Arts-Based Methods for Decolonising Participatory Research

Tiina Seppälä, Melanie Sarantou, Satu Miettinen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000392548
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Colonialism & Post-Colonialism
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In an effort to challenge the ways in which colonial power relations and Eurocentric knowledges are reproduced in participatory research, this book explores whether and how it is possible to use arts-based methods for creating more horizontal and democratic research practices.

In discussing both the transformative potential and limitations of arts-based methods, the book asks: What can arts-based methods contribute to decolonising participatory research and its processes and practices? The book takes part in ongoing debates related to the need to decolonise research, and investigates practical contributions of arts-based methods in the practice-led research domain. Further, it discusses the role of artistic research in depth, locating it in a decolonising context.

The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, design, fine arts, service design, social sciences and development studies.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 license.

1
Introduction

Arts-Based Methods for Decolonising Participatory Research

Tiina Seppälä, Melanie Sarantou and Satu Miettinen

DOI: 10.4324/9781003053408-1

The foundations of academic knowledge production are increasingly questioned and contested from a diversity of perspectives. On the one hand, academic research has suffered from a legitimacy crisis in the so-called post-truth era, which has transformed the meaning of ‘truth’ and shaken the position of scientific knowledge in society (e.g. McIntyre, 2018). On the other hand, within academia itself, a wide range of epistemological criticisms stemming from various critical approaches have emerged and are challenging conventional forms of academic knowledge production, along with its ethical premises and value base. Calls for more participatory, horizontal and democratic research practices have become widespread.

Due to what has been called the ‘participatory turn’, the growing relevance of participatory research—that is, research done in close interaction with people, groups and communities—or community-based participatory research (Leavy, 2017), has been manifested in many fields. The emergence of concepts such as collaborative research, research partnership, co-creation and co-production of knowledge is one result of this. This turn to participation has taken place simultaneously with the growing popularity of arts-based research methods, in parallel with the turn to community in the arts (Badham, 2013; Bishop, 2006; Wyatt et al., 2013), and they have also become intertwined. As a result of this, substantial contributions to the role of arts-based methods and arts-based research in participatory research have been made (e.g. Kara, 2015; Leavy, 2015, 2017, 2018; Liamputtong & Rumbold, 2008).

Arts-based methods represent a wide umbrella category under which there are many art forms, genres and practices—including visual art (painting, drawing, collages, installation art, photography, three-dimensional art, sculpture, comics, textiles, needle crafts, quilting); audio-visual art (film, video); multimedia forms (e.g., graphic novels); and performative arts (theatre, dancing, music, creative movement, poetry) (Leavy, 2018, p. 18). Even more broadly, activities such as narrative and poetic inquiry, creative writing, essays, novels, storytelling and screenwriting can be considered arts-based methods. They may also include multimethod forms that combine two or more art forms (p. 18). Arts-based methods refer to ‘any social research or human inquiry that adapts the tenets of the creative arts as a part of the methodology’ (Jones & Leavy, 2014, p. 1) and can be used in different phases of research: as methods for data collection, in analytical processes and in interpretation and wider dissemination of research outcomes as communicative or aesthetic elements (Leavy, 2015). Creativity in research is context-specific—it depends on the knowledge, skills and abilities of those involved and where the research is conducted (Kara, 2015). Some researchers understand arts-based research as a paradigm (Gerber et al., 2018, p. 13; Leavy, 2015).

The potential and benefits of arts-based methods for participatory research have been discussed widely. Studies have explored, for example, the role of art in participa-tory development (e.g. Cleveland, 2011; Coemans et al., 2015; Michelkevičius, 2019), fostering plurality through social design methodologies (Akama & Yee, 2016), collaborative design where power relations are more equally distributed (Sanders & Stappers, 2008) and participatory service design which looks at service production from the user’s point of view (Miettinen & Vuontisjärvi, 2016). A plethora of arts-based methods are used in various practices, as illustrated by studies in areas of education (e.g. Baden & Wimpenny, 2014; Barone, 1995; Cahnmann-Taylor, 2013; Cahnmann-Taylor & Siegesmund, 2017; Kamler, 2013; Savin-Baden & Major, 2013), health (e.g. Boydell et al., 2012; Fraser & al Sayah, 2011; Wang, 1999) and arts therapy (Chilton & Scotti, 2014; Coholic et al., 2009; Connellan, 2019; Ledger & Edwards, 2011; McNiff, 1998).

While the participatory turn has been embraced for its transformative potential, it has been also critically discussed from various perspectives. It has been argued that more attention should be paid to the questions of power, diversity and intersectionality, as well as decolonising participatory research (e.g. Baum et al., 2006; Cooke & Kothari, 2000; Eubanks, 2009; Genat, 2009; Gill et al., 2012; Hickey & Mohan, 2004; Kincheloe, 2009; Schurr & Segebart, 2012; Sherwood & Kendall, 2013; Tol-hurst et al., 2012; Tuck & Fine, 2007; Zavala, 2013). As noted by Kassem (2019), decolonising participatory research can benefit from critical methodologies and interdisciplinary work. Our book seeks to continue the important work that has been done in this regard, focusing especially on the potential of arts-based methods for contesting hierarchies in research, increasing multivocality, and developing new and more transparent forms of participatory research.

The aim of the book is to explore how arts-based methods can be utilised in developing better research practices—for doing research that supports the perspectives, needs and interests of the research participants in their place-based and cultural contexts. While engaging in ongoing, lively discussions on the need to decolonise research, we draw on postcolonial, decolonial and other critical perspectives, as well as their cross-disciplinary intersections. We ask questions such as: Can arts-based methods contribute to decolonising participatory research, its processes and practices—and if yes, how, under what conditions and on whose terms? How can arts-based methods, for example, challenge hierarchies, foster pluralism, increase multivocality and facilitate dialogue in research? What practical, political and communal issues need to be considered when designing arts-based processes and participatory activities from a decolonising perspective? What kinds of tensions, ethical issues and concerns arise when using arts-based methods in participatory research? How can they be addressed? We pay attention, for instance, to questions of representation, authorship and ownership created and shared through participatory artistic processes, research ethics and practical artistic production. We seek to present new perspectives, methods and processes to promote as well as to problematise the use of arts-based methods for decolonising participatory research—that is, we explore both the transformative potential and the challenges and limitations of arts-based methods.

Our main focus lies in the interface between social sciences, service design and art, but we also reflect on the recent discourse concerning the need to decolonise design (Akama & Yee, 2016; Chaturvedi & Rehn, 2019; Jansen, 2019; Pissarra, 2011; Raghuram et al., 2009; Tunstall, 2013; Yamamoto, 2018), which is underpinned by the values of postcolonial and feminist theories in design practices. Design innovation has been criticised for sustaining colonial and imperialistic ways. As an example, Tunstall (2013) discusses how the ascendant influence of design innovation practices is reflected through the segregation of traditional craft and modern design, which ignores other intrinsic forms of design innovation amongst local communities. Additionally, a perception of design thinking is maintained as ‘a progressive narrative of global salvation’, which undermines alternative ways of reasoning, knowing and becoming (p. 235). Too strong of a focus on European, Euro-American and Japanese design and the development of solutions at the level of prototypes further limits the positive impact that design can have on communities. The effect of design on communities is illustrated in the way designers in India and Africa, for example, have creatively responded to challenges within their communities, which are often underpinned by hegemonic processes of capitalism and (neo)colonialism (p. 236). Decolonising design, through practices and thinking, seeks to question dominant narratives and relationships of power that perpetuate delocalised and disembodied perspectives of the Global North/West and eliminate other ways of knowing (Tlostanova, 2017; Venn, 2006). While there already exist some good discussions on the theme of decolonising design, the debate can benefit from practical examples and case studies.

It needs to be noted that debates on decolonising through arts-based methods are not a recent phenomenon, but draw on a longer history. Since the early 1980s, Wa Thiong’o (1992/1981) commenced his discussions on the role of the arts on the decolonisation of the mind. For him, decolonisation represented an ‘ongoing process’ that is ‘based on a critical view of the self that emerges from states of not knowing, hearing or seeing’. He reflected on the role of fiction, drama and poetry as ways to reconnect with broken roots of the past: first, by looking at the past critically and, second, by helping build healthy societies (pp. 42, 57, 60, 63). Other postcolonial scholars have also reflected on the role of arts-based methods in decolonising. For instance, for Mbembe (2016), they offer avenues for overcoming the ‘dualistic partition’ or ‘split between mind and body, nature and culture’ and opportunities for embracing ‘a horizontal strategy of openness to dialogue among different epistemic positions’ (pp. 37, 42).

Conceptual Clarifications

Decolonisation itself has been defined in many different ways and for many different purposes. Traditionally, it has referred to formal decolonisation, to the process in which the colonial powers, principally European nations and their administrators, were compelled to give up, whether voluntarily or by force, their overseas possessions in various regions (e.g. Le Sueur, 2003). While this process usually required armed resistance on behalf of the colonised, the debates about psychological decolonisation—that is, about the destruction of socially and culturally constructed mental structures and discursive hierarchies which tried to produce the colonised as inferior to the ‘civilised’ coloniser—were also central to these struggles (e.g. Fanon, 1963/1961). Over time, the meaning of the concept has expanded beyond these particular decolonisation processes, and it now refers to a variety of different ways in which colonial/ity and hierarchical relations of power that characterise the present world order and societies might be undone and replaced in different spheres of contemporary life, including education, media, economy and political systems, as well as science and academic knowledge (see e.g. Laako, 2016).

With respect to science and academic knowledge, knowledge processes and knowing subjects, decolonisation usually entails both critique and the visioning of alternatives. Firstly, criticism of the way in which colonial power relations and Eurocentric forms of knowledge are reproduced in Western epistemologies and their claims to objective and value-free science. Secondly, it has the aim of creating alternative theories, methodologies and epistemological inquiries to open new, less Eurocentric forms of knowing and inquiry to support the perspectives and political projects of the colonised and/or subaltern layers of the society. We are aware that, in recent years, decolonising has become something of a trendy buzzword within Western academia, one that too often serves as a metaphor instead of contributing to concrete practices of decolonisation, which is also illustrated in debates around decolonising knowledge production. As Tuck and Yang (2012) argue, ‘when a metaphor invades decolonisation, it kills the very possibility of decolonisation; it recenters whiteness, it resettles theory, it extends innocence to the settler, it entertains a settler future’ (p. 3). Therefore, it has been emphasised that decolonising knowledge should be regarded as a means to end colonisation, not as an end in itself (Essen et al., 2017). Yet, the extent to which it is possible to contribute to decolonisation through research is very much debated, especially when taking place within the Eurocentric academia. As McEwan (2019) states, ‘scholars located in the North face a double bind: decolonization as a force to dismantle the power structures of modernity can never be achieved from within its own theoretical orthodoxies and infrastructures’ (p. 91).

This relates also to critical discussions about the differences and tensions between postcolonial and decolonial perspectives. While postcolonial theory struggles against ‘epistemic coloniality’, critiquing Eurocentric knowledge production based on European traditions and experiences; that is, ‘a particular anthropological knowledge, which is a process of knowing about Others—but a process that never fully acknowledges these Others as thinking and knowledge-producing subjects’ (Mbembe, 2016, p. 16), decolonial theory rather ‘attempts to envisage alternatives to European traditions and experiences and demands that decolonizing efforts go beyond critique and towards the removal of enduring forms of colonial domination’ (McEwan, 2019, p. 91). Many theorists consider these approaches incommensurable. For example, Mignolo (2007) regards postcolonial theory as a ‘project of scholarly transformation within the academy’ grounded in the Eurocentric post-structural theory of Foucault, Derrida and others, which remains within the confines of the modernist, Eurocentric project even when critiquing it (p. 452).

Indeed, decolonial thinkers differentiate their work from postcolonial theory in several ways. In discussing modernity/coloniality, they start with the Conquest of the Americas in 1492 instead of the European Enlightenment. This means that although postcolonialism and decoloniality have ‘both emerge[d] out of political developments contesting the colonial world order established by European empires’, their understanding of the historical basis of this emergence differs in terms of geographical location and time period (Bhambra, 2014, p. 119). Instead of academic institutions, many decolonial scholars build on the wo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: Arts-Based Methods for Decolonising Participatory Research
• Section I Co-Creation, Collaboration, Movement
• Section II Participatory Service Design
• Section III Artistic Research and Practice
• Index