The team behind NCRM’s Changing Research Practices project has published a new paper that explores researchers’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The paper discusses the outcomes of a series of workshops in which researchers conveyed their recent research experiences by drawing and presenting a river sketch.
The authors critically engage with these “research rivers” by creating a new interference pattern of a new materialist approach combined with experiences and project artefacts.
The compatibility of new materialism and qualitative inquiry is discussed. Through an analysis focussed on two of the rivers, the ways the research river activity entangled matter and meaning is examined.
The paper shows how a new materialist understanding of exclusion transforms the ethical dimensions of researchers’ methodological decisions.
The Changing Research Practices project was launched in August 2020 to look at how the COVID-19 pandemic was disrupting social research practices.
Following the research rivers workshops, the researchers created an online tutorial, Using Metaphors – a Method for Encouraging Participants to Share their Experiences.