In my original research proposal I outlined the following methods for my research project:
participatory action research
quantitative research surveys
qualitative research interviews
Part of the process of the first few months of the PhD is to do further reading into your research topic, the existing literature, and your proposed research methods, in order to refine your project. I've participated in some brilliant training sessions in various research methods and methodological frameworks and have realised that the research methods I first proposed probably aren’t quite right for the research questions I wish to answer. At first this was quite distressing (I did spend 18 months writing that proposal, after all!) but apparently it’s all a natural part of the PhD process.
I recently attended a training session with the SRA (Social Research Association) in Participatory Action Research which, although it affirmed my feelings that this is an excellent research method, made me realise it’s not, in its purest form, the right one for me. I do think there will be participatory elements to my research but a pure PAR project it is not. I've also been researching extensively into arts-based research methods. These probably appeal to me partly because of my long career in the creative industries, but also anecdotally from the conversations I've had with cancer patients that to carry out something creative such as drawing, writing, poetry etc can elicit a deeper connection with one's own emotions. This week I also participated in a training session on embodied inquiry and I finally feel as though my thoughts are crystallising about my eventual direction.
Before I share with you my current thinking on my research methods (with the caveat that these may still change further) I thought it might be useful to outline some of the methods I’ve been learning about and why I feel they’re right/not right for my project. Ultimately, the methods have to serve the research questions, so that’s what I’ve been going back to. Thus far, my research questions haven’t changed, and they are:
This research will ask:
1. Sexual selfhood post-treatment
How do people living with and beyond cancer account for their embodied sexual selves?
How does hegemonic cancer culture marginalise certain sexed and gendered bodies, or sexual orientations, and how does this impact sexual selfhood?
2. The medicalisation of sexuality
To what extent do UK-based medical teams engage with the topic of patients’ sexual health; what impact does this have on sexual selfhood in those living with and beyond cancer?
How might we explore feminist, patient-led alternatives to the established norms of sexual function and ‘quality of life’ measures in social medicine?
3. The impact and potential of creative interventions
How does art help survivors make meaning of their experiences and impact their sense of a sexual self?
How do specific creative interventions impact on an individual’s embodied and affective sense of sexual self-concept?
So, with these in mind, let’s do a dive into some different research methods and methodological frameworks.
Participatory Action Research
PAR is more an approach than a research method, really, and it’s specifically an approach to qualitative research. It involves the research participants working together with the researcher to examine a problematic situation and create action to effect change. It challenges the traditional academic dynamic of ‘researcher/researched’ as the researcher is also a participant, and the research participants are also involved in the act of creating knowledge.
What I like about PAR is that it’s about an approach to research which is not ‘extractive’ - as a researcher I’m not simply extracting knowledge from my participants, but I have a duty of care towards them, and I’m giving them an element of agency in the research process. It appeals to my sense of social justice that the ethos of PAR is about affecting change - challenging things that are unfair in society and bringing about some kind of transformation. PAR also aligns nicely with creative research methods which I’ll come to in a moment.
However, once I got into the finer details of PAR, and its use in a stricter sense, I realised that I’m unlikely to use this approach in its purest form. I have a clear sense already of several elements of my project, so it wouldn’t be 100% participatory, as participants will not be fully deciding my direction or methods. I am also not sure about the ethics of requiring my research participants to have such a high level of involvement in every stage of the project. I’m asking them to talk about potentially sensitive or even traumatic parts of their lives. I don’t necessarily want to insist that they’re involved in every element, but instead give them the opportunity to step back when they want. It also sounds incredibly labour-intensive to keep participants engaged for the duration of a PAR project, and I think the full belt-and-braces PAR approach is beyond the scope of a PhD. But while I won’t fully engage the cyclical, iterative PAR methods, I will involve some participatory elements to my project, which I’ll outline below.
Creative research methods
It feels obvious that I would turn to creative research methods given my long career within the creative industries. The more I learn about different arts-based research methods, the more instinctively I feel this is the direction I have to take. There are so many ways this can manifest itself, and I haven’t landed on the actual artform yet, but I plan to meet with several artist practitioners and made a decision soon.
Arts-based research is particularly useful for topics which are associated with high levels of emotion. Time and time again, people I speak to who have had cancer, tell me they find themselves more able to reach deeper levels of emotional understanding about their experiences when they’re engaged in some kind of creative act. I felt it myself when writing my masters thesis. By writing about my experiences with cancer it helped me to process and make sense of what I’d been through, and this aligns with many research studies from the past which show that writing about trauma helps to reduce the chances of it leading to PTSD. Someone I spoke with only a couple of weeks ago described some art therapy she’d participated in, where she had to draw herself as a tree, and then describe the tree to the therapist. She tapped into deeper insights than she would have done if they’d just been chatting in a room without the artistic stimulus. So if I can find the right artform and the right artist facilitator to run one or two workshops with my participants, I think this is the way to go.
I will also think about how to use creativity in the gathering, analysis and dissemination stages of my research. Thinking creatively helps us to look at the world in different ways, and the research has the potential to be more transformative to those who participate. This is a key objective for me, so I will make sure I consider this before my fieldwork begins.
Embodied research
This field overlaps nicely with arts-based research, and again I’m drawn to it instinctively. Embodied research seeks to transcend the Cartesian mind-body dualism, which I have mentioned here before, which is a philosophical stance which separates the mind from the body. So much of what we do in academia is situated within the ‘mind’, not taking the body into account, and even discounting anything that the body contributes to the research. And so much of what is done in medicine is ‘to’ the body, not taking the mind into account. When I interview my research participants, I’m interested in their sense of self - how they view themselves as embodied subjects, and in particular their relationship with their embodied sense of sexuality post-treatment. I want to ground the research in bodies, bring people back into their bodies, or more correctly, acknowledge that their experiences come from their ‘mind-bodies’, or their whole selves. I’m still working out what this will look like in practice, but I’d like to ensure I use embodied inquiry for the data generation, analysis and dissemination stages. I also need to be mindful that when talking about potentially traumatic subjects, this could be a challenging approach, but I do feel as though it has the potential to be truly transformative.
My research methods
My current thinking is that I will use arts-based research methods within a queer feminist methodological framework, using an embodied approach with some participatory elements. I’ll take a dynamic, multi-modal approach to my analysis. In practice, this will look something like:
Initial 1:1 research interviews, semi-structured around specific life history moments
Code interviews using thematic analysis and draw out themes to inform the workshops
Run one or two arts-based workshops with groups of participants (artform/s TBC)
Follow up with additional 1:1 interviews using the artefacts created in the workshops to inform the research interview design
Potentially also use the themes to crowd-source responses to stimuli on social media among target audience
Present initial findings back to participants and/or groups of other people living with and beyond cancer to test validity of findings and to further refine conclusions
Step 6 is particularly important to me as a feminist researcher, as I embrace “knowledge as situated, partial, constructed, multiple, embodied and enmeshed in power relations” (Ellingson 2009). While Knowledge Exchange occurs at multiple points along the journey, this moment is where I empower participants to shape the way I tell their stories, and is the moment which ensures my research is not simply extractive. I also feel it will help cement the transformation which will hopefully have been facilitated by this whole approach.
I’m feeling much clearer about my research methods and keen to back this up with a more in-depth look at some of the fields of literature. I’ll share with you the results of my reading as I go along. Would love to hear anyone’s thoughts or experiences with any of these methods or methodological frameworks.