CFP: Blurring the Lines between Research, Theory, and Action: Arts-Based Research in the Anthropocene

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Call for Posts

Proposal Deadline: March 7th, 2023

Series Publication: Spring 2023

The climate crises that define the Anthropocene have led to traumatic experiences, such as loss of connection to one’s land, disappearance of traditional agricultural practices, and forced migration. Foregrounding novel methodological approaches can help to reflect the complex and multifaceted nature of these experiences. Arts-based research methods allow for diverse ways of examining trauma narratives and foster more holistic, in-depth comprehension of human lives, words, and sensory perceptions in the Anthropocene that more traditional approaches of qualitative research might not capture.

Susan Finley describes arts-based research as an “inquiry uniquely positioned as a methodology for radical, ethical, and revolutionary research that is futuristic, socially responsible, and useful in addressing social inequities.”1 This methodology entails social reconstruction through the utilization of emotive experiences and bodily intellect as “moments of epiphany,”2 which provides the opportunity to interpret issues more precisely and unconventionally. For example, a trauma victim can express themselves through song, which allows them the range of emotions which they might be unable to express otherwise.

Questions this series seeks to engage with include: What are some environmental issues that artistic interventions attempt to examine and how? Why is arts-based research the best way forward in case of such research intervention? How can arts-based research add to traditional qualitative research methodologies? What are the problems faced when employing arts-based research methods to matters of grave and immediate importance? How does arts-based research effectively communicate theories, narratives, and findings of heavy research?

The series is open to reflective pieces, research findings, art installations and interpretations, as well as participatory research reports. Potential topics and themes may include, but are not limited to :

  • Resilience
  • Climate disasters and forced migration
  • Marginalized occupations
  • Disability
  • Community participation in envisioning better futures
  • Histories of discrimination
  • Indigenous knowledge
  • Trauma narratives
  • Policy building
  • Colonization’s effect on people’s relationship to the land

The Network in Canadian History and Environment (NiCHE) invites expressions of interest from activists, independent researchers, academics, students, musicians, artists, and thespians interested in contributing to a blog series exploring Arts-Based Research approaches to topics in the environmental humanities.

Please submit a 100-word abstract to Amrita DasGupta (a.dasgupta7 [@] lse.ac.uk) by March 7th, 2023. Those selected to contribute complete blog posts of 800-1000 words will be notified by end of March 2023. The series will be published in spring 2023.

NiCHE offers $100 CAD honoraria to contributors without adequate or consistent access to institutional support. Learn more about our honoraria policy here.

Notes

1 Finley, Susan. Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research: Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples, and Issues. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2008. SAGE Research Methods, doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781452226545.

2 Lincoln, Yvonna S, and Norman K Denzin. Turning Points in Qualitative Research : Tying Knots in a Handkerchief. AltaMira Press, 2003.

Feature image: Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay 
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Amrita DasGupta

Amrita DasGupta is a PhD scholar at the Department of Gender Studies in the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS University of London) and a guest teacher at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Her research focuses on the evolution and history of port brothels in the Indian Ocean deltas. She has been a fully funded visiting student research collaborator at Princeton University, a visiting scholar at the King’s India Institute (King’s College London), a Landhaus Fellow at the Rachel Carson Centre for Environment and Society, LMU. Her decade-long research on the Sundarbans was recognised at the launch of the “Mangrove Project” at the House of Lords, Parliament of the United Kingdom. Some of her recent publication are “Puppets at the Hands of Water” published in the Springs Journal (2025), “Accommodative Apparatus: Drawing the Life of Sex Work on the Eroding Coasts of Sundarbans” in the Environment and History Journal (2024).

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