Searching for accessible examples of creative analysis

In the ‘Creativity in Research’ webinar we delivered in 2021, we presented examples of our own creative research methods. We spoke about the ways in which we had found, unearthed, and stumbled towards or across approaches to doing data analysis creatively within the context of particular projects. Although we knew that many researchers were already doing data analysis creatively, we saw that some people were struggling for permission to do things differently as well as seeking to find formal writing on the subject. We were struck by a realisation that many were looking for usable examples of doing data analysis differently; for practical resources that they could pick up and apply; and for texts that could describe, simply, how creative approaches have been undertaken and to what effect epistemologically, methodologically, and substantively.

This search for formal writing on the subject reflects an appetite for learning from others and we are confident that creative methods of analysis will become central to new developments in research in the coming years, not least because the move towards transdisciplinary research requires the kinds of development, adaptation, and mixing of methods found in this book. The idea of being engaged in a search also captures something of our intent as editors of this collection. We recognise that we need this handbook as surely as those who attended the webinar and many of those who have contributed chapters have told us that they need this handbook too.

One directive we gave to all authors in preparing their chapters was to outline a case example of a method of analysis in enough detail for another researcher to be able to use their approach. The authors all made serious attempts to deliver on this request and each chapter provides some form of ‘map’ of the journey taken. Ingold (2011, p 204) argues that maps are often more useful in ‘revealing the inner reality of the world’ than providing some coherent view of its ‘outer surface’. We believe that that the chapters in this collection do both and we see how researchers have had to struggle to find an approach that they can live with themselves, but which will also be seen as acceptable in their institutional and disciplinary context.