Traditional research teaching “…tend(s) to encourage commitments to particular methodologies prior to the start of research projects. But the order is important, because methods always presuppose ontology, that is, they assume a particular philosophy about how ‘the furniture of the world’ is arranged.” [p.2 in Murris (2021)]
My research question poses some fundamental challenges in terms of understanding something as complex as belonging, yet alone measuring it. I find quantification increasing difficult; everything is reduced to code, to data and measurable outputs. Seb Franklin[1] identifies these mechanisms as driven by digitality, and identifies control as the underlying logic.
I am instinctively at odds with both quantitative and qualitative methods (such as thematic analysis) as every attempt at encoding something is that Karen Barad would term a ‘Cartesian cut’ that excludes something else, rather than an agential cut that draws a boundary within. As such I feel more at home in what I am starting to understand about postqualitative research, which is built on Karen Barad’s agential realism, whilst drawing heavily on Harraway, Deleuze, Foucault and others. Last year, I worked with colleagues to frame the newly revalidated 2Y BA Fine Art curriculum around some of Barad’s key ideas, for example, Unit 5 is called Intra-Action (the unit I was teaching whilst undertaking this research).
Karen Murris articulates post-qualitative “knowledge-making as an open, affirmative, joyful and political practice… reframing scholar-activism as a matter of response-ability to the world’s aliveness in ways which contest the deadening grip of quantification, measurement, competition and individualism that marks the audit cultures of academia” [p.39 in Murris (2021)]. Post-qualitative research embraces and creates space for uncertainty, complexity, messiness, embracing the in-becoming, emergent and unpredictable, understanding everything through shifting sets of relations. This is in line with an intersectional feminist approach. As Barthes used to state before every lecture:
“Method = phallic mindset of attack and defense (“will,” “decision,” “premeditation,” “going straight ahead,” etc.) vs. Non-method: mindset of the journey, of extreme mutability (flitting, gleaning). We’re not following a path; we’re presenting our findings as we go along.” [in Reed (2020)]
In her analysis of Barthes’ quote, Reed identifies the role that practice-based research plays. “This correlates strongly with discussions around practice-based, practice-informed, practice-led, and practice-related forms of research, where methods are often emergent, discovered through the practice of the research, developed in specific response to working with particular materials, evidence, data or people, over time.” [Reed (2020)]
As an artist this makes so much sense to me and feels very distinct to the more linear design methodologies (such as the Action Research cycle) that come out of the social sciences.
Here’s to not following a path but pursuing a tentacular and complex enquiry.
447 words
See ARP Blog 3: Methods & Non-Methods Blog post.
References:
Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham: Duke University Press.
Franklin, S. (2015). Control : digitality as cultural logic. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Mit Press.
Kleinman A. (2012) Intra-Action – Interview with Karen Barad pp.77-81 in Mousse Magazine 34. Mousse magazine. Milano: Mousse.
Murris, K. (2021). Navigating the postqualitative, new materialist and critical posthumanist terrain across disciplines : an introductory guide. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Reed, S (2020) Method in Principles — Practising Ethics (2020) [online] Available at: https://www.practisingethics.org/principles#method [Accessed 10 Jan. 2026].