Interior Conversations: Technology, Art, and Qualitative Research
Judith Davidson, Ph.D.
Graduate School of Education
University of Massachusetts-Lowell
Women at the Well Gathering: 2011
Qualitative research is a social science approach grounded in unstructured, non-numerical methods. A hybrid of anthropological and sociological approaches, it has gained increasing acceptance in the 20th and 21st centuries. In the last quarter of the 20th century, qualitative research has been the site of two competing strands of interest: 1) a humanistic approach nourished by interests in the arts and literature; and 2) a focus on qualitative computing tools. These two approaches have, for the most part, continued on parallel but separate tracks into the 21st century.
As a qualitative researcher with interest in both strands, I have been hard put to find a way to integrate the two, causing serious tension for me as a researcher. It was this tension that led me to develop “The Journal Project” in which I undertook a qualitative research study that would build a bridge between autoethnographic and arts-based approaches and qualitative computing tools. The Journal Project was a study of 18-months of my personal journals during the years of 2006-2008. My goal was to examine these materials making full use of qualitative computing tools and arts-based methods of reflection. I wanted to show how arts and computing can play a role in every stage of the interpretive process.
In this small exhibit I focus on two of the art works that have emerged in response to the Journal Project: “My Diagnoses” and “What Happens When You Drop Your Socks”.
Interior Conversations: Technology, Art, and Qualitative Research is the tentative title of the book that is emerging from this study.
My Diagnoses: (Upper Left Hand)
My diagnoses is a mandala shaped felt crafted from three natural colors of Navaho churro, a primitive sheep brought to the Americas by the early Spanish. I like its historical ties and its rough quality. On a white background, I needle-felted the numbers of my diagnoses in dark brown churro:
300.04: Dysthymic Disorder—a medium level depression lasting a minimum of two-years or more.
309.81: Post-traumatic stress/chronic.
These numbers are jumbled in the center…and sorted out around the rim. In between winds a circuitous path of light brown churro that works its way from inside to outside.
Interior Conversations probes the lived experiences of these diagnoses over the period of 2006-2008.
The felted piece is displayed against a piece of cotton hand-dyed with bits of old metal using India Flint’s eco-colour method. I am interested in the tension between felt, the most primitive of textile methods, with woven, manufactured cloth.
What Happens When You Drop Your Socks (Far right)
During the period of the journal study, I married my husband Bob,. As this screen shot from the NVivo E-Project demonstrates, there is significant material devoted to discussion of Bob in my many journal entries.
In contemplating what would best symbolize the good and the bad of the experience of intimacy referred to in 118 entries I was reminded of Bob’s habit of dropping his socks by the side of the bed. This led to the creation of a piece of felt in which Bob’s socks are embedded as if they were growing out of the dark wood of the floor by his bed. The felt is displayed on a background of homey lace figures, which are themselves displayed against a beige floral background. The words “What Happens When You Drop Your Socks” are written in handcarded, hand-dyed, hand spun yarns that I created. I liked the whimsy of the handspun that formed the cursive letters. Again, I am exploring the tension between the primitiveness of felt and the machine-perfect quality of today’s woven cottons.
In contemplating what would best symbolize the good and the bad of the experience of intimacy referred to in 118 entries I was reminded of Bob’s habit of dropping his socks by the side of the bed. This led to the creation of a piece of felt in which Bob’s socks are embedded as if they were growing out of the dark wood of the floor by his bed. The felt is displayed on a background of homey lace figures, which are themselves displayed against a beige floral background. The words “What Happens When You Drop Your Socks” are written in handcarded, hand-dyed, hand spun yarns that I created. I liked the whimsy of the handspun that formed the cursive letters. Again, I am exploring the tension between the primitiveness of felt and the machine-perfect quality of today’s woven cottons.
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