Realising the potential of collaborative arts-based research

This research seeks to develop and realise the potential of a 'collaborative poetics' methodology, through the activities of an inter-disciplinary working group of: scholars from the social sciences, arts, humanities and business; independent arts practitioners; and representatives from local government and third sector groups.

Collaborative Poetics was founded in a promising National Centre for Research Methods-funded pilot at McGill University, which used poetry to enrich understandings of discrimination experiences (Johnson et al, 2017 a,b). It is a transformative, participatory, arts-based research method, which draws on expertise from artists and academics to facilitate participatory research.

Co-researchers use the approach to explore and illuminate real-world social problems, in ways which are theoretically/methodologically robust, innovative and accessible/meaningful to a wide audience.