Practice-Based Research: Teaching Resource

The creator as self-observer

In creative practice-based research, auto-ethnomethodology is best applied by practitioner-researchers who have a significant level of expertise in their chosen creative area. The practitioner’s competence should arguably be high enough that the activities are taken for granted, undertaken as almost everyday activities; Harold Garfinkel’s ethnomethodological approach, after all, is an attempt to make everyday activities visible by applying a "special motive" to make them of "theoretic interest" (1967, 37). This notion is highly suited to an auto-ethnomethodological approach to practice-based research, as the research often "start[s] with familiar scenes and ask[s] what can be done to make trouble" (ibid., 37). In the case of creative research, the practitioner begins with a familiar activity that is arguably mastered, and introduces an element of creative experimentation as a "special motive". The documentary method of interpretation — as applied to in situ notes and drafts — in combination with media-specific analysis of the resulting artefacts, offers aspects of theoretical interest to the creative practice undertaken.

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