This article discusses practice-near research in human services, a cluster of methodologies that may include thick description, intensive reflexivity, and the study of emotional and relational processes. Such methods aim to get as near as possible to experiences at the relational interface between institutions and the practice field.…

This article focuses on what both psychoanalysis and anthropology have in common: the emphasis on the researcher's own experience. An ethnographic fieldwork will be used to illustrate how a psychoanalytical approach unfolds the material when studying conditions for learning from experience among teachers in two Norwegian junior high schools, and…

This article will address the issue of using understandings of psychodynamic interrelations as a means to grasp how social and cultural dynamics are processed individually and collectively in narratives. I apply the two theoretically distinct concepts of inter- and intrasubjectivity to gain insight into how social and cultural dynamics are…

In this article we study how members of an interdisciplinary research team use an online forum for communicating about their research project. We use the concepts of "community of practice" and "connectivity" to consider the online interaction within a wider question of how people from different academic traditions…

This article examines the relationship between reflecting and making in the context of the new institutional connection between research and art/design. The article argues that while this new dispensation offers exciting possibilities for fruitful cross- and interdisciplinary development, caution is necessary to ensure that the artistic domain…

This short article discusses the nature of research and art practice and makes a case for the necessary intermingling of these activities. It does not attempt to define a space for art to operate as research, quite the opposite: research is an operating structure for the process and production of, among other things, art. It is regarded as…

A number of art projects are currently tackling the medical domain. This activity stems from a perceived need to increase the transparency and democracy of the medical domain, and it often questions the power relations and the one-dimensionality in current medical practices. This article sheds light on how artists process medical themes,…

That the present day society profits from research in many areas is evident. This has stimulated a keen desire to emulate similarly advantageous contributions in other areas. It appears to imply not only a need to know how to (better) support action in general or any action, but also how to support the act of making "better" itself (better…

In a recent study of undergraduates' use of information and communication technologies to support their academic work, we asked students to make video recordings of their personal study sessions. Our motivation was to capture their study practice as it occurred rather than relying solely on self-reports of their perceived or remembered practice.…

This article considers the potential for a researcher to use their own creative practice as a method of data collection. Much of the published material in this field focuses on more theoretical positions, with limited use being made of specific PhDs that illustrate the context in which practice was undertaken by the researcher. It explores…

Naturalistic thinking and knowing, the tacit, experiential, and intuitive reasoning of everyday interaction, have long been regarded as inferior to formal reason and labeled primitive, fallible, subjective, superstitious, and in some cases ineffable. But, naturalistic thinking is more rational and definable than it appears. It is also relevant to…

This article presents a selective review of recent design PhDs that identify and analyse the methodological innovation that is occurring in the field, in order to inform future provision of research training. Six recently completed design PhDs are used to highlight possible philosophical and practical models that can be adopted by future PhD…

This article presents an approach for structured reflection by a designer through journal writing. The journal writing situates the agency of the designer, using a range of internal conversations as a way to expand horizons and perspectives. Through a structured approach using journal entries, experiences of the design process are introduced as…

There has been much work highlighting the benefits of autoethnographic research yet little acknowledgement of the demands researching your own life makes on the emotional and mental wellbeing of the researcher. This paper explores the consequences that can arise as a result of autoethnographic research by detailing the crises involved in…

This article analyzes and discusses the notion of including multivocality as an autoethnographic method to: (a) illustrate that there is no single and temporally-fixed voice that a researcher possesses, (b) unfix identity in a way that exposes the fluid nature of identity as it moves through particular contexts, and (c) deconstruct competing…