Rdm01 presentation january 2014

Setting the Scene: Boundaries

Science/ art

Body/ mind (Cartesian duality)

Political/ economic/ class

Gender/ sexuality/ age

Ethnic/ colour/ religious

(How) can creative process be used to investigate a personal experience of bipolar disorder?

Diana Brighouse MRes student

comparative spiritualitymedicine fine art

methodologies

psychotherapy

personal experience

mental health

Why?

Literature review – background reading shows three main areas to address

• Creative process• definition (fine art based, not design or advertising or business)• process rather than ‘creativity’ (Redfield Jamison, 1996)

• creative process in research or as research method?

• Bipolar disorder• definition/ diagnosis• models of mental illness (medical/biological v. psychosocial/environmental)• geography (Western models, UK not US)

• Methodologies• Clash of positivism and interpretivism – is there a middle way?

Literature review – key preliminary texts

• McGettigan, A, (2011). Art Practice and the Doctoral Degree. Afterall Online. http://www.afterall.org/online/art-practice-and-the-doctoral-degree

• Vaughan, K., (2008). Pieced together: Collage as an artist’s method for interdisciplinary research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 4(1), 27–52.

• Lieberman, JA, (2013). DSM-5: Caught between Mental Illness Stigma and Anti-Psychiatry Prejudice | MIND Guest Blog, Scientific American Blog Network: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/2013/05/20/dsm-5-caught-between-mental-illness-stigma-and-anti-psychiatry-prejudice/

• Szasz T, (2010). The Myth of Mental Illness. Harper Collins

• Anderson, L. (2006). Analytic Autoethnography. J Contemporary Ethnography (35);4: 373-395

• Denzin, N, (2014). Interpretive Autoethnography (Qualitative Research Methods). Amazon: Kindle e-book

Literature review – preliminary texts (2)

• Allen-Collinson, J, (2013). Autoethnography as the engagement of self/other, self/culture, self/politics, selves/futures, in Holman-Jones, Adams, Ellis (eds), Handbook of Autoethnography 281-299: Left Coast Press

• Bochner, AP, Ellis, C, (eds) (2002). Ethnographically Speaking. Amazon: Kindle e-book

• Ellis, C, Bochner, A, (2000). Autoethnography, Personal Narrative, Reflexivity: Researcher as Subject, in Denzin, Lincoln (eds), Handbook of Qualitative Research 2nd edition, 733-764: Sage Publications

• Ngunjiri, FW, Hernandez, K-A, Chang, H, (2010). Living Autoethnography: Connecting Life and Research. J. Research Practice (6); 1: E1

• Ruiz-Junco, N, Vidal-Ortiz, S, (2011). Autoethnography: The Sociological Through the Personal, in Zake, DeCesare (eds), New directions in sociology: essays on theory and methodology in the 21st century, 193-211: McFarland & Co

Autoethnography

Autoethnography is a form of qualitative research where the researcher explores his or her own experience as a focus of investigation. It acknowledges the power of the researcher to explore his or her own life more closely than others are able to.It connects the personal story to the participatory cultures while engaging the reader to share in the vibrancy of the experience.

(Keefer, 2009)

Choice of method(s)

• autoethnography as methodology & method

• spectrum from analytic to evocative, crosses academic disciplines (nursing, education, social sciences)

• autoethnography classically writing-based; published work on performance-based autoethnography (Ellis,C, (2002) Culture Embodied: Performing Autoethnography)

• combine evocative autoethnography with creative practice as research method

‘data analysis’

• data likely to be a mixture of artefacts• diaries/ journals

• written/ web-based/ visual images• drawing/ painting/ collage/ photography/ video/ textile

• ‘non-art’ art (WochenKlauser)

• neither autoethnography nor practice-based research use ‘traditional’ data analytic techniques

Audience

• Ultimately several different audience groups (hopefully during and after doctoral research).

• academics/ psychiatrists/ patient groups

• Current project:• immediate academic audience for MRes

• dissertation/ exhibition• publication in an ethnographic journal• send to Carolyn Ellis/ Art Bochner for advice on developing research

Ethics

• Using self as subject does not negate ethical considerations.

• Others’ lives are impacted by our existence in their worlds• We have ethical responsibility toward ourselves

• Chatham-Carpenter, A, (2010). “Do Thyself No Harm”: Protecting Ourselves as Autoethnographers. J Research Practice (6); 1: M1

• Ellis, C, (2007). Telling Secrets, Revealing Lives: Relational Ethics in Research with Intimate Others. Qualitative Inquiry (13); 1: 3-29

Bibliography• Etherington, K, (2004). Becoming a Reflexive Researcher. Jessica Kingsley: London, Philadelphia

• Hornbacher, M, (2009). Madness: A Bipolar Life. Harper Perennial: London, New York

• Jamison, K, (1996). Touched with Fire: Manic-depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament. Simon & Schuster: New York

• Laing, RD, (1990). The Divided Self. Penguin Books: London, New York

• Leader, D, (2013). Strictly Bipolar. Penguin Books: London, New York

• Leavy, P, (2009). Method Meets Art. Arts-based Research Practice. Guildford Press: New York

• Naylor, A.T, (2013). Art From Adversity: A Life With Bipolar. Glass House Books. Available at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-From-Adversity-Life-Bipolar-ebook/

• Pascale, C-M, (2011). Cartographies of Knowledge: Exploring Qualitative Epistemologies. Sage Publications: Los Angeles, London

• Rose, G, (2007). Visual Methodologies. Sage Publications: Los Angeles, London

• Snow, CP, (1998). The Two Cultures. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

• Sullivan, G, (2005). Art Practice as Research: Inquiry in the Visual Arts. Sage Publications: Los Angeles, London

• Taylor, MC, (2012). Refiguring the Spiritual: Beuys, Barney, Turrell, Goldsworthy. Columbia University Press, New York

• http://www.wochenklausur.at/index1.php?lang=en (accessed Dec-Jan 2013-14)

Time line

• Gantt chart unsatisfactory but not much else available (for artists)

Can the creative process, through autoethnography, provide new understanding of the bipolar experience?

I believe that it can.

Yes, clearly it can – memoir & autobiography have existed for

years.

Can the creative process be used autobiographically with

academic rigour?

Can creative process be used to investigate a personal experience

of bipolar disorder?