Description
'Drawing, Life, Story', Keynote Presentation'For some scholars, drawing is characterized by its subjective nature: its ‘awkwardness, resistance to ‘conventional’ subject matter and to academic style’ (Petherbridge, 2010). Whilst there are quantitative and textually-dominated qualitative research traditions that struggle to acknowledge or accommodate drawing either as a meaningful, generative activity, or as stable or legitimate data, multidisciplinary and experimental approaches within life history and arts-informed research have opened up a different set of perspectives. If, as Cole and Knowles (2007) argue, ‘Life is lived and knowledge made through kitchen table conversations … in the imaginative spaces created between the lines of a good book or an encounter with an evocative photograph’, what about the doodles embellishing the margins of a meeting agenda, a hand-drawn birthday card, the drawing created in the personal analogue – or digital - diary on a particular day? Can we use drawing in our ‘research’, and if so, how? How do we place it in relation to the uniqueness of the individual creator and the various contexts in which the drawing might be placed and understood? Touching on examples from both professional and the non-professional individuals, this session will offer initial and exploratory thoughts on whether drawing can be viewed as a ‘unique’ resource or tool for life history.
| Period | 6 Jun 2014 |
|---|---|
| Held at | University of Sussex, United Kingdom |
| Degree of Recognition | Regional |
Keywords
- Drawing
- Life history