ARTS-L0108 - Methods of Gathering Qualitative Data, 07.01.2019-24.01.2019

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Artivism is a form of intervening in a process by using different creative practices.

The term came up in the course discussions so far in connection to the outcomes of qualitative research and the validation of the analysis developed from it. In dealing with methodologies to harvest and classify data, many cultural, subjective and contextual factors may affect our research questions and knowledge production. How can we claim that our research has any validity or that it actually and accurately depicts the phenomena it aims to understand ---or impact?

The binary logic between Positivism of natural sciences and complete Relativism or perspectivism is challenged in Constructionism by an idea of knowledge that both understands and acknowledges its own limits (knows that it is cultural embedded and subjectively shaped), but at the same time has rigorous procedures to account for these variables and arrive to solid descriptions of phenomena, be them social or natural or ways of intervene on it. 

In natural science this means understanding that however precise mathematical models and sophisticated instruments may be, human grasp of reality however wide is always limited ,and what is called reality is disputed by different branches or models (paradigms) of science. So, instead of presuming to have objective truth, scientist may aspire to have the more robust or best possible description (tested both analytically and empirically) in a given moment of history. 

In social sciences, and particularly in arts and education, what this means is social and cultural descriptions cannot be separated from the cultural backgrounds (and biases) of those building such descriptions. This can take a very political and postcolonial direction (the variants of which can be explored in this article) but the essential take out is the same: specific perspectives and cultural conceptions clashing cannot be ruled out, in fact the only way for a researcher to arrive to the best possible description of a behavior or social situation is to fully and properly acknowledge all the forces at play in it and to find ways of counterbalancing their impact on results. (Maria)

Once one has, as researcher, embraced the idea of "weak knowledge" or "situated knowledge" that constructionism somehow secures, how can one navigate the political and epistemological sustainability of this type of research? 

Alternatively put: once we have become aware of the power relations shaping disciplines, and colonial (or generally Eurocentric, anthropocentric, etc) perspectives shaping institutional agendas and everyday practices where research is structured, how may one find an acceptable ground (premises, methodologies) to building knowledge? The mere act of choosing or representing a phenomena or object of study, 'the other' of our interest, is bound to superimpose on them a series of philosophical or empirical categories of which we may not be even conscious of, and that have the risk of being loaded with questionable assumptions embedded in our specific cultural and political point of view.

For an overview of the anthropological discussion see "Writing Culture" (1986), by G. Marcuse and J. Clifford, a key volume for redefinitions of anthropology regarding issues such as who should do fieldwork (e.g., people “at home” in the field or “native” anthropologists); how it should be done (e.g., collaboratively, including “informants”; in a reflexive way, problematizing “culture” and being sensitive to issues of gender, race, and class; or tracing the translocal in multiple localities); what topics should be studied (e.g., the “home” countries of anthropology, Western knowledge and science, or literary practices); and how the results should be ethnographically represented (e.g., experimentally). 

This would have been an entry to share concerns on the impact our research may have on others' lifes, on a professional, personal or any other level. 

Beyond institutional protocols giving standards and procedures to guaranty ethics of research, our observation and analysis of participant's actions, circumstances and perspectives might have many kinds of consequences, some of which are foreseeable, and many that aren't. 

In that line, I think it is quite relevant to remember something from the first readings on interviews: research changes those that are part of it, and not just the participants, also the researchers. Being mindful of this impact as we design the strategies for gathering and analyzing data is quite important (or I should say, is of critical importance to my personal line of research). (Maria)

Marilyn Strathern (1999) A sense of engaging two fields (of knowledge/competence) at once, one 'out there' and another 'in academia'. "Ethnographers set themselves not just the task of comprehending the effect that certain practices and artefacts have in people's lives, but of re-creating some of those effects in teh context of writing about them."

Audrey Prost https://anthropologymatters.com/index.php/anth_matters/article/view/117/230 : 'the ‘ethnographic moment’, i.e. the moment in which the anthropologist rises to meet a revealed problematic encapsulated in a particular instance of fieldwork, may be paralleled to the experience of religious epiphany, whereby embodied and intellectual understanding of phenomena and situation come to merge, producing a totalising understanding of the field and the “afield”'.

A glossary, also known as a vocabulary or clavis, is an alphabetical list of terms in a particular domain of knowledge with the definitions for those terms. Traditionally, a glossary appears at the end of a book and includes terms within that book that are either newly introduced, uncommon, or specialized. While glossaries are most commonly associated with non-fiction books, in some cases, fiction novels may come with a glossary for unfamiliar terms.

Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary

Edit by Mirko:

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Basic a assumption that scientific descriptions of phenomena are objective representations of a reality that is 'out there'. 100% accurate, derives from observation. Involves a progressive notion of science.

Cultural beliefs have no impact on science because it proceeds according to universal reason. Proper knowledge is only that which can be empirically demonstrated or analytically proven.

Positivists might not accept qualitative methods.

Petra Hroch wrote the last chapter of the book "Deleuze and Design" that I'm reading. She says that sustainable design activism works "[...] by re-conceptualising, re-organising and deterritorialising flows of fruit, people, private property and profit, experiment with the reconfiguration of a system of deeply enmeshed social, environmental as well as economic ‘problems’ into a rich web of opportunities for the flourishing of different, more equitable, and perhaps even surprisingly fun, connections." 

From p. 232 to p.238 there are a lot of case studies. 

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Marenko, B., & Brassett, J. (2015). Deleuze and Design. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Yarn Bombing is a form of 'artivism' using yarn to partially cover objects in public spaces in an artistic way.