Essential Creativity in Feminist Research

• In Event: 29.090 - Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: 29.090-26 - (Fem)Powered!? Inquiry Together

Abstract

The purpose of this presentation is to illustrate how creativity can be incorporated into feminist methodology. Both the feminist focus and the creative response to the needs of the participants address the social justice theme of this conference. Feminist theory privileges the voices and lived experiences of women and aims to balance power between participants and researchers (Hesse-Biber, 2014). Researchers practice reflexivity, whereby they “examine, and understand how their social background, location, and assumptions and influence the research” (Hesse-Biber, 2014, p.3). However, little research is available on the importance of creativity in methodology to better capture meaning in lived experiences of women. Using an inductive approach to the study of feminism around us, we were able to more fully understand how patriarchy impacted our lives. Creativity enabled us to delve deeper so that an inclusive understanding can be found of how patriarchy impacts our lived experiences.

Methods
This particular paper draws on the work we did with the photos. The creative element of our analysis began once we shared the photos. We reflected on our own contributions, explored how each person portrayed their experiences and noted patterns. We constantly used reflexivity and asked ourselves what we saw as important. From our reflections, we created new techniques to address our questions and interpret the meaning. This included writing poetry and autobiographical sketches, as well as responding to interview questions. The process helped us check our assumptions, assisted in triangulation, and provided information toward understanding implicit and explicit assumptions about feminism and patriarchy.

Dialogue Points
Our creative approaches helped us address problems of validity. For example, we were initially surprised by the dearth of photos showing powerful women. However, our initial questions encouraged us to seek out patriarchy. Collecting autobiographical sketches and poetry elicited a deeper collection of examples women’s strength. In this way we can get a better understanding of how patriarchy impacts their lives.

Significance
From these results, we argue that feminist research should include creativity. The approach builds upon existing modes of inductive inquiry and brings extra dimensions to the findings. It relates to previous work on creativity in methodology, especially aspects of Creative Analytical Practice (CAP), popularized by the feminist researcher Laurel Richardson (see Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005). Researchers who use these techniques from areas such as narrative, poetry, fiction and performance “ recognize that these progressive data representations are often more effective at relaying the story that needs to be told” (Berbary, 2011, p.186).Since our work was creative, we were not tethered to a specific process, which enables us to formulate the best approach to answer our research questions. This study provides groundwork for future research into how creativity can enhance feminist methodology.

Authors

• Gina Gabriele Mosier, Indiana University - Bloomington

• Robin Jones, Indiana University