ABSTRACT

This chapter takes the form of a collaborative autoethnography: a dialogical exploration of the possibilities and challenges of incorporating artistic forms of creativity within interdisciplinary doctoral research projects. Drawing on our experiences as doctoral students and supervisors engaged in social science and education research, we explore some critical incidents which have occurred – and are occurring – through our doctoral journeys. We present these incidents as a series of scenes to illustrate, evoke and portray some of the complexities, uncertainties, vulnerabilities, insights and epiphanies that can result from committing to a relational arts-based way of working in social science and education. The scenes we present are diverse, evolving and fragmentary, but have in common our shared desire to reveal, interrogate and communicate some of the lessons we have learnt – and are still learning – through our collaborative arts-based research endeavours.