Research rivers: flows of agency through crisis
Research rivers: flows of agency through crisis
From early 2020, as the spread of COVID-19 and related restrictions intersected with everyday lives and, inevitably, social research practices, the ability to act and continue research was a significant concern in the social research community. In a project aimed at supporting methodological responses to the pandemic context the authors ran a series of online knowledge exchange workshops. The invitation to participate suggested researchers convey recent times of their research experiences by drawing and presenting a river sketch. The paper critically engages with the 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 and the paper shows how a new materialist understanding of exclusion transforms the ethical dimensions of researchers’ methodological decisions. We conclude that research rivers produce particular forms of retrospective agency that highlighted affect throughout the pandemic and reframes the ethics for choosing and developing methods along an axis of inclusion and exclusion.
COVID-19, Metaphor, affect, agency, agential realism, diffraction,, enactment, ethics, research methods, time, diffraction
Meckin, Robert
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Coverdale, Andy
27ac1a1c-5502-4ee3-b0e2-fc9226ff7b22
Nind, Melanie
b1e294c7-0014-483e-9320-e2a0346dffef
Meckin, Robert
3fbef87f-7015-40f2-98eb-aa78ad350d37
Coverdale, Andy
27ac1a1c-5502-4ee3-b0e2-fc9226ff7b22
Nind, Melanie
b1e294c7-0014-483e-9320-e2a0346dffef
Meckin, Robert, Coverdale, Andy and Nind, Melanie
(2024)
Research rivers: flows of agency through crisis.
Methodological Innovations.
(doi:10.1177/20597991241264837).
Abstract
From early 2020, as the spread of COVID-19 and related restrictions intersected with everyday lives and, inevitably, social research practices, the ability to act and continue research was a significant concern in the social research community. In a project aimed at supporting methodological responses to the pandemic context the authors ran a series of online knowledge exchange workshops. The invitation to participate suggested researchers convey recent times of their research experiences by drawing and presenting a river sketch. The paper critically engages with the 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 and the paper shows how a new materialist understanding of exclusion transforms the ethical dimensions of researchers’ methodological decisions. We conclude that research rivers produce particular forms of retrospective agency that highlighted affect throughout the pandemic and reframes the ethics for choosing and developing methods along an axis of inclusion and exclusion.
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meckin-et-al-2024-research-rivers-flows-of-agency-through-crisis
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Accepted/In Press date: 1 July 2024
e-pub ahead of print date: 30 August 2024
Keywords:
COVID-19, Metaphor, affect, agency, agential realism, diffraction,, enactment, ethics, research methods, time, diffraction
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Local EPrints ID: 494050
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/494050
PURE UUID: b8f01aa2-ffd9-48eb-a19d-cb5db90c3c27
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Date deposited: 20 Sep 2024 16:44
Last modified: 21 Sep 2024 01:59
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Author:
Robert Meckin
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