12 - Co-creation of a sensory assemblage as data analysis

Summary

Introduction

This chapter describes the how and why of a co- created method of creative data analysis. It came about when a creative practitioner (Mel) and a neurodivergent researcher (Anne) used their different forms of expertise to co- create a sensory assemblage and a set of interpretation notes.

Anne was nearing the end of her doctoral studies and needed to synthesise a complex array of transdisciplinary theoretical explorations and empirical research conducted using a number of collaborative and co- design methods. She had a deep feeling that her accumulated evidence and fragments of findings formed a coherent whole. However, she could not put into words her sense of direction, organising principles, or overall shape for this coherent whole. Nor could she find words for the analysis and synthesis required. In everyday life Anne relies on sketching and mind mapping when words fail her. Given this, her university agreed to a collaboration with a North Wales creative practitioner. The aim was to see if the partnership could help Anne synthesise her work first visually and then in words. This collaboration indeed solved Anne's problem and in the process gave rise to a method of creative data analysis that both authors think has wider application.

Both the authors believe that knowledge is contingent, partial, and subjective. Anne uses the language of cognitive maps (Furnari, 2015) to describe the subjectivity of sense making. Mel prefers the metaphor of personal geography (Hall, 1994), believing that we all have our personal geography, a map helping us make sense of our journey through life. Hall wrote, ‘Orientating … reflects a need of the conscious self- aware organism for a kind of transcendent orientation that asks not just where I am but where do I fit in this landscape?’ (Hall, 1994, p15). Through making a personal geography of a journey of exploration, be it a physical one or one of research, Mel believes we create a visual representation of the journey, which can then be explained to and explored by others.