This book delves into the complexities of being and becoming an academic in higher education. Inspired by the arts, the book introduces new voices and insights to scholarly discussions about what constitutes data and analysis in higher education research. It demonstrates ABER’s ability to shape and critique academic identity narratives in response to pressing problems and dilemmas in higher education. The book includes exemplars from studies conducted primarily in South African contexts and led by South African researchers. It explores diverse modes, including collage, digital artwork, letter writing, metaphor, creative nonfiction, and theatre-making. Contributions from expert scholars in Canada and the USA supplement this research and show how it has been enriched by critical transcontinental conversations. The authors offer new perspectives on the entwined and complex relationship between the ABER, narratives, and identities.

Awarded QRSIG's Honerable Mention for 2021 2020 AESA Critics' Choice Book Award Winner Arts-Based Educational Research and Qualitative Inquiry introduces novice qualitative researchers, within education and related fields, to arts-based educational research (ABER). Abundant prompts and exercises are provided to help readers apply the concepts and experiment with various applications of the ideas presented. The authors walk the path with novice researchers offering a variety of approaches to the practice of arts-based methods, while providing a guided overview of ABER, and include pedagogical features in each chapter. Exercises are designed to assist educational researchers who wish to expand their repertoire of methodologies. The authors also weave into the discussion the possibilities and limitations of many types of arts-based methods while introducing readers to the growing methodological literature. By offering a tapestry of ways to engage the novice researcher, the book illustrates that it is not always possible to separate cognitive findings from aesthetic knowing. This book will help qualitative researchers to expand their methodologies to include arts-based approaches to their projects and by doing so reshape their identities as qualitative researchers. It also offers some evaluative criteria and tool kits for experimenting with various arts and educational research.

Designed to be used as both a class text and a resource for researchers and practitioners, Arts Based Research provides a framework for those who seek to broaden the domain of qualitative inquiry in the social sciences by incorporating the arts as forms that represent human knowing.

Drawing from an international authorship and having global appeal, this book scrutinizes, suggests and aggravates the relationships, boundaries and connections between arts, research and education in various contexts. Building upon existing publications in the field of arts-based educational research, it deliberately connects and disconnects the terms in order to expose and broaden the scope of this field thereby encouraging fresh perspectives. This book portrays both contemporary theoretical prospects as well as contemporary examples of practice. It also presents work of emerging scholars, thereby ‘growing the field’. The book includes academic text-based chapters, as well as poetry, narrative fiction, visual essays, and combinations of text-image-sound/video that demonstrate performance of music, theatre, exhibition and dance. This book provides and provokes critical dialogue about the forms, representations, dissemination and intersections of the arts, research and education. This is a focused collection and resource for scholars and students with an international authorship, perspective and audience.

The book brings together a collection of writing by different authors who use a narrative/life history approach to explore the experiences of a wide range of people, reflecting on learning and education at significant moments in their lives.