Imagination and Arts-Based Practices for Integration in Research

Imagination and Arts-Based Practices for Integration in Research explores the philosophical assumptions, defining concepts, and methodological issues related to the introduction of intentional imaginative mental processes and arts-based practices into some or all phases of investigation, and data integration of particular research approaches.

Although typically central to mixed, multi-method, and arts-based research, the practice of integrating diverse forms of data might be applied to other research traditions. The integration of data diversity represents a deviation from traditional scientific thinking demanding a dramatic paradigm shift inclusive of multi-dimensional, nondiscursive, aesthetic, rhizomatic, and imaginative mental processes. In this book, imaginative mental processes and arts-based practices are described and illustrated as approaches to investigating, revealing, and understanding the elusive yet essential meanings hidden in the crevices, shadows, and liminal spaces in between diverse data sets leading to integration, illumination, and synthesis.

The book will appeal to arts-based, mixed methods, and adventurous researchers. It walks the reader through the revisionist philosophical assumptions and offers aligned methodological suggestions to the induction of imaginative mental processes and arts-based practices into research.

Nancy Gerber is an art psychotherapist, educator, and scholar. Through her years of clinical practice, teaching, and research she has developed an interest in creating ways to capture and study the complexities and dimensions of the human condition through research methods that include and synthesize imaginative processes and arts-based practices.