What Do Arts-Based Methods Do? A Story of (What Is) Art and Online Research With Children During a Pandemic. (September 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Spray, Julie; Fechtel, Hannah; Hunleth, Jean
• Is Part Of: Sociological research online. Volume 27:Number 3(2022)
• Page Start: 574
• Page End: 586
• Publication Date: 2022-09
• Subjects: arts-based methods -- asthma -- childhood -- pandemic; Sociology -- Periodicals; Sociology -- Methodology -- Periodicals; Sociology -- Research -- Periodicals; 301
• DOI: 10.1177/13607804211055492
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1360-7804

Abstract

This comic draws viewers behind the final product and into the process of arts-based research. Specifically, we focus on research produced over Zoom during the Covid-19 pandemic. Based on a study of asthma caregiving, we illustrate how a 10-year-old study participant, Becca, and researcher Hannah connected in embodied, sensory and material-spatial ways across digital space through the making and unmaking of art forms using simple sensory-sculptural materials (pipe cleaners, play-doh, balloons). We consider what arts-based methods do : for the participant, the researcher, their relationship, and ethical knowledge production. And we show what research processes can look like as unpredictable, messy and patient communing.