Finding my way to a/r/tography

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to better understand the philosophy, theory and principles of a/r/tography and how they can be applied to individual or a community of art-based researchers working in the social sciences and humanities. In 2004, Dr. Rita Irwin coined the term a/r/tography and developed an arts-based research practice based on the philosophical underpinnings of Aristotle’s “three kinds of thought: knowing (theoria), doing (praxis), and making (poesis)” (Irwin, 2004, p. 27). She extends these understandings to educational research (see Dewey, 1934) and expands upon arts-based research (see Eisner, 1979, 1991; Baron & Eisner, 1997) to consider the methodology of a/r/tography for artists, researchers and teachers to enact as a living inquiry. Irwin suggests a/r/tographers’ working in a collective create the opportunity to reexamine, reconfigure and rewrite histories, which were previously misunderstood or invisible. The insights gathered provide multi-faceted perspectives, offering a rich understanding of aesthetic experiences, performativity and poetic expressions linked to intellectual scholarship. The implications of this scholarly work is that art-based researchers will gain a deeper understanding of a/r/tography’s historical development and its potential to broaden social sciences and humanities research through interdisciplinary practices by bringing together communities of researchers from diverse disciplines.