Drawing in Qualitative Research: Remaking Social Worlds

• In Event: 078 - Section on Sociology of Culture Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 08. Symbols and Boundaries

Abstract

This paper focuses on how drawing might be used in research. It looks mainly at four possibilities: collecting and analysing participants’ drawings; analysing drawings together with other data; producing images in the field and drawing as an analytic strategy. It also illustrates the ways in which drawings from archives or other paper and digital media can be valuable secondary data.
The data come from multiple projects. The first two drawings are from a study of how people display things at home. The next is from a project about how people organize workplaces through everyday actions and things. The fourth, by a PhD student, shows how complex ideas can be thought through and expressed graphically. The final drawings are iconic images used and debated for over 200 years. The method has multiple uses. It will be of interest to those that have a) projects involving drawing during fieldwork: to spend time in a research site and/or to engage with participants; b) researchers working with children and groups who do not share a first language – for example, non-verbal knowledges or concepts that are difficult to articulate only through words; and c) researchers conducting ethnographic or multi-modal projects. The practice of drawing makes us vulnerable; it changes our habitus as embodied, reflexive researchers, and rebalances power relations between the ‘expert’ and the research participant. Accompanying the paper (for the conference) is a book of drawings made by participants in a one day workshop, with a short commentary.

Author

• Rachel Hurdley, Cardiff University