Critical and creative research methodologies in social work lia bryant, routledge, 2012 scan

Engaging and scholarly, this book challenges social workers to move beyond conventional models of research to explore critical and creative research methodologies to promote social justi

RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES

IN SOCIAL WORK

I love this book It is just what I and my PhD students have been waiting for Engaging and scholarly, this book challenges social workers to move beyond conventional models of research to explore critical and creative research methodologies to promote social justice The practicalities of writing ethnography, the importance of situating oneself and the value of reflexivity are all emphasized, alongside innovative ways of using arts- based methods, including photography, stories, film, sculpture and drawing, to empower research participants It is a wonderful anthology.

Bob Pease, Deakin University, Australia

Interest in the development of creative practices in research has grown apace in recent years This stunning book engages with a range of innovative techniques grounding them in the strong methodological orientation of social work’s social justice principles A scholarly collection

that significantly advances the field of social work research and is

a must buy.

Charlotte Williams, RMIT University, Australia

This unique book presents new approaches to social work research which

in their creativity challenge the very way in which we think of research methodology The authors share their experiences in their multifaceted studies in and about social work The insights of this book go far beyond individual topics as the creative and critical methods challenge the present rationales of academia The well-argued and wise views of this book should

not be ignored by anyone interested in knowledge in social work.

Tarja Pösö, University of Tampere, Finland

Critical and Creative Research Methodologies in

Published 2016 by Routledge

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Copyright © Lia Bryant 2015

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Critical and creative research methodologies in social work / [edited by] Lia Bryant.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4724-2582-9 (hardback : alk paper)

1 Social service Research Methodology I Bryant, Lia, editor.

HV11.C7924 2015

361.0072 dc23

2015002209 ISBN: 9781472425829 (hbk)

ISBN: 9781315574905 (ebk)

List of Figures and Tables vii

SOCIAL WORK RESEARCH AND PRACTICE

1 Storytelling as a Research Method: Iraqi Women Narrating Their

3 Communicative Methodology of Research and Romaní Migrant

Aitor Gómez and Ariadna Munté

4 Ngapartji Ngapartji – Narratives of Reciprocity in ‘Yarning Up’

Deirdre Tedmanson

5 Reflexivity as Autoethnography in Indigenous Research 93

Amy Parkes

PART II CREATING CRITICAL EXCHANGES IN

SOCIAL WORK USING VISUAL AND TEXTUAL METHODS

6 Opening the Lens to See, Feel and Hear: Using Autoethnographic Textual and Visual Methods to Examine Gender and Telephony 109

Lia Bryant and Mona Livholts

7 Imagine Transfigurement: The Chapter Exhibition as a Critical and Creative Space for Knowledge in Social Work and Media Studies 131

10 Touching on Emotions: Using Clay Work in a Context of

Relational Empowerment to Investigate Sensitive Issues 189

Fiona Buchanan

11 Arts Based Methods in Social Work Education and Research as

Ephrat Huss, Dorit Segal-Engelchin and Roni Kaufman

Lia Bryant

Index 233

Police pin protesters to the ground and place them under arrest 1678.4 Bersih 2.0 UK, Facebook, 14 July 2011 Protesters in London

Lia Bryant is Associate Professor of Social Work and Sociology at the

University of South Australia She is also Director of the Centre for Social Change; Associate Head for Research and Research Education; and Discipline Head of Social Work and Human Services at the University of South Australia, Australia Associate Professor Bryant teaches research and research methods to undergraduate social workers, honours and master’s students She also runs the doctoral programme in the School of Psychology, Social Work and Social Policy She has published widely on gender, emotions, sexuality and embodiment in the rural Bryant has co-authored Gender and Rurality (2011, Routledge) with Barbara

Pini and edited Sexuality, Rurality and Geography (2013, Lexington Books) with

Andrew Gorman-Murray and Barbara Pini She has published in a variety of academic journals including Gender, Place and Culture, Journal of Rural Studies, Feminist Review, Sociologia Ruralis, Gender, Work and Organisation, Ageing and Society

and the International Journal of Qualitative Methods She has a forthcoming book

with Katrina Jaworski, Walking on the Grass: Women Supervising and Writing Doctoral Theses (Lexington Books).

Fiona Buchanan is a lecturer in Social Work with the School of Psychology,

Social Work and Social Policy at the University of South Australia Her research interests include domestic violence, gender issues, childhood trauma, mothering, innovation in teaching and learning, knowledge in emotions and incorporating arts as research methods

Roni Kaufman is Chair of the Masters of Social Work at the Spitzer

Department of Social Work, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel He

is the founder and chair of the Community Organisation and Social Change track in the Master of Social Work programme and the founder and chair of the Food Security Information and Advocacy Project

Aitor Gómez is Professor of Research Methods at the Rovira i Virgili University,

Spain Professor Gómez is a member of the research project ‘PERARES The Public Engagement with Research and Research Engagement with Society’,funded by the European Framework Programme of Research He coordinated

a special issue for Qualitative Inquiry on communicative methodology.

Lisa Hodge is a doctoral candidate and sessional staff member in the School of

Psychology, Social Work and Social Policy at the University of South Australia Her primary research interests include eating disorders and child sexual abuse

in particular and mental health more broadly, as well as violence against women, self-harm, and the sociology of emotions Her most recent publication is ‘The

“Beauty” of Eating Disorders’ in Crafting Allure: Beauty, Culture and Identity (2014,

Inter-Disciplinary Press)

Ephrat Huss is a senior lecturer in the social work department of Ben-Gurion

University, Israel, and chairs an MA specialisation in creative tools for social workers She has published extensively on this subject, including a book called

What We See and What We Say: Using Images in Research, Therapy, Empowerment, and Social Change (2013, Routledge) Similarly, she has published on arts methodology

in social work, and on using arts as a speech act for marginalised groups in both micro- and macro-orientations in the British Journal of social Work, in Social Work Education, and in Arts and Psychotherapy.

Mona Livholts is Associate Professor of Social Work at Mid Sweden University,

Sweden; coordinator of R.A.W., The Network for Reflexive Academic Writing Methodologies; and was guest researcher at The Centre for Social Research

on Alcohol and Drugs, Stockholm University, 2011–2012 Her research profile focuses on emergent writing methodologies in a wider context of method transformation plagued by inter- and transdisciplinarity Particular interest

is directed towards new methods in the intersection of social sciences and the arts Current research themes include: media studies, gender, space and memory, alcohol and rape, and scholarly auto/biography/ethnodrama Among her latest publications are: Emergent Writing Methodologies in Feminist Studies (2012,

Routledge) and ‘Writing Water: An Untimely Academic Novella’ in Documents

of Life Revisited: Narrative and Biographical Methods for a 21st Century of Critical Humanism (2013, Ashgate Publishing), edited by Stanley Liz.

Danielle May is an honours student in the School of Business at the University

of South Australia Her thesis focuses on community involvement and expression during the national elections in Malaysia

Ariadna Munté is a professor of social work at the University of Barcelona,

Spain She has worked for more than 10 years with Romà people and other vulnerable groups, combining her work with research in social sciences She was member of the research project Roma Immigration in Spain: Challenges for Social Inclusion and Living Together. She has published several articles in

JCR journals

Andrea Nikischer is a full-time lecturer in the Adult Education Department

at the State University of New York (SUNY) College at Buffalo, and is a PhD candidate in educational culture, policy and society at the university Andrea holds an MS in Adult Education, and previously worked as a sexual assault and domestic violence crisis counsellor, educator and community activist She has received awards for her work in violence prevention education from the Erie County Coalition against Family Violence and the National Organization for Women, Buffalo and Niagara Chapter Andrea’s dissertation research examines social class disparities in high school pathways to science, technology, engineering and mathematics post-secondary education and careers Her additional research interests include dilemmas in qualitative method, and the impact of sexual violence on academic achievement Andrea is co-author of an article published in Qualitative Inquiry (July 2012), ‘Walking the Methodological

Tightrope: Researcher Dilemmas Inside an Urban School District in Times of Public Disinvestment’, which examines qualitative researcher distress

Amy Parkes is a doctoral candidate in social science in the School of Psychology,

Social Work and Social Policy at the University of South Australia Her doctoral thesis focuses on Indigenous women’s experience of motherhood unpartnered She writes on postcolonialism, sovereignty and Indigeneity in Australia

Fatin Shabbar is a doctoral candiadate at the University of South Australia

Shabbar has recently submitted her doctoral thesis on Iraqi women, war and resilience in the School of Psychology, Social Work and Social Policy She is a social worker and also teaches social work She writes about postcolonialism and feminism

Dorit Segal-Engelchin is Director of the Center for Women’s Health Studies

and Promotion at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel She is also a senior lecturer in the Spitzer Department of Social Work at the university Her major research areas include social work education, women’s health and diverse family structures

Deirdre Tedmanson is a lecturer at the University of South Australia Before

working in the School of Social Work and Social Policy, Tedmanson was a lecturer in what is now known as the David Unaipon College of Indigenous Education and Research Her experience prior to academe includes work in community development, research, policy and management positions in both the community sector and state government, as well as working in Australia’s Commonwealth Parliament as a senior political adviser

Many thanks to Katerina Bryant for editing the manuscript and to Dr Bridget Garnham for assistance with literature searches and critical feedback Thank you both for your intellectual and emotional support.

Taking up the Call for Critical and Creative Methods in Social

a little closer to understanding and unearthing the complexity of social worlds and people’s ways of moving in them Sometimes we pause and the awareness of the complexity of our task, like a mist of doubt, covers our consciousness Too frequently academic research occurs amidst multiple tasks and to timetables and milestones Reflexivity, on the other hand, requires a purposefully carved space

to attempt to sit back and question our place as one who asks questions and attempts to answer them Perhaps research is just that, an attempt – an attempt

to think, to question and to find answers The appeal of research being an attempt lies in the idea that research is unfinished Qualitative research with its exploratory focus leaves a lingering sentiment that there are words left unsaid – unable to be reached

In more recent times the diaphanous quality of qualitative work has inspired researchers to use multiple layers of data collection to foster deeper understandings A layering of approaches, which brings forth the verbal, textual, pictorial and sensual, has become increasingly available and popular (Pink, 2006; Denzin, 2002; Bryant and Livholts, 2013; Livholts and Bryant, 2013; Ronai, 1999) It has become available as researchers have become increasingly ill at ease with using interviews and focus groups as linear singular methods to analyse the complexity of people’s lives Over the last decade critical cultural and creative studies have made a growing impact on a range of social science disciplines, resulting in researchers writing and doing ethnography differently Increasingly there has been interest in experimentation in research design and use of creative tools like fiction, novellas, drama, performance, autobiography and poetry as methodologies which place research participants as collaborators and give rise to emotion and sensory understandings of the self as well as allowing for unexpected experiences and knowledges to emerge (Chambon and Irving,

1999; Denzin, 2002) This growth in creative inquiry has been informed and compelled by values of social justice and a desire to transform social conditions

by working with communities of people

In this edited collection the focus is on how social work researchers can take up the challenge to undertake critical and creative research motivated by social justice and methodologically driven by collaboration, empowerment and dialogical reflexive space Indeed, it is a call to take up research that is socially creative (Wilson, 2010, p 367) Social creativity suggests a creativity that comes

into being, a property that emerges through interactivity between people and also between people and landscape and/or objects (Wilson, 2010; Biggs, 2012)

In Biggs’s words ‘creativity is apprehended as a reflexive property of the agency of social interactions’ (2012, p 1) Inter-agency between and among people and things suggests a power and force in the way individuals and objects may come together to deliver an unknown, and it is in the interaction where the

inter-power to create or bring something new into being is located Held within this perspective is a view of human agency that sees subjectivity as shifting and open

to change and as such research can be a process of the becoming of individuals

as well as outcomes and objects These ethics of research practice shift the focus of research from a scientific model of data collection and discovery and by doing so challenge researchers to move out of their comfort zone to research differently Ellis and Bochner have suggested that now imagination is

‘as important as rigour’ (2008, p 1) in conceptualising ways of doing research to produce ethical outcomes Imagination ‘thrives at the edge of things, between the gaps’ (Wilson, 2010, p 368) and for social work this means opening up ways

of working across disciplines, with different mediums and with participants who are now collaborators Wilson’s term ‘social creativity’ implies a critical and creative research practice, which requires:

refocusing attention on the collective and relational nature of creative practice where divergent thinking (Koestler, 1975), transdisciplinarity, (Cox, 2005), co-ownership (see Bellers, 1695), heterogeneous knowledge production (Nowotny

et al., 2001), boundary-spanning, technology-brokering (Hargadon, 2003), collaboration, dialogue and reflexivity (Göranzon et al., 2006), are all important features … whilst not losing sight of the … need to imagine and feel (2010,

and reflexivity It challenges researchers to reflect and answer: How do we democratise knowledge? How do we transform ourselves, our collaborators and our readers? How can research transform communities and societies – that

is, what are the implications of our research for social change?

The chapters in this edited collection grapple with how to engage methodologically using creative and critical methods to question what constitutes

‘data’ (e.g Eisner, 1997; Furman et al., 2007; Kearney and Hyle, 2004; St Pierre, 1997), how to write ethnography which is ethical, reflexive and interrogates privilege (e.g Denzin, 2003; Foley and Valenzuela, 2005; Madison, 2005; Pease, 2010), how to empower participants (e.g Aziz, Shams and Khan, 2011; Ozer et al., 2013; Rodriguez, 2010) and how to strive for social justice (Wilson, 2010)

In this introductory chapter I aim to provide the context for the book and

I begin with an interrogation of ‘reflexivity’ as reflexivity is crucial to the ethics

of creative and critical inquiry Its importance lies in providing a critical and ongoing examination of the production of knowledge beginning with where research often begins, the researcher, thereby involving a reflexive engagement

of the self as well as the research process and the questioning of how knowledge

is produced, whose knowledge and for what purpose I examine the concept of

‘reflexivity’ and its relationship to ‘situatedness’ or ‘politics of location’ to bring forth the embodied researcher and her/his intersubjective connection to their

embodied participant collaborators and research communities

In the latter half of the chapter I explore what constitutes ‘critical’ and

‘creative’ qualitative research and focus on textual and visual methods using

a selection of examples and in particular creative writing and photography

to illustrate possibilities for social creativity There is a multitude of ways of conducting critical and creative research and the chapters in this volume provide further illustrations of social creativity Following this, I outline the central aims

of the book and provide an overview of the chapters

Reflexivity

As Pillow aptly states, ‘Reflexivity is invoked in almost every qualitative research book or article and has been posited and accepted as a method qualitative researchers can and should use’ (2003, p 176) Commonly, the concept of reflexivity is often employed without being defined and it is used interchangeably with reflection Reflection may be understood as a consideration or thinking after an event (Finlay, 2002a; 2002b) and this does not necessarily involve a change in practice or a consideration of an other Reflexivity, on the other hand, has been understood in multiple ways (Pillow, 2003; Finlay, 2002a) There are various overarching definitions of reflexivity; common to these is that reflexivity requires an awareness of self-scrutiny in relation to an other (Chiseri-Strater,

1996, p 130, cited in Pillow, 2003, p 177) For Finlay ‘reflexivity taps into a more immediate, continuing, dynamic and subjective self-awareness’ (2002a,

p 533) Reflexivity is about the researcher being thoughtful, insightful and critical of how her lived experience shapes her vision of the world (Finlay, 2002a; Hertz, 1997) As Guillemin and Gillam suggest:

Hertz (1997, p viii) noted that the reflexive researcher does not merely report the ‘facts’ of the research but also actively constructs interpretations (‘What do

I know?’), while at the same time questioning how those interpretations came about (‘How do I know what I know?’) (2004, p 274)

These overarching meanings make apparent that reflexivity is open to further interpretation and the concept has been reconstructed in accordance with specific philosophical and theoretical orientations Notably, feminist and race scholars have often used reflexivity as a means for accounting for oneself as a researcher – accounting for privilege and power (Oakley, 1981; Harding, 1991; Collins, 1990; Patai, 1991; Hertz, 1997; Wolf, 1996) Reflexivity from these critical perspectives also means to do research differently, to undertake research that is politically aware and leads to political action and empowerment or reciprocity (Oakley, 1981; Riessman, 1987; Rose, 1997) Reflexive practice involves a collaborative relationship with participants involving methods that enable co-production of knowledge, like arts-based research or participatory action research

Typologies of reflexivity have also emerged as scholars attempt to flesh out its multiple meanings (Denzin, 2002; Finlay, 2002ab; Mauthner and Doucet, 2003; Guillemin and Gillam, 2004; Pillow, 2003) Finlay (2002b) for example, identifies five forms of reflexivity: ‘(i) introspection; (ii) intersubjective reflection; (iii) mutual collaboration; (iv) social critique and (v) discursive deconstruction’ (Finlay, 2002b, p 212) I draw on Finlay’s typology as it brings forth key inter-relating components that give meaning to how reflexivity is conceptualised and practised.Beginning with introspective reflexivity, this concept offers understanding about social phenomena or experience from the researcher’s insight Introspective reflexivity is often found in autoethnographic accounts that aim

to bring attention to power relations and social conditions through personal experience (see Bryant and Livholts, 2013; Livholts and Bryant, 2013) The following quotation from Bryant and Livholts is an example of introspective reflexivity giving insight into how space becomes gendered

She opens the door and tells the taxi driver where to take her She sits in the back As they travel, a message comes across the taxi radio The transmitter sits near the dashboard echoing its message A male voice says ‘does anyone want

to pick up a fare from Nancy’s? You know what kind of payment you will get’ The driver’s thick hand reaches toward the radio transmitter and then comes

back He squirms in his seat She feels disgust: disgust at him, disgust at the radio message itself So this kind of exchange happens? A body for a fare She knows he feels her judgment, her disdain, her contempt for him This is what causes him to falter in her presence They are both trapped in this taxi He does not want her there to remind him of perhaps his wife, perhaps his mother, and perhaps of all things that a woman is – not just a sexual body (2007, p 36)

Intersubjective reflection refers to reflexive thinking about meaning making which occurs mutually between participant and researcher Intersubjectivity has been conceptualised as a process whereby the self is constituted dialogically and co-constructed in relation to the multiple perspectives of others (see Bakhtin, 1981) For Bryant and Jaworski ‘intersubjectivity is more than a dialogical construction but a relation of power whereby subjects draw meanings in relation

to other subjects’ (forthcoming, p 17) In their work on doctoral supervision they reveal ‘inter-subjective relations as attempts to read the “others’” emotions, attitudes, values, dialogical meaning, and body language’ (Bryant and Jaworski, forthcoming, p 17) Applied to research, intersubjectivity between participant and researcher is reiterative, involving a recognising and recontextualising of subjectivity and ongoing encounters to allow for the possibility of identification and being shaped by the other (Butler, 1990; Bryant and Jaworski, forthcoming,

p 17) Intersubjective reflexivity in research relationships has the potential to change both researchers and participants

Mutual collaboration as reflexive practice involves participants and researchers

as co-workers in the research process (Finlay, 2002b) The level of reflexive collaboration varies from participants being involved in designing the study from the outset, engaging in data collection, analysis and writing, and in other studies more minimal engagement where participants might provide guidance throughout the project in the form of an advisory board (Christians, 2000)

Reflexivity as social critique especially focuses on the problematics of the power imbalance between researcher and participant (Finlay, 2002b, p 220) This form of reflexivity involves a reflexive introspection about authority and expert knowledge held by the researcher and its impact on how participants speak to the research questions Finlay argues that ‘a particular strength of [this variant of reflexivity] … is the recognition of multiple, shifting researcher-participant positions’ (2002b, p 222) She provides an example from her work which illustrates this form of reflexivity:

[With one of my participants] I found myself feeling irritated with what I saw as

a cold, mechanical approach, one that was inappropriate in a therapist I found myself being uncharacteristically challenging with him I pushed him to get an emotional response Then towards the end of the interview he gave it to me and

he spoke quite painfully (Finlay, 2002b, p 221)

The fifth and final variant of reflexivity, reflexivity as discursive deconstruction,

is concerned with writing texts differently to account for ambiguity and multiplicity of meanings (Finlay, 2002b) This form of reflexivity involves experimenting with words, genres and writing forms to enable multiple voices and multiple stories to engage with meaning making reflexively Mona Livholts’s (2012a) recent edited book Emergent Writing Methodologies in Feminist Studies

challenges accepted orthodoxy about what is academic writing and illustrates that writing is also a ‘method of inquiry’ (Livholts, 2012b, p 3) She points out that researchers seldom question ‘what forms of writing does the research question demand?’ (Livholts, 2012b, p 3) There are varied and copious examples of researchers using a range of writing techniques for different purposes in social science research that create a reflexive space for participants and/or researchers (Butler-Kisber, 2002; Clark, 2014; Furman et al., 2007; Jenkins, 2010; Quinlan, 2013; Richardson and St Pierre, 2005; Vickers, 2010)

Inherent within Finlay’s and others’ typologies of reflexivity is that reflexivity

is not only conceptualised in multiple ways but is equally carried out in multiple ways in research practice Consistent across understandings of reflexivity is that qualitative research involves an accounting for oneself, one’s research process and engagement with others Hence, I now turn to where research often begins – with the researcher – to examine how analysis of situatedness and the politics of location assist in shaping reflexive research

Situatedness and Knowledge

The idea of history is that in general white men have described and theorised

the social world, which has often resulted in a universalising story of social history and an exclusion of multiple voices, a colonising of the voices of the most marginalised and a privileging of the white, middle-class male gaze Since the ’70s this positionality has inspired feminist researchers to question whose knowledge is being produced for whom and why It has resulted in considerations about claiming our own knowledge and social positioning when

we research and write Hence, the practice of situating ourselves as researchers has become a critical practice in qualitative research that is more than locating who we are in the political and social landscape we work within

Donna Haraway’s (1988) conceptualisations of situatedness and partial knowledge have been influential in critiquing the researcher as objective and have been used extensively especially in feminist research For Haraway situatedness refers to acknowledging that the subject position of a researcher

is a located position produced within specific socio-historical conditions and as

a consequence the knowledge claims she or he makes are derived from his or her locatedness This locatedness is embodied and as such is gendered, classed, raced, sexualised and shaped by ethnicity, age and (dis)ability Locatedness

means that as researchers we read, analyse and write from the perspective of our bodies and thus the knowledge claims we make are not universal claims

of truth Explicitly, Haraway proposes:

I am arguing for politics of epistemologies of location, positioning and situating, where partiality and not universality is the condition of being heard to make rational knowledge claims I am arguing for the view from the body, always a complex, contradictory, structuring, and structured body, versus the view from above, from nowhere, from simplicity (1998, p 589)

Haraway’s (1988) notion of situatedness enables discomforting questions about the possibilities and limitations of what I see and how I see There is always a locatedness for what and why I see and this is the ‘politics of location’ (Ahmed, 2004)

To reiterate, situatedness then, is shaped by ‘vision’, ‘seeing’ or the ‘gaze’

so that what is viewed ‘varies depending on who is looking and what is valued’ (Bryant and Livholts, forthcoming) For Haraway (1988, p 586) there is a multidimensionality of vision not just across populations of subjects but multiple ways of seeing by a subject Haraway’s task is to reclaim the marked body that has a power to see, to represent but at the same time escape recognition Hence, the task is to challenge the depictions in western social science and science of the objective eye, which sees and represents truth Haraway aptly states:

all Western cultural narratives about objectivity are allegories of the ideologies governing the relations of what we call mind and body, distance and responsibility Feminist objectivity is about limited location and situated knowledge, not about transcendence and splitting of subject and object It allows us to become answerable for what we learn how to see (1988, p 583)

Thus, our vision, whilst not complete, is also not fixed in time and shifts for individuals in the context of social meanings that constitute our multiple localities or situatedness

Whilst the politics of location includes how our bodies are marked by our past it also allows for the notion that our bodies are ongoing achievements (Hinchliffe, 2003) subject to ‘shifting practices of privilege and subordination’ (Bryant and Livholts, forthcoming)

As I have argued it has become increasingly common for qualitative researchers to write themselves into their text especially in the context of accounting for their privilege (Pease, 2010) Claiming one’s colour, class, gender and sexuality for example is important and provides a context to our being in the social; it is the location from which we see However, it is also common for researchers to use positionality as a description of the self which is neatly

encapsulated in a ‘methodology’ section in an academic text without weaving positionality throughout the text I argue that the almost necessary statement

of ‘who I am’ and the explanation for the right to undertake this research can

be a way of writing away our privilege, giving permission to go forth with the research Pease clarifies this argument and states:

those of us who are most unmarked white, heterosexual, able-bodied men, need

to understand how our subjectivities are constructed However, in articulating our positionality, and in demonstrating reflexivity about it, we need to be clear that this does not get rid of our power and privilege (2012, p 77)

Hence, a description of our privilege or our positionality per se in academic writing does not rub the slate clean, does not then excuse our privilege and enable us to move on with our analysis, because we might still be strengthening and reproducing the configuration of the ‘other’ (Ahmed, 2004)

Reflexive Voice(s)

Hence, as Dahl suggests, ‘it matters where we stand when we look at the world’ (2012, p 151) as a researcher’s vision or gaze provides her/him with the power both to see and to voice and give voice Thus, vision is also translated to language and thereby implicated in voice when it comes to writing research The voices

of participants have at times been colonised by researchers and carolled into neatly formed quotations The concept of voice, that is, whose voice and how

it is used, raises complex philosophical questions about voice and subjectivity Witkin’s (2002; Witkin and Chambon, 2007) conceptualisation of voice is useful

as it denotes a multiplicity of meanings that capture the complexity of this concept For Witkin voice is:

a form of expression, as in to ‘give voice to’ … a consideration … to have voice in decisions and … as representing a person, group or concept, as for example in phrases like, in her own voice, the voice of service users … these meanings [encapsulate] expression, consideration and representation (Witkin and Chambon, 2007, p 388)

The challenge of doing research differently is to accept the complexity of voice and subjectivity and ‘to think of voice in the plural even for individuals, lest we reproduce the single unitary self ’ (Witkin and Chambon, 2007, p 389) Witkin and Chambon (2007) draw on Judith Butler’s (1990) conceptualisation of subjectivity to underscore that voices are partial, momentary and do not reflect

a coherent and unitary self even though in the moment of reading research they may appear to do so More contemporary ways of doing research ask of us: how

do we give voice(s), that is, allow voice(s) to emerge, hear voice(s), write voice(s) and read voice(s)? How do we move from subjectivity as a unitary construct?Writing is also situated and ‘objectivity’ is about limited location Commonly the singular voice is evident in social theories which stem from a set of global positioning, a situatedness that encompasses power inherent in the geographical locatedness and historical determinations of what is acceptable knowledge, namely Western knowledge This position is central to postcolonial theorising which critiques what knowledge is heard, reproduced in social science and given value (e.g Said, 2003) Further, as social workers through our research and writing we aim to give ‘voice’ to the oppressed and or marginalised How

we aim to make those voices heard is by us seeing, as Haraway argues, ‘from the periphery or the depths’ or from the ‘vantage points of the subjugated’ (1988, p 584) The voices we aim to make heard are, however, also situated

as is our vision, our way of seeing and interpreting the voices of those who collaborate or participate in research As social workers there is a danger of

‘romanticising or appropriating the vision of the less powerful while claiming

to see from their positions’ (Haraway, 1988, p 584) Giving voice through research, while necessary, is political and problematic as when we give voice it is through our vision and there can be a lack of transparency in academic writing

as to who speaks Participant quotations inserted in writing draw a boundary around whose voice is being presented but the way an academic argument is constructed and the selection of quotations and where they are placed are a representation of the vision and voice of the author

In summary, using reflexivity in analysis and in writing enables the author

to situate themselves and demonstrate their partial and fragmented location and knowledge in the context of research Reflexive research practice involves engaging with how one sees, one’s own marginalisation and privilege, with understandings of the process of being a researcher and being ‘researched’, and critiquing one’s interpretations, contradictions and ethics (Bryant and Livholts, 2013; Lash, 2003; Guillemin and Gillam, 2004) Reflexivity in research calls for self-awareness and scrutiny in what we research, the process of undertaking research, our analysis and writing (Pillow, 2003) Promisingly, ongoing analyses

of our situatedness enable a reflexivity of vision and also a position from which

to (re)vision, resist and work toward social change (hooks, 1990)

Critical and Creative Social Work Research

In this text particular meanings are given to the concepts of critical and creative; however, these are not definitive, as bounded terms are likely to produce contrary results to critical and indeed creative ways of researching Broadly the term critical is used in this collection to refer to anti-oppressive

approaches both theoretical and methodological which question and critique power relations and the production of knowledge The emphasis of critical research is to address inequalities, and values of social justice drive the purpose, design and outcomes expected from the research (Strier, 2007) Within the broad rubric of anti-oppressive approaches and theories the common factor

is the examination of relations of power, ethics and impacts on inclusion/exclusion Anti-oppressive approaches largely invoke methodologies that are participatory in a multitude of ways Firstly, participation is likely to be reflected in a participatory relationship between researchers and participants

in co-constituting the research design and/or data collection and analysis to recognise and give value to multiple knowledges which exist in communities (e.g Buettgen et al., 2012; Cahill, Ouijada Cerecer and Bradley, 2010; Collie et al., 2010; Fern, 2012) The co-constitution of research aims to provide greater space for the subject to speak and attempts to delimit the authority of the researcher to allow for the co-constitution of knowledge Leslie Brown and Susan Strega’s (2005) edited book Research as Resistance is a case in point These

authors use critical, Indigenous and anti-oppressive approaches to underscore that social work research processes and outcomes are driven by social justice – which is more likely to be achieved by methodologies that work collaboratively with people rather than those used ‘on’ people

Secondly, participation may refer to political participation, that is, enabling participants to practise their entitlement to social citizenship through engagement

in research that reflects their lived experience, enabling empowerment and/or transformations of social conditions There are many examples of participation

in research which involves the practice of social citizenship (e.g Fenge, 2010; Greenwood, Levin and Ebrary, 2007; Kemmis and McTaggart, 2005; Schinke et al., 2013) Such research often draws on methods like oral histories, narratives, memory work or arts-based methods This work enables people to ‘recall, recount and review their lives’, treating them as ‘expert witnesses in the matter

of their own lives’ (Atkinson, 2004, p 692) For example Atkinson’s (2004) study about understanding the historic context of learning disabilities via oral history interviews enabled people with (dis)abilities to tell their own story and brought to light universal themes about institutional and community care Finally, participation also involves long-term engagement of researchers with participants and their communities with a central aim being collective advocacy for programme and or policy change (Strier, 2007) This form of participation often but not exclusively uses participatory action research frameworks (e.g Cammorata and Fine, 2008; Minkler, 2010)

Anti-oppressive research aims to redistribute power in the way academic knowledge is produced but also in effecting social change in the participatory community and/or within broader social systems (Rogers, 2012) Creative research may also be critical The concept of creativity, however, is more

nebulous In the last five years writings have emerged in the creative industries in particular which critically extend and examine the notion of creativity, challenging two longstanding understandings (Wilson, 2010; Van Mannen, 2011) The first is a Eurocentric notion stemming from the time

of the Enlightenment that conceives of creativity as an individual enterprise, romanticised as an output produced by those holding special talents (Bilton, 2007) The second is the idea that creativity is everywhere and held by everyone, with this notion in turn ‘diluting the idea to the point of vacuity’ (Bilton, 2010,

p 231) Central to understanding creative research is the imagination, which in its idealised form is transformative either of subjects or ways of approaching and practising research (Ferrarin, 2008) Immanuel Kant understood imagination as

‘the capacity to represent an object in intuition even in its absence’ (Ferrarin,

2008, p 102) This quality of reflection and foresight (Rousseau, 1992) and intuition and activity (Kant, 1999) is transformative and brings forth potentially new knowledge(s) The term creative is used in this edited collection to refer

to research approaches and methods that depart from traditional qualitative methodologies like interviews, to refer to research that is socially derivative and arises from the inter-agency between people and among people, objects and landscapes (Wilson, 2010)

In terms of methods ‘creative’ is used to refer to tools to create art in the broadest sense whether it be photography, music, poetry, stories, film, artefacts, drawings, memory work and performance (e.g Livholts and Bryant, 2013; Russell and Diaz, 2011; Galman, 2009; Leavy, 2009; Huss and Cwikel, 2005; Miles, 2006; Holt, 2004; Conquergood, 2002; Hammock, 2011; Wulff et al., 2010) In the course of a research study creative methods are employed by researchers, participants or both and may involve textual and/or visual methods.Creative methods are often used to give meaning to experiences that may

be difficult to name and aim to capture emotions and contradictory meanings inherent in, for example, pictorial forms of art or poetry There are similarities between visual methods and creative writing forms in relation to allowing or indeed acknowledging space for the emotional and the sensory to emerge in ways that may not occur or may not be allowed for in traditional interviews (Pink, 2006; 2009) Pink (2009) understands ethnographic research as multisensory and therefore a process that is lived through the emplaced body in the same way that knowledge and experience are embodied in the research process The idea that knowledge is transmitted and indeed created as a sensory process

as well as a social and participatory process has received increasing attention (e.g Ingold, 2000; Geurts, 2002; Downey, 2007; Grasseni, 2007; Hahn, 2007; Marchand, 2007) Mason and Davies argue that ‘In methodological terms, this means that it is important to devise open and creative ways of investigating [that involve] … attunement to a range of sensory and extra-sensory possibilities’ (2009,

p 601) For Mason and Davies (2009) creative methods allow the discovery

of the tangible and intangible aspects of sight, sound, touch but also sensory imagination based on memory and future expectations.

Visual Methods

With reference to photographic images Rose argues that ‘photos are used by … social scientists because they can carry or evoke three things – information, affect and reflection – particularly well’ (2007, p 238) in ways that words may not Visual forms like drawing, painting and sculpture can capture ‘capacity, range, and emotions not easily represented in text alone’ (Russell and Diaz,

2011, p 2)

Some visual data like ethnographic photography have a long history of being used to bring social issues to the fore (Szto, 2008) It is not difficult to recall the black and white photos of men lined up in an endless queue applying for jobs during the depression in the United States of America or what has become the classic image of the child standing alone, hurt and vulnerable

in Vietnam during the Vietnam War Equally etched in our minds is the film image of the planes hitting the Twin Towers, the cascading of the buildings accompanied by instantaneous black clouds of smoke These images alongside many others have become part of the global consciousness They have raised emotion, awareness and in some cases contributed to changes to social policy For example, Chambon (2012) has argued that social reformers in the early part

of the twentieth century used photography to depict working conditions and influence change in workplace legislation She argues:

the photos by Hine bring back the individual look and posture at work that maintains the link between people and things … Hine was simultaneously a social documentarist and an artist whose evocative and beautiful work was far from instrumental Yet, or because of this combination, his work roused social groups to change working conditions and institute new protective legislation (Chambon, 2012, p 4)

It is worth remembering that Hine helped create reforms in relation to use of child labour in factories

Building visual methods into research designs enables participants to contribute to the research process in ways that enable communities of people whose voices may not often be heard or who may not know how to give voice

in words to ‘speak’ without use of language (e.g Desyllas, 2014; Lenette, Broug and Cox, 2013; Russell and Diaz, 2011; Thomson, 2008) Scholars focusing on children’s lives, for example, more frequently use visual and arts-based methods

to engage participants and to encourage ‘more authentic understandings of children’s lives as they are lived’ (Jorgenson and Sullivan, 2010, p 2) Jorgenson

and Sullivan (2010), in examining how families engage with technologies at home from the perspective of children, provided children with disposable cameras for a week to take photos of family members working and playing with technology They found that children were able to use photography to capture moments of technology use, indicating for example that families often spent time apart in separate rooms within the home when using technology The authors suggested that these meanings may not have emerged from a dialogue with the children.

Visual methods, particularly when participants are producing images, can assist in altering the power between researcher and participant, enabling participants greater freedom in expressing how they see and what they see For Russell and Diaz use of ‘photovoice … and photo narratives can be … empowering catalysts and participatory based routes to client self-actualization, self-reflection, and self-expression’ (2011, p 17) They can create an opportunity for participants to reflect on aspects of their lives differently (Latham, 2003) For example, Kearney and Hyle (2004) undertook a study on the impact of organisational change on workers in the south-western region of the United States of America using a mixed method, asking participants to draw their experience of change in addition to being interviewed The excerpt of the following participant explains how she/he experienced the process of drawing:

I was trying to picture a concrete picture of how I’m feeling, whether it was something that could be drawn I wouldn’t have thought as hard [without drawing] I wouldn’t have spent as much time thinking about how I feel (Kearney and Hyle, 2004, p 374)

Creative Writing

Creative forms of writing whether it be poetry, plays, or novels can, according

to Lie, tap into our ‘thinking body’ and ‘poetic language can express what is repressed, but poetic writing is not outside the symbolic, the rational, even

if it bears traces of the unconscious’ (2012, p 49) Therefore, how creative writing is expressed and read relies on the imagination, lived experience and emotion of the reader (Bryant, forthcoming) A range of research studies have used poetry in a variety of ways including poetry written by participants, autoethnographic poetry from researchers, analysis of published poems and created poems whereby participants are given a series of words with which

to write poems (e.g Butler-Kisber, 2002; Caroll, Dew and Howden-Chapman, 2011; Hordyk, Soltane and Hanley 2014; Taiwo, 2011) Hordyk et al (2014) found that using poetry as a method enabled Canadian homeless women to portray their lived experiences and provided the researchers with new ways of

reading and understanding these women’s experiences Hordyk et al illustrate how their responsiveness to the data increased:

attentiveness to language inherent in poetic methodology [which] invited

us to discover what had become lost in translation between differences in language, culture, history and social location We were invited to step out of our methodological frame of transcribing, creating themes, coding, consolidating and writing to revisit the words as originally stated This allowed alternative meanings to emerge (2014, p 217)

In this study the participants were able to name and reflect emotions that were not easily voiced about war, dislocation, mental health, fear, grief and courage Another interesting example of the use of creative writing in research

is relational poetry, inspired by Witkin and Chambon (2007), which enables interweaving dialogues between writers or via published text Taiwo used this method to highlight intersubjectivity, co-constructed realities and co-creation

of knowledge to ‘bring awareness to voices and perspectives that have been marginalised and oppressed’ (2011, p 215) Taiwo engages with a poem written

by Kumsa (2007), inserting his voice, his multiple subjectivities as a ‘black man

in North America, a West African immigrant, teacher, social worker, writer, student, husband and father’ (Taiwo, 2011, p 215) Part of the first stanza

of the poem is reproduced below and encapsulates the tensions, differences and similarities of lived experiences between the authors – note Taiwo’s voice

is italicised:

Strangers meet

Strangers don’t meet Friends are born to

Self encounters Other

For the Other is in Self, the good knotted in bad and ugly

Image find object, body meets shadow

The shadow is the Other Present when there is light

Friends forge (Taiwo, 2011, p 217)

Similarly, scholars like Cixous (1993) and more contemporary scholars (Essén and Värlander, 2013; Livholts, 2012b; Leggatt-Cook, 2011; Gannon, 2002) have argued that we can also write academic research in multiple ways using more creative forms to analyse social power and oppression Academic writing is almost the antithesis to the lived, feeling body – it creates space between the writer, and her/his ideas and feelings, and garners authority Livholts (2012b,

p 3) suggests that traditional academic forms of writing may limit analysis and thereby blur or make less apparent questions of social power and oppression In this space knowledge production becomes authoritative rather than experimental

or ‘unfinished’ and open to questions The question for whom we are writing

is important as it raises questions about how academic knowledge production can be shared, challenged and developed from outside the academy Traditional forms of academic writing polarise academia from the broader community and

as a consequence writing and publication are not politically neutral activities Further, the form and structure of academic writing is proscribed by academic publishers and neoliberal universities in whose interests it is to garner points via publications in systematic counting processes that rank universities, allocate funding and apportion prestige (Bryant and Jaworksi, forthcoming)

Overview of this Book

In the series of chapters in this international edited collection we take up the challenge to problematise social work research by developing research methodologies that place questions of social justice at their centre and take innovative approaches to collecting, analysing, interpreting and presenting data Through this book we aim to further debates around the question of ‘what is social work research?’ and aim to develop approaches that bring a critical and a creative lens to qualitative research in this field

The book is divided into two parts The first section of the book entitled

‘Narrative and Action: Transforming Social Work Research and Practice’ largely examines textual data produced from an array of methodologies focused on the spoken and/or written word The chapters in the first part of the text use creative and critical approaches to examine the power of narration Narration is examined using two distinctly different research approaches: an examination of the written and verbal word through oral storytelling (Chapter 1) and longitudinal stories told by participants (Chapter 2) This section also includes participatory and collaborative research relationships with community groups where the exchange of words and actions are reciprocal and central to establishing and undertaking research and producing emancipatory outcomes (Chapters 3 and 4) The memories of researchers which capture the social, personal and political are examined using autoethnographic techniques (Chapter 5) Collectively these methods are used to uncover social and personal understandings about sexual violence and gendered and Indigenous lived experience that may not emerge using traditional methods These approaches allow those who are often silenced

to speak by providing space and time to capture memory and meanings that may not come to light in a time-driven structured research method like an interview or a questionnaire

The second section of the book is titled ‘Creating Critical Exchanges

in Social Work Using Visual and Textual Methods’ (Chapters 6–11) The visual methods discussed and employed in this book include an analysis of

autoethnography using memories, photographs and diaries to capture the interstices between gender and material artefacts (Chapter 6) Chapters 7 and

8 use texts and photographs via an analysis of newsprint and photographic images in the media (Chapter 7) and digital ethnography involving photographs uploaded to social media and ongoing narrative about governmental elections

in Malaysia (Chapter 8) which work to create discursive understandings about cultural issues like gender and violence, protest and democracy and women’s working lives Chapters 9–11 focus on participant engagement with art, specifically drawings (Chapter 9 and 11) and clay sculpture (Chapter 10) to enable participants to deconstruct and reconstruct experiences, meanings and feelings The approaches are used to elicit memories, emotions and stories These images and artistic creations capture ‘the shared human bond between the viewer and the subject’ (Miles, 2006, p 189) Creative and artistic textual methods like poetry are also used in this section of the book to demonstrate how textual methods may complement the visual (Chapter 9) The combining

of visual with textual methods indicates the possibilities for producing a range

of creative methodologies and therefore possible new ways of accessing and developing social and cultural meanings

The methods presented across both sections of this book bring to light the transforming capacity of collaborations and emotions and how these work together and separately to empower and organise social change

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