Comics-Based Research: Toward a Field of Scholarly Practice

• In Event: Methodologies of Comics-Based Research, or "How to Draw Comics the Scholarly Way"

Abstract

As comic books and graphic novels have rapidly gained legitimacy and popularity around the world, an increasing number of researchers in the social sciences and humanities have turned to comics as a form of scholarly inquiry. Building on the pioneering work of graphic historians and autobiographers (e.g. Spiegelman, 1986; Green, 1972), researchers from fields as diverse as history, anthropology, education, and medicine have begun using comics as a method of collecting data, analyzing the social world, and representing scholarly research (Alfonso & Ramos, 2004; Bartoszko, Leseth, & Ponomarew, 2011; Buhle, 2007; Crane-Williams, 2012). These efforts have occurred largely in isolation, based in diverse scholarly traditions including arts-based research, visual research, and narrative inquiry. However, they share an overarching commitment to the communicative, evocative, multi-layered, and analytical nature of the comics medium.

In this paper, I argue that comics-based research (CBR) should be considered a distinct, interdisciplinary field of scholarship based around a set of shared practices, concerns, and epistemological assumptions. I offer an inclusive definition of CBR that crosses disciplinary boundaries, and review common data collection, analysis, and representational practices. I then outline some of the key epistemological tenets shared by most, if not all, CBR practitioners, including: 1) the importance of visual knowledge, 2) the synergy between art and research, 3) the centering of researcher subjectivity, 4) the embracing of multiple interpretations and perspectives, and 5) narrative knowledge.

However, If CBR is to be a full-fledged field of practice, rather than just a set of related but independent projects, it will take more than individual researchers working on similar methodological issues (Boguslaw, Burns, Polycarpe, Rochlin, Weiser, 2005). It will also take the development of a community of practice: scholars who identify with one another, communicate with one another, and share knowledge and expertise. This is just beginning to take place among CBR practitioners through symposia, conferences, and publications, and this paper calls for strengthening this emerging community through increased cross-disciplinary dialogue, collaboration, and learning.

Author

• Paul Kuttner, University of Utah