Engaged, collaborative, creative and participatory arts-based methods can fire processes of critical unmaking and remaking.
The objects and other creative outputs in this online exhibition were created through a series of workshops that use of symbols, metaphors and other modes of poetic thinking and making. They were part of a broader research ethnographic action research approach that embraced visual, participatory and creative methods1, 2, 3, 4.
Story-based, visual and metaphorical methods have both affective power and analytical power. Building on the notion of ‘metaphoric precision’5, Foster states that ‘nothing is more precise than the artistic use of language’ 6. Metaphors and allegories create entry points to non-Western ways of knowing, challenging the assumed binaries between real and unreal, and between realities and fictions, inherent in conventional, Eurocentric social science7. They also recognise and recover Indigenous knowledge systems, which often weaves wisdom and analysis through proverbs, metaphors and stories. Metaphors and stories offer the possibility or an immersion into the worlds of others, and an insistence that we listen.
Mapping, symbols, metaphors, poetic thinking, dance and theatre were used in workshops and in conferences to explore the research questions.
In Making Metaphors workshops, participants are encouraged to think about a metaphor for a concept or experience, or an idea how things could be different in the future, and create it as a 3D model using craft materials. We gave prompts, including: ‘development projects are like…’ ‘donors are like…’ ‘sustainable development is like…’, ‘in the future, development will be like…’. Playing creatively with physical materials in combination with stories creates time and space for critical, analytical and creative thinking. The first phase workshops involved practitioners working in local NGOs in India and Malawi. A second round of workshops was led by co-researchers in Malawi, engaging people from four rural communities they have long-standing relationships with.
Interested in using the Making Metaphors technique?
A Research Guide has been produced and is freely available under the Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0 licence. You are free to use, adapt and share this resource for non-commercial purposes, provided you acknowledge this source.
Noske-Turner, J., Akambadi, J., Makina, L. (2024) Making Metaphors Workshops: Research Guide. Loughborough University. Online resource. https://doi.org/10.17028/rd.lboro.25226756.v2
References
- Tacchi, J. Ethnographic action research: Media, information and communicative ecologies for development initiatives. SAGE Handb. action Res. 220–229 (2015). ↩︎
- Gubrium, A. & Harper, K. Participatory Visual and Digital Research in Theory and Practice. in Participatory Visual and Digital Methods (eds. Gubrium, A. & Harper, K.) (Routledge, 2016). ↩︎
- Kara, H. Creative research methods: A practical guide. (Policy Press, 2020). ↩︎
- Foster, V. Collaborative arts-based research for social justice. (Routledge, 2015). ↩︎
- Eisner, E. W. Rethinking Literacy. Educ. Horizons 69, 120–128 (1991). ↩︎
- Foster, V. Collaborative arts-based research for social justice. (Routledge, 2015) ↩︎
- Law, J. After method: Mess in social science research. (Psychology Press, 2004). ↩︎