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Innovative and Creative Methods to Study Family Life
Abstract Submissions Closed
RC06 Family Research (host committee)
Language: English
Session Type: Oral
Creative and innovative methods, such as arts-based research and new digital methods, have been used by sociologists to address increasingly complex and multifaceted questions about social life (Kara, 2015). For example, studying transnational families, digital technologies and family dynamics, or family and consumption practices, requires approaches that push the methodological boundaries. Additionally, current attempts to give voice to children, older adults, and vulnerable groups, as well as to decolonize methodology have also engaged more openly with creative and innovative approaches – from working creatively with existing methods to developing new techniques and instruments (see Smith, 2013). This session will showcase methodological and empirical work that provides an informed and critical examination of the topic. In particular, we invite contributions that address both opportunities and challenges of creative and innovative methods. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:
• Arts-based research (e.g., performance arts)
• Digital methods (e.g., netnography, online survey research, VR)
• Usability and accessibility testing (e.g., Think Aloud, multi-methods)
• Participatory research (e.g., co-design)
• Creative storytelling
• Photo-elicitation
• Socio-spatial methods (e.g., socio-spatial network games, emotion maps)
• Crystallization methodology
• Gamification
• Mixed methods
• Creative approaches to existing methods
• New research instruments
• Ethical approaches (e.g., micro-ethics/ethics-in-practice)
• Epistemology, ontology, & axiology.
References:
Kara, H. (2015). Creative research methods in the social sciences: A practical guide. Policy Press.
Smith, L. T. (2013). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. Zed Books.