This paper draws on observations about the role of critically reflexive narrative in research. The author advocates this approach as a means by which research students in a university school of art might begin to contextualise their creative practice. The paper describes the process and application of narrative research methods, proposes the method’s benefits, and identifies its limits.
The paper will draw from the work of Giddens, Beck and Bauman in defining the role of reflexivity in identity formation, on Habermas’ ideas of communicative action, and build on Bourriard’s idea of relational aesthetics. It will examine the role of inter-subjectivity and the collaborative formation of meaning, before proposing the value of a reflexive narrative.
If it is accepted that art and its meanings emerge from social exchange, and if social exchange can be posited as a performative equivalent of art, a narrative can be constructed by the student researcher that elaborates the origins of the researcher’s inspiration and articulates the creative intent of the researcher in terms of the formation of their identity.
The paper draws on case studies as illustrations.