New Book on Method and Methodology in Artistic Research

The moment is almost there: Tuesday next week, during the symposium “What Methods Do” at the Textile Museum in Tilburg, organised by the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) at Leiden University, my new book on method and methodology in artistic research will be presented. The title of the book is Method, Methodology and Research Design in Artistic Research. Between Solid Routes and Emergent Pathways, published by Routledge.

See here for the full programme of the symposium.

I am beyond grateful (and relieved!) that this moment has finally come, after having worked on this for so long. The project started with my work at the HKU Professorship Performative Processes (Nirav Christophe), which led to a two-year postdoctoral research on method and methodology in artistic research. This research was funded by the SIA Postdoc programme, hosted by HKU University of the Arts Utrecht, and supervised by Judi Marshall and Marcel Cobussen. At the end of the postdoc trajectory, after having contributed two chapters to the Routledge International Handbook of Practice-Based Research under the wonderful editorship of Craig Vear, Routledge asked me if I could imagine turning the chapter I wrote on method and methodology into a full book. And after an initial phase of hesitation (“Does this work provide enough substance for this?”) I decided to give the idea a go. Now, almost three years later, the book in finally here. And, what I am most happy about is that we are able to publish the book in full Open Access, due to a generous funding for Open Access publishing from NWO, the Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research. This means that the intended readers, most of them postgraduate students, are actually enabled to read and work with the book without financial costs.

For a brief summary of the book, see below.

Method, Research Design and Methodology in Artistic Research: Between Solid Routes and Emergent Pathways

Between Solid Routes and Emergent Pathways offers an approach to method, research design and methodology of research in and through the arts. It spans the process from initial research design, ongoing and continuous decisions that need to be made while designing and carrying out research up to the analysis and reflection on this process when finished, including the philosophical considerations and groundings of the methodological decisions. Transdisciplinary in scope, this is not just a book “about”, but “to work with” methodology, supporting both seasoned and early career researchers, as well as supervisors in graduate, post graduate and doctoral education contexts.

Drawing on a huge body of experience, examples of renowned artist researchers in the international field, as well as on contemporary posthumanist and new materialist philosophy and methodological literature in the humanities and social sciences in particular, the conceptual core of the book is the author’s Common Ground model for research design: This model suggests a flexible approach both for the overall research design and for the from-scratch design of distinct methods. This means in particular to provide space for the unknown, and for the occasional messiness of research in and through the arts; the book provides a thorough exploration of the emergent aspects and unforeseen paths that come up during a research trajectory.

Different elements such as exercises or design questions, spread throughout the book, support the reader in order to literally work with its content and therefore learn not only through reading and digesting, but through applying the content to one’s own questions and research projects.

See here for more information on how to order to book or to get access to the Open Access version.