A deeper music: arts-based research as critical social psychology

Twenty-first century societies—and the people who live within them—face multiple and complex challenges. Intersecting identities, environment catastrophe, economic-political instability, and diverse health threats call us to envisage and action innovative psychological research that makes a difference. Arts-based research comprises a diverse range of methodological approaches that work in radically different ways in the service of critical psychological, social, and cultural understanding and transformation. It responds to Denzin’s (2003) challenge to re-animate the social world by privileging accessibility, engagement, sensory awareness, and embodied knowing. Arts-based research opens up alternative ways of thinking, feeling, relating, and experiencing through aesthetic means of inquiry and communication.

In this chapter, we explore arts-based research as a way of doing critical social
psychology. We provide a brief history of the development of arts-based research in psychology and offer a rationale for using arts-based approaches in psychology to tackle twenty-first century challenges. We then focus on one specific example of an arts-based project to consider in detail issues such as processes, problems, and outcomes. The example we have selected features a range of artistic genres that include film, music, and song. We engage with public responses to the work to explore its personal, psychological, social, and cultural meaning, showing how arts-based research can generate valued psychological insights and impacts. We close by proposing that arts-based research offers a means to radically democratize critical psychology research and scholarship.