Tracing Research Entanglements
In this article I trace the relationship between the central elements of research — theory, method, methodology, practice and inquiry — in relation to the cohort of researchers within WonderLab and my own practice. I use the word trace deliberately to signify this as a sketch or outline, and a verb to convey I am following, or seeking, the underlying through lines laid out by other researchers through this work.
In my first year as a PhD student I worked to make sense of these different central elements of a research practice through various ‘tracing’ exercises. This is useful as a means to help me understand the meaning and ‘activity’ of each of these elements — theory, method, methodology, practice and inquiry — through describing them, and to serve as a way of evidencing my commitments, stances and biases in my work.
The most recent iteration of this work was a workshop hosted by three 3 senior academics, Professor Stacy Holman-Jones, Professor Lisa Grocott, and Dr. Kate Coleman. Each presented their own version, or interpretation, of the practice-method ‘entanglement’ in their research. (I understand entanglement here to mean the different elements are connected and responsible to and for one another based on Barad, “our connections and responsibilities to one another — that is, entanglements” (2007, xi).) The three presentations side-by-side made evident the very different meanings and degrees of value the elements held across different research practices. Though it seemed practice (or in Stacy’s case, praxis) was a core element, how theory, methodology and methods informed or played a role in the work was remarkably different. Each version also illustrated how the disciplinary, geographical and temporal differences between their own doctoral studies influenced these differences.
For Stacy, the center of the work was reflection/praxis. Praxis was delineated distinctly from practice, and described as work with social and political motivation. Praxis, “draws on reflection to make committed action toward change”. The other elements of the research are held within two peripheral ‘knots’ which are necessary to support reflection/praxis, and both inform and are informed by the reflection/praxis. I find this entanglement helpful in how it explains an explicit purpose for the work, to create social and political change.
For Lisa, the central element of the entanglement is design practice. It was described as the ‘sky’ which the other elements move through and are held by. The dynamic metaphor illustrates practice as something that holds research, as well as work that is not research. The theory is “there and not there”, the methodology is amorphous clouds moving through and methods create a borderland across the sky dividing parts of the practice informed by methodology and theory (i.e., research), and practice which is not research. Here we see the research is driven by design practice. The research inquiry is entangled with practice inquiry, and as such reciprocally shape one another.
Kate Coleman’s entanglement reflected a strong position that her creative practice is research. This practice is research when there is theory and method informing it, and when there is not. As a practice-based researcher, her methodology is her practice, her practice is a methodology (Coleman & MacDonald 2020). She emphasised the importance of placing practice first, and how that is then entangled through its relation to the other research elements. Here practice claims clear importance, and research is there to support it.
Presenting these relationships reveals the variation in how these terms are defined and used. Here these elements are named and diagrammed not to instruct in categorical definition, but as a heuristic tool for noticing and claiming ways of knowing and the central commitments of our research (political and social action, maintaining dynamic relationships between design practice and research, and the need to not constrain a practice within research structures).
The presentations were followed by an exercise where each of us created our own diagrams to reflect the relationships as we experienced them in our own work. These quick sketches, some included below, reveal varied ‘centers’, understandings and ways of seeing how practice-research entanglements become alive in the world.
These diagrams begin to put into relation the different elements contained within our research practice, and consider how and what is produced by these relationships. Ilya diagrammed that there are clear outcomes from his entanglement: practice, aesthetics and making. His methods feed into his being/acting center, but are also extracted from a line of inquiry and brought back to the beginning to feed into the process. This demonstrates a certain relationship of the objects of knowledge within his research practice, and how knowledge is produced through that practice. Ricardo identifies art-making as our sense of awareness that is produced by visible and invisible objects within this domain, and the way objects collectively interact on the sea illustrate an ontological position. Lina’s description of praxis is exploring and making through a river valley, but the goal of that exploration is not clear to the observer. In Hannah’s we see a nesting or deepening of each object into one another, from which each object is re-created as a thin line extracting from the heart of practice/praxis.
As I grapple with understanding these different research elements and my own position, I have found the use of metaphor (like Lisa, Ricardo and Lina) most useful. Creative arts researchers Grierson and Brearley (2009) kindled an anatomical metaphor for me by describing methodology in creative research as, “Like the skeleton on which to build the anatomy of the project, [methodology] reveals the epistemological and ontological DNA” (5). It is from this metaphor — the anatomical structures that support a living, breathing, active body out in the world — that I begin tracing my entanglement. In further reading Franklin (2012) describes, “Nestled, not always comfortably, between [theory and method] is…methodology. This term is often used to underscore how the conceptual (abstract, theory) and concrete (pragmatic, methods) dimensions…are inseparable” (40, emphasis in the original).
Many months after the above described workshop, I developed my thoughts and quick, initial sketch working with a friend and professional illustrator, Ina Lim. She produced the below image to support the exploration of this metaphor.
Methodology forms the skeleton of my research practice, providing structural support and connective capacity for the research and directs how the research ‘moves’ in the world. It is the structure which outlines form to ideas explored in theory. It is a connective framework, linking why a specific approach is chosen (a method, or muscle as described further on in this metaphor) and how we are to interpret or analyze those methods. A robust skeletal structure is able to support robust musculature. Each ‘bone’ of the methodology, and how those bones fit together, provides the support necessary to hold, develop and operate the research methods, or muscles. As a methodology grows stronger, that framework is able to support and sustain a larger body of work, with stronger muscles and more robust blood flow. However, that size and strength also comes with more defined structure and rigidity of movement. It limits practice in a way that we saw Kate Coleman rejecting a methodological structure that would place limitations on defining practice. However, with more developed structure there are also more options for more varied and nuanced movement, or investigation.
In this metaphor, the methods are the muscles of the body. These are what power the actions, or outward manifestations operating in the world. They fit, to varying degrees of comfort, into the structure set by the skeleton, or methodology. They are varied — some stronger, others more flexible — and strengthen with training. Through their embodiment they are able to be analyzed and adjusted. Methods need the methodology to support and direct their action. A method flexing on its own, detached from a larger body of work, is unable to account for the motivations for its action, and unable to be in dialog with ideas and practice outside of itself. The muscles become shallow and solipsistic if disconnected from structure, and not fueled by the blood flow and part of a larger whole.
Theory, in my practice, is the blood flow to the body. It circulates through every element, feeding and activating the research. My research practice does not exist without that blood flow. It is unable to develop, to connect and to be active in the world without the nutritional support and vitality provided by the blood flow.
Praxis is the animation of the living body that integrates these elements. Studying each element as individual objects may provide useful information, but in this state the elements are lifeless and without activation in the world. Without the research elements behind it, theory giving it life, methodology providing structure and attention on the specific actions, the practice is not praxis. It does not have the same social and political motivation. In this way, I relate closely to Stacy’s premise that at the core or center of the research is action — specifically reflective, political, social action. However, that action is only made possible by attending to the entangled structures which support, shape and direct it.
This metaphor illustrates the nested and interdependent nature of different elements of my research practice. It demonstrates dynamism through a body in movement, as in Lisa’s weather map. With the body, each element is highly affected by the health, maintenance and attention to the other elements. The clear outcome of what the research produces is informed action in the world, the praxis.
REFERENCES
Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Coleman, K. & MacDonald, A. (2020). What Are Artists and Art Educators Teaching Us About How We Can Conceive and Deliver Teacher Professional Learning Into the Future?. Ferdig, R (Ed.). Baumgartner, E (Ed.). Hartshorne, R (Ed.). Kaplan-Rakowski, R (Ed.). Mouza, C (Ed.). Teaching, Technology, and Teacher Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Stories from the Field., (1), pp.13–16. AACE-Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education.
Grierson, Elizabeth, and Laura Brearley. Creative Arts Research: Narratives of Methodologies and Practices. Vol. 35. Educational Futures: Rethinking Theory and Practice. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers, 2009.
Franklin, M.I. Understanding Research: Coping with the Quantitative — Qualitative Divide. New York, NY: Routledge, 2012.
