Speculative Fiction as Arts-Based Research

• In Event: 32.051 - Novel Approaches to Arts-Based Educational Research

Abstract

Objectives/Purposes

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the usefulness of speculative fiction as research method in educational research.

Theoretical Framework

In this presentation, I incorporate Leavy’s (2013) notion of fiction as research practice, along with Richardson's (1997) conceptualization of writing as a form of inquiry to explore the use of speculative fiction as research method. Speculative fiction may be defined as imaginings of alternative or other worlds, beginning with the question, what if?, what if society looked very different than our present social world (Gullion 2014; Thomas 2013). This type of writing is a "thought experiment," in that authors pose a sociological question through the manipulation of an aspect of the social world (Passell 2013).

Mode of Inquiry

Long recognized as method in anthropology (Gullion and Shaefer, forthcoming), speculative fiction allows the researcher to explore alternate social worlds to imagine and describe possibilities of social life. In this presentation, I will draw on my own novel to demonstrate how researchers can engage students in both the reading and writing of speculative fiction as epistemology.

Evidence

In addition to offering my own experiences, I include student feedback from courses in which I have used speculative fiction. I thus offer both an example of speculative fiction as method and student response to this method.

Results

Speculative fiction opens up opportunities for scholars to imagine alternative worlds. Through our imaginings, we can create possibilities for social change. Students respond favorably to this approach, and it can also be used to both collect and write up data.

Significance

Use of speculative fiction as method gives researchers another tool in their methodological toolbox. This presentation will be of particular interest to qualitative scholars. As Thomas (2013: 4) writes, “SF and speculative fiction are idea genres for confronting the nature of text, genre, medium, and reading, providing students and teachers rich and complex avenues for reading and rereading the world, writing and rewriting the world as well as creating classrooms that honor teacher/student and student/teacher dynamics.”


References

Gullion, Jessica 2014. October Birds: A Novel about Pandemic Influenza, Infection Control, and Emergency Responders. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Gullion, Jessica, and Lisa Shaefer. Forthcoming. "An Overview of ABR in Sociology, Anthropology, and Psychology." In The Handbook of Arts Based Methods, ed by P Leavy. New York: Guilford Press. In press.

Leavy, Patricia. 2013. Fiction as Research Practice: Short Stories, Novellas, and Novels. London: Routledge.

Passell, Aaron. 2013. "SF Novels and Sociological Experimentation: Examining Real World Dynamics through Imaginative Displacement." Pp 59-72 in Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction: Challenging Genres, ed by PL Thomas. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Richardson, Laurel. 1997. Fields of Play: constructing an Academic Life. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Thomas, P.L. 2013. "Introduction." Pp 1-14 in Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction: Challenging Genres, ed by PL Thomas. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Author

• Jessica Smartt Gullion, Texas Woman's University