Interdisciplinary Seminar Series 2007

Qualitative Research and Arts Practice: The potential for research capacity building
Tuesday 18th September 2007 11am - 4pm
Committee Room 1, Glamorgan Building, Cardiff University

Abstracts:

Professor Brian Roberts, University of Glamorgan
"Performance and the study of lives"

The paper examines the origins of the idea of ‘performance’ (in the arts) and its introduction in recent work in social science, with particular reference to the biographical study and representation of lives. It tries to clarify some of the issues involved - including the meaning of 'performance', the range of possible approaches (e.g. in addition to drama – from other arts), and the relationship between 'subjects', 'researcher' and 'audience'. The paper raises the question of the ‘role’ of the researcher in terms of the necessary skills/abilities involved in 'performance' (researching, writing/ recording and representing - as engaged in an 'artistic' endeavour) and the wider 'roles' and social relations (with 'researched' group, audience and society - in 'performing' with/to others). An important question is raised by crossing/bridging the social science-arts divide – ‘What remains distinctive about social science practice in ‘blurring’ disciplinary boundaries - adopting a performance orientation from the arts?’ Here, some reference will be made to the work of Kandinsky - as artist, ethnographer, designer, and poet. The talk will be 'exploratory' - reflecting current attempts to understand the possible consequences for social science (e.g. in the biographical study of lives) of a practice of 'performance' - and it is hoped that the talk will be more akin to a discussion than a more formal presentation.

Dr Kip Jones, Bournemouth University
"Social Science finding its Muse"

“Social Science finding its Muse”, a 10 minute film collaboration between filmmaker, Ben Mallaby and Dr. Kip Jones, will be premiered. The film intersperses interviews with participants in the five AHRC workshops in Performative Social Science (PSS) held over the past year at Bournemouth University with clips of workshop activities. The film not only documents activities, but also acts as an exemplar of research capacity building using tools from the arts and utilisation of the media available to researchers to reach wider audiences with their work.

Following the film, Jones will discuss the pleasures and obstacles encountered in producing both the film and the workshop series and where he sees Performative Social Science fitting within an academic framework in the future. The floor will be opened up for the balance of the session for a discussion on the use of tools from the arts and humanities in social science research and dissemination. If time permits, a short exercise in PSS will be included.

The film Dr Kip Jones' presented at this seminar is available via the following weblink: http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=8188537605740215203

Professor Martin Hughes, University of Bristol
"Using drama to disseminate research in the social sciences"

Professor Frances Rapport, Swansea University
"Poetry of Memoir"

The presentation Poetry of Memoir: Retelling the Holocaust will consider the use of poetic representation as an alternative representational form for working with and presenting qualitative data in the social sciences. The presentation will make the case that techniques such as poetic representation that fit within a Performative Social Science genre and under the Arts-based Research strand of New Qualitative Methodologies (Rapport 2004; 2005) are open to multi-disciplinary audiences searching for alternative approaches to data collection and analysis. As a consequence they have the ability to impact on research capacity building across research contexts.

The QUALITI presentation will centre on the speaker’s study of Holocaust survivor testimonies, including survivor perspectives of the events surrounding the Holocaust and their impact on health and wellbeing. These testimonies were collected during a one-year period from three remaining survivors resident in South East Wales. The speaker will describe the genesis of this work and her involvement in the research study, explaining the impetus for the use of arts-based research methods using examples from one survivor dataset, a collection of multiple ‘research conversations’ that took place between 2006 and 2007. The speaker will describe the survivor’s life experiences through a brief biographic account and poetic representation as a methodology, before reading some ethnographic poems derived from the research conversations.