All the World’s A Stage: Ethnodrama as Critical Qualitative Research

• In Event: Light a Fire and Watch It Burn: Disruptive Qualitative Methods in Education Research

Abstract

In Method Meets Art: Arts-Based Research Practice (2020), Patricia Leavy details the synergistic energies of the arts and qualitative research. Writing in qualitative research, like artistic work, is about (re)presenting meanings to an audience. Both aim to illuminate, build understanding, or challenge assumptions, seek to reveal aspects of the social world, portray people sensitively, develop new sociohistorical insights, and disrupt dominant narratives. In short, Leavy argues that the arts offer researchers a broader range of tools to investigate and communicate social meanings.
Ethnodrama, an arts-based method, can be a powerful disruptive vehicle for qualitative practitioners. Ethnodrama is a combination of ethnography and drama, where a written play script is created from ethnographic or autoethnographic data collection. Saldaña (2016) states that goal of ethnodrama is “to investigate a particular facet of the human condition for purposes of adapting those observations and insights into a performance medium” (pp. 12-13). Plays have long been used to capture the human experience in cathartic ways, and the artistic capabilities of drama can leveraged to document and present findings and insights of lived realities (Saldaña, 2016).

Author

• John Samuels, Kennesaw State University