terms, aiming to imagine alternative approaches to research. By this, we intend to challenge current tendencies and claim situatedness as resistance to neoliberalist research.
The Call
Risks are seen as something dangerous that we must anticipate, defying the safety of predictable ways of producing knowledge. What our proposal is looking for is not the damaging power of risks, but the opportunities they create while testing the limits of normative structures.
Recently, especially with Global South Studies, there is a claim for another research or “investigation other” (Alvarado & Hermida, 2022), which can be described as a kind of research that does not comply with conventional norms. Recognizing that this is already taking place, marginally at least, there is a need to shed light on these practices, if not giving opportunity for them to flourish. In times of ecofeminisms, decolonization, questioning the dominant discourses, histories and ways to develop research, we look for performative inquiry (Østern et al., 2021), described in the following terms:
- Research is understood as creation;
- The researcher is de-centered and in-becoming throughout the research process;
- The research can be produced, analysed and presented in and through several different modes and materialities for creation;
- This paradigm research is understood as an entangled relation between researcher, research phenomenon and the world;
- Reality is not represented in research, but created.
Furthermore, with “the advent of digital technologies ranging from Chat GPT to deep fakes . . . fake news, predatory journals or pressures of performativity” (EERA, n.d.), there is growing call for brutal honesty and transparency in research processes, one that can only be achieved through disobedient practices (Atkinson, 2018), not only reordering established logics but subverting all what is expected.
From its beginnings, arts-based research has promoted openness, experimentation and risky creation of knowledge (Leavy, 2017). Using arts-based strategies and methods allows researchers to invent ways to do research-other, from relationalities, situatedness and site-specific research (Onsès-Segarra & Hernández-Hernández, 2023).
This Special Call invites scholarly contributions to be presented in alternative and transformative formats. In this sense, performative presentations, alternative ways to present, arts-based presentations, transgressive performances, provocations, and site-specific presentations are welcome.
In the submission, a part of the content of the research presentation it is important to respond to the following questions:
- What notion of research is behind the presentation proposed?
- Why this format?
For NW29, it is important that authors present contributions based on research in arts and education, not only artistic experiences.
Contact Person(s)
Judit Onsès Segarra jonsesse(at)gmail.com
References
Alvarado, M. & Hermida, M. E. (2022). Feminismos del Sur: nudos epistemológicos para articular una investigación otra [Feminisms of the South: epistemological knots to articulate another investigation]. PACHA. Revista de Estudios Contemporáneos del Sur Global, 3(9), e210121. DOI: 10.46652/pacha.v3i9.121
Atkinson, D. (2018). Art, Disobedience and Ethics. The Adventure of Pedagogy. Palgrave. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-62639-0
EERA (n.d.). Theme - Knowing and Acting: The changing conditions and potentials of education research. https://eera-ecer.de/conferences/ecer-2026-tampere/theme-knowing-and-acting-the-changing-conditions-and-potentials-of-education-research
Leavy, P. (Ed.) (2017). Handbook of Arts-Based Research. Guilford Press.
Onsès-Segarra, J. & Hernández-Hernández, F. (2023). Exploring Scenarios, Possibilities and Challenges of Cartographies in School and Higher Education. In S. V. Carrasco-Segovia, F. Hernández-Hernández & J. M. Sancho-Gil, J. M. (Eds.), Affective Cartographies (pp. 65-80). Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-42163-1_5
Østern, T. P., Jusslin, S., Nødtvedt Knudsen, K., Maapalo, P. & Bjørkøy, I. (2021). A performative paradigm for post-qualitative inquiry. Qualitative Research, 23(2), 272-289.DOI: 10.1177/14687941211027444