Moving Between the Frames: Animation as a Participatory Methodology

• In Event: Roundtable Session 16
  In Roundtable Session: Making Meaning Through Art: Methodological Approaches to Arts-Based Educational Research

Abstract

This presentation makes a case for using animation as an arts-based research medium by laying a theoretical foundation and describing how we attempt to enact a Freirian notion of praxis within this methodology. We link mediating research through animation to performance and visual arts traditions in arts-based research leading us to a rationale for using animation as a qualitative research tool. We contextualize this discussion in a vignette from an ongoing ethnography to illustrate our use of animation as a research process and product. This includes viewing and discussing the five-minute research animation. We argue animation (1) facilitates the use of metaphorical imagery to vividly and emotively capture lived experiences; and (2) invites a unique audience into the research Discourse.

Authors

• Aaron Thomas Bodle, James Madison University

• Douglas J. Loveless, James Madison University