This paper presents Collaborative Creative Inquiry (CCI) as innovative arts-informed approach to transdisciplinary research. Moving away from conventional qualitative research paradigms, we adopt a reflexive stance to introduce CCI as a process that challenges static narratives and fosters inclusivity within the research process. Through critical introspection, we describe an iterative five-step CCI approach, elucidating its unique process and methodological underpinnings. Drawing upon vivid personal illustrations, we offer vignettes to illustrate the application of CCI in practice and showcase opportunities for collaborative knowledge generation with co-creation. We conclude by reflecting on insights we gained through our CCI process and inviting others to join us in exploring the ways this approach can be applied across disciplines.
Keywords
co-creation, drawing, narrative, poetry, research praxis, transdisciplinary, creative inquiry, arts-based
Author Bio(s)
Artem Research Collective focuses on research that centres arts and creativity into the process to promote healthier, safer spaces with/for strong and resilient communities of research practice. Our purpose is to stimulate empirical work that utilises arts-based research, creativity and collaboration. As a group, we seek to develop holistic perspectives by integrating different theoretical and empirical disciplinary perspectives, thereby creating new frameworks to understand problems for the purpose of developing solutions for a more just world.
Natalia Balyasnikova is an Assistant Professor of Adult Education at York University (Canada). She is broadly interested in (older) adult and lifelong learning. Currently, she is exploring older immigrants’ educational engagement in community-based settings. Her research draws on creative research methods to understand the complexity of learning processes in later adulthood. Namely, using narrative ethnographic methods, she merges traditional ethnographic data generation with facilitation of oral, written, and multimodal storytelling. Please direct correspondence to natbal@yorku.ca.
Meghan Bruce Kumar is a health economist and health systems researcher working on the evaluation of complex interventions in resource-limited settings. She works as an Associate Professor of Health Economics and Health Systems at Northumbria University (UK). She develops and evaluates interventions using arts-based and participatory methodologies in health economics to better incorporate stakeholder perspectives and hidden costs or barriers to sustainability. Please direct correspondence to meghan.kumar@northumbria.ac.uk.
Yecid Ortega is an Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics and TESOL at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland (United Kingdom). He has over 20 years of international experience (Colombia, the USA, Canada and the UK) in the field of language education and plurilingualism. He currently explores alternative forms of research including but not limited to arts-based, creative and critical methodologies to understand one’s place in the world. Please direct correspondence to y.ortega@qub.ac.uk
Melanie M. Wong is an Assistant Professor of Teaching at the University of British Columbia. Her research explores the learning experiences of K-12 English Language Learner (ELL) students in technology-enhanced classrooms, place-based literacies and teacher education. She is fascinated to explore how creative research approaches can be integrated into her current scholarship and teaching. Please direct correspondence to melanie.wong@ubc.ca
Artem Research Collective. (2024). Collaborative creative inquiry: An arts-informed approach to transdisciplinary research. The Qualitative Report, 29(10), 2826-2847. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2024.7248
