Doing the Research: Diffractive Methodology

“Like the diffraction patterns illuminating the indefinite nature of boundaries – displaying shadows in ‘light’ regions and bright spots in ‘dark’ regions – the relation of the social and the scientific is a relation of ‘exteriority within’” (Barad, 2008, p. 122). This Chapter completes the first section of this thesis which has explored the feminist research process itself, tracing a history of feminist theorising across a range of

disciplines including philosophy, psychology, history, art, mental ill-health and quantum physics. At times, the tensions between and within areas of feminist thinking appeared insurmountable to this research process and crippling to further action. The strengths and weaknesses of various positions have been laid bare and the preference for a corporeal or materialist feminist framework has been discussed. This Chapter explains how such a philosophical framework may be applied as methodological scaffolding for conducting this research. The methodological concerns discussed here apply to the whole project comprising the three studies. However, in this chapter there is a particular focus upon the research interview process. For clarity, more detailed

discussion of research methods for the exhibition and the collage are contained within the relevant chapters.

The methodological implications of this research were unclear in the beginning of this project. The ethical, epistemological and ontological possibilities of exploring an under-researched area were not fully evident to me when the research began. Nor were a number of important publications regarding emergent theories of corporeal feminism available to inform this research until the first decade of the 21st century.

Reading and researching diffractively “breaks through the academic habit of criticism and works along affirmative lines” (van der Tuin, 2011, p. 22). Barad (2007) further explains that this approach is characterised by reading insights from different areas of study through one another not against one another. She explores a

cacophony of critical social theories – feminist, critical race theory, queer theory, postcolonial and poststructuralist theory – through one another and distilled through quantum physics. Although this research does not reach nearly as far as Barad’s project, it follows her lead in approaching the topic of interest – Women, creativity and wellbeing – What does art do for the artmaker? – from many different angles,

analogous perhaps to how an artist might approach the composition of a new painting. Barad argues that diffractive methodology respects the entanglement of ideas and other materials in ways that reflexive or representational methodologies do not. Jones (2006) urges researchers to present their research with the complexity we associate with literature and works of art more generally. I take these insights to mean that it is

appropriate to employ a multiplicity of methods to not only collect, but also analyse and present the research.

I am adapting, rather than adopting, a diffractive methodology. This is

necessary because, to my knowledge, it is an emergent methodology that, apart from Taguchi (2012) and Jackson and Mazzei (2012), has primarily been applied only to theoretical projects thus far. “…to apply these ideas (Barad’s) to empirical, analytical research requires an elaborate conceptual toolset embracing the material, social and subjective worlds alike. And this may prove to be a ‘practical’ shortcoming of the application of this ambitious approach” (Hojgaard & Soridergaard, 2011, p. 347). Indeed, one of the difficulties I have encountered with applying this approach resulted from the huge amount of data I have compiled from diverse sources. How to present these findings has been rather like twisting a kaleidoscope – colour in motion. The diffractive methodology is resistant to categorising and rather than seeking consistent patterns and themes, as in a thematic analysis, the project traces patterns of difference and patterns of overlap relevant to women’s artmaking and their interactions with mental health services, and reveals something of the actual texture of daily life and the process of artmaking. The methodology “transforms the analytic foci in a number of ways” (Hojgaard & Soridergaard, 2011, p. 348), where the aim is to recognise and attribute multiple forces to how things are enacted and multiplicity in the enacting practices.

Diffractive Methods as Interferences

Research methods are not passive measuring devices. Barad (2007) observes that reflexivity is a parallel notion to reflection and representation – a method of self- accounting and accounting for the effect of the theory and the researcher on the research. However, she argues that this critical method of self-positioning remains caught in the geometrics of sameness. With a diffractive methodology, where

diffractions (interferences) are aligned to differences, the methodology attends to the relational nature of differences – and the effects our different knowledge-making

practices have on the world. Barad clarifies by explaining that a diffraction pattern is not a map where differences appear but where the effects of differences appear,

diffractions do not displace the same elsewhere; there is no mirror. Scientific methods are always interferences, not passive measuring devices and the methods we use in research are not mediating between an object and its representation. For Barad there is no need to conceive of such mediation when we think of diffraction, not

representation. The methods we use are constitutive of the things we seek to know. What we call a method is a material discursive apparatus intra-acting (p. 27). Barad argues that scientific practices are examples of intervening in the world’s becoming,

rather than representing ‘things as they are’. Artistic practices can also be thought about in this way as part of a complex web of practices, not an endless series of representations. “Affective practice...builds in ongoingness and...patterns in process.... Practice is both a noun and a verb...site of repetition – a practice - the way I, or we, do things....” (Wetherell, 2012, p. 23).

Methods: Agential cuts: What you measure brings it into being. “In the language of science there is no I, no you, no we. The subjective is prohibited…” (Irigaray, 2002, p. 247). Irigaray posits that to speak or to research is never neutral. Scientists measure the world to name it and make laws for it, such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), but ignore that they are also in it. Diffractive methodology seeks to understand the world from within, as part of it, and highlight the indefinite nature of boundaries. Measurement practices are an inseparable part of the results obtained and are situated in all aspects of the research – methods, methodology, description, epistemology, and ontology. “How we measure something (what apparatus we use) changes the nature of the phenomena observed or described (Barad, 2007, p. 93)….Methods do not just detect and observe but contribute to the production and reconfiguring of difference” (p. 125). Barad does not presume the separateness of anything and stresses that what you measure brings it into being. We are part of the nature we seek to understand and we are part of the phenomena we seek to describe. “…a measuring apparatus does not disclose values but rather it is the specific material configuration that gives definition to the notion of the property in question” (p. 261). She uses the example of a walking stick. When held tightly it is a walking aid and when held loosely it becomes a tool of observation. Matter can be known differently depending on the apparatus it is known through. Quantities are only determinate if the appropriate conditions for their measurement exist and therefore only measurement resolves indeterminacy.

American artist Ann Hamilton’s (2006) ideas about artmaking are relevant here, “Being of a culture that has always held in suspicion unproductive time, things not utilitarian, and daydreaming in general…it is challenging to articulate the importance of supporting experiences that don’t do anything obvious, aren’t easily quantifiable, resist measurement, aren’t easily named are categorically in-between”…. But she maintains that “Every act of making matters…how we make matters” (p. 45). Applying this to a research context, Paget (1983) puts it another way by saying that the questions she asked artists about their experience of making paintings created a precise anchor, the particular paintings of this particular painter seen and experienced by a particular interviewer interested in artistic experience. Knowledge accumulates and interviews thus create knowledge. Separations, boundaries and fixations emerge from intra-acting

and agency has real effects. These are what Barad (2003, 2007, 2008) refers to as agential cuts. “We are responsible for the cuts we help enact. Agential separability rejects the geometrics of absolute interiority and absolute exteriority or determinism and free will and opens up a much larger space that is a dynamic and ever-changing topology” (2007, p. 178). We are responsible for the research we undertake and the intra-actions involved.

Intra-acting responsibly means understanding that ‘we’ are not the only active beings – though this understanding never reduces our responsibility. “Particular possibilities for (intra-)acting exist at every moment, and these changing possibilities entail an ethical obligation to intra-act responsibly in the world’s becoming, to contest and rework what matters and what is excluded from mattering” (Barad, 2007, p. 178). Every meeting matters.

Revisiting voice and reflexivity in feminist research interviews. “There are a lot of assumptions that go along with research because once information about you gets documented it can get passed around like an object without you attached to it anymore” (Gray, 2007, pp. 415-416).

Since a diffractive methodology challenges ideas of reflection and representation, there are two important and interrelated topics that must be

reconsidered in relation to conducting feminist research – ‘giving voice’ and ‘reflexivity’. The importance of attention to voice and giving voice has been common in feminist research for decades (Dallimore, 2000; Marx, 2001) and interviews are often said to provide a space for voice. However, research as a voicing mechanism has been challenged not only by feminist researchers questioning its effectiveness, but also by people being researched. Whose voice are we presenting and how does the person fare in this research endeavour? This is especially important for marginalised groups and the claim ‘to give voice to’ is often felt as patronising or tokenistic – particularly when the data collated is not received well (Morris, 1998). Fricker (2007) emphasises that voice is not just a matter of speaking but of being heard, and in a research context it is about how the information is analysed, presented and then received or listened to – all stages of the research process; recruiting, collecting, collating, analysing, presenting and disseminating – impact upon what happens to the contributions of the research participants. Listening and hearing the women is a double process (Ripa, 1990).

Gray (2007) grapples with some of the complexities surrounding a feminist imperative of ‘voice’ in her research with a group of women who had experiences of mental ill-health. She argues that the woman’s voice goes largely unheard when spoken from ‘madness’. Art created by people who have an experience of mental ill- health is also frequently positioned to give voice and lauded as a medium in which

people can express that which can’t be said in words; an alternative opportunity to have a voice.

However, many feminists have cautioned against a notion of voice as an isolated narration of lived experience or that researchers can simply ‘give voice.’ Some have emphasised the ‘silencing’ consequences for marginalised groups of being

spoken for (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Fine, 2012; Gray, 2007; Lather, 2001; Spivak, 1988; White, 2001). Others, such as Kruks (2001) and Moi (1999), argue that there are circumstances where it is necessary to speak for and act on behalf of others, such as sex slavery which renders the group of women unable to speak out for themselves. The aim is not to speak for but speak about recognising a multiplicity of women’s experiences that may overlap in some aspects and are radically different in others; neither identical nor wholly distinct. Thinking through Barad’s diffractive methodology, women’s experiences would be seen as entangled, and not separable but encountering obstacles and forming patterns of differences and patterns of overlap in and through time and space; space-time. Looking for overlaps between women’s experiences is not to essentialise or deny difference, but rather an attempt to find a path to become more open to others lives. This research project is thus not claiming to be representative or reflective but exploratory and entangled with the intention of speaking about – not for – women who have experienced mental ill-health and who have made art.

Reflexivity has also frequently been employed in feminist projects to expose power relations in the research process. However, adding the personal may end up appearing as a ‘confessional’ and may actually increase the authority of the researcher over the reader, diminishing the space for others to participate (Elliott, 2005; Haraway 2008; Moi, 1999; Zavos & Biglia, 2009). The researcher interprets and creates at every junction of the research process, and must be wary of presenting her own

interpretations as academic research findings (Hawkesworth, 2007: Marx, 2001). Similarly, Liamputtong (2007) recommends that researchers consider what they are prepared to reveal about themselves in the interview setting. The interview process can be intensely personal. A balance is required between the participant revealing all and the researcher nothing, and the researcher revealing too much and reducing the space for participation. Approximately half of the women in this research asked me if I was an artist. I generally replied that as a researcher and writer I was interested in how artmaking influenced their lives as I have a long history of talking to women about how they spent their time in non-traditional areas of work.3

3

Collecting and Presenting Data: A Serious Attempt to Understand the Artist’s Project in the World

De Beauvoir created a “descriptive analysis of the lived experience and situation of women, grounded in a discussion of thematic, historical, and literary influences…” (Fisher, 2000, p. 34) and she used a combination of empirical data, interviews, memoirs, conversations and other sociological texts as material for critical analysis (Chisholm, 2008). Traces from many different sources, including practices such as weaving and needlework can be woven together to find ways to highlight women’s everyday lives across many cultures of the world (Chaudhuri et al., 2010).

Inspired by Barad’s notion of entangled existence and de Beauvoir’s attention to the study of concrete cases – of everyday lived experience, I have collated a large amount of material from diverse sources. I have talked to artists and people who did not call themselves artists, people from the mental health and cultural arts sectors, formally and informally. I have watched movies, visited exhibitions, curated a travelling exhibition with public floor talks and artists’ forums, read autobiographies, biographies, novels, letters, poems and academic texts. Data sources were wide and varied;

including artworks and accompanying materials for the exhibition, archives, published sources, unpublished sources, and research interviews exploring 32 women’s lived experience of artmaking and mental ill-health. Presentation of this research is equally varied, with a touring exhibition and associated materials and events (see Chapter 7), a collage of published contributions from and about women artists (see Chapter 12), and interviews presented as art-life summaries, word portraits and ‘I’ poems (adapted from Gilligan et al., 2006 – see Appendix A).

Given the scarcity of first-person accounts of a life of artmaking as a woman and as a visual artist generally, and as a woman and an artist with an experience of mental ill-health specifically, I have also woven contributions from women who are writers, musicians, poets throughout this thesis to enrich the attempt to understand the artist’s project in the world. For while the creative processes and methodologies may differ, the vagaries of an artistic identity, artistic pathways and sustaining an artistic practice have many similarities that can cross-pollinate the study of what artmaking means to the artist. The envisaging, establishing and sustaining of an art practice for a woman has cultural, social and political parameters that influence a career and a life of making whether you are a writer, visual artist or musician.

Furthermore many artistic people do not practice in only one spectrum. Yayoi Kusama, best known for her polka-dot installations is also a writer, film maker,

performance artist and sculptor. Patti Smith is not only a musician, but also a drawer, writer and poet. Charlotte Perkins-Gilman painted as well as wrote, as did Zelda

Fitzgerald who was also an accomplished dancer. Virginia Woolf wrote an entire novel – To the lighthouse - imagining the life of a painter, perhaps modelled on or informed, by discussions with her sister, the painter Vanessa Bell. The two sisters discuss the challenges of embracing an artistic life extensively in letter exchanges. Or as

Lacourarie (2002) says, Woolf painted this book with great attention to colour, tone and form.

Similarly many of the 32 women involved in this research – and particularly those that self-identified as artists – were engaged in multiple artistic practices. For example, Janis, who appeared primarily as a painter in this research had also self- published two books, plays the guitar and trombone locally and has been employed as an actor. Taylor made art and wrote poetry; Alice was a musician and printmaker; Margaret called herself a cross media artist including painting, installation, writing and performance.

Researching with Potentially Vulnerable Participants

In 2004, The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)

specifically stated that women should not automatically be excluded from research on the basis of sex. Although the NHMRC has updated guidelines for ethics in human research with more nuanced guidelines for participation (2014), it appears women with an experience of mental ill-health are still considered vulnerable and there is

surprisingly little research which includes their contributions. Perhaps this is because users of mental health services have traditionally been regarded as unreliable sources (Lapsley, Nikora & Black, 2002), and as Dunn, Candilis and Roberts (2006) surmise, novel and unexpected ethical challenges are likely to emerge. Unexpected ethical challenges were encountered in this research and the ethics process was extensive, requiring eight discrete ethics submissions (see Appendix B: Interviews and Ethics).

Liamputtong (2007) discusses overlapping vulnerability in research

participation, noting the dearth of resources for undertaking sensitive research with vulnerable people. Participants may be susceptible to coercive influences and may not be cognisant of the consequences of disclosing distressing experiences (Hyden, 2008). However, Liamputtong (2007) argues that it should not be assumed that all people with an experience of mental ill-health are vulnerable as research participants and many may wish to have the choice to participate. But the notion of risk in psychiatric research is unclear. Roberts et al. (2006) discuss minimal risks as “those in which anticipated harms are not greater than those ordinarily faced in everyday life or in doing routine examinations” (p. 153). The controversy exists in whose ‘ordinary life’ is the

the participants can decide or evaluate the effects of disclosure on their wellbeing” (p.