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participatory approach to research. Third, I present again the key research question of this thesis, together with a number of focus questions which highlight different aspects of the key question. Fourth, I discuss the

development of an approach to reflective practice in art-making and then present this approach as a base for the methodology and methods of the thesis. Finally, I discuss approaches to the presentation of findings that are congruent with a feminist participatory approach to the study of reflective practice in art-making among ten female adult solo art-makers from a range of ethnicities and art- making areas in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Feminist participatory inquiry

In Chapter 2, I described a feminist participatory worldview which is informed by indigenous peoples’—particularly Māori—worldviews. Such an

interweaving of worldviews inevitably translates into a similar interweaving in the methodology of this thesis as a feminist participatory inquiry64. Defining of methodology is important because it “frames the questions being asked, determines the set of instruments and methods to be employed and shapes the analyses” (Smith, 1999, p. 143). A feminist participatory inquiry is congruent with a qualitative approach to methodology. According to Pope (2006), qualitative research can be portrayed as:

a process to obtain an in-depth understanding of the meanings and descriptions of situations presented by people. Primacy is allocated to the subjective interpretations of the participant(s) rather than theoretical knowledge of the researcher or previously held “truths” about a selected phenomenon. (p. 21).

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For a tabular summary of comparisons between feminist, participatory and indigenous methodologies, see Appendix 2, Table 3.

The aim of this thesis is to gain an in-depth understanding of the meanings and descriptions of the lived experiences of reflective practice in art-making of a group of female adult solo art-makers, based on the subjective interpretations of the participants and my subjective interpretations of their words and

experiences. A feminist participatory inquiry, informed by kaupapa Māori principles and applied to reflective practice in art-making, has numerous implications for such areas as positionality or standpoint of the researcher, methods chosen and attitudes that the researcher brings to the implementation of those methods (Harding, 1996, 2004).

While feminist, participatory and kaupapa Māori methodologies all challenge power imbalances, are based in the lived experience of the

participants and favour a collaborative approach to research, their philosophical bases point to unique centres of focus. In the following paragraphs I briefly discuss key issues of methodology as presented by writers of feminist, participatory and kaupapa Māori research. I indicate ways in which these methodologies are interwoven in this thesis, including the areas of positionality, standpoint and attitudes of the researcher. In a later section, I present the methods chosen and indicate how these are congruent with feminist participatory inquiry.

Feminist methodology

A feminist approach to research foregrounds gender and seeks to encourage higher visibility of previously overlooked and marginalised peoples. In so doing, feminist research seeks to redress existing dualities such as male/female, colonial, dominant/non-dominant cultures. In addition, this thesis addresses the lived experiences of art-makers; art-makers are also an overlooked and

marginalised group. Thus, a feminist approach focuses on power imbalances within dualities and the foregrounding of the marginalised, but also on the lived experience—the experiential—of participants, rather than on cognitive

perception alone. In order to achieve appropriate subjective interpretations under such conditions, it is preferable that the researcher is an ‘insider’ to the

member of that marginalised group65 (Belenky et al., 1986; Coglin & Shani, 2008; Hesse-Biber, 2007; Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2004; Goldberger et al, 1996; Reinharz, 1992; Smith, 1999, 2005). A feminist methodology acknowledges issues surrounding insider/outsider status of the researcher. In addition, a feminist methodology requires the researcher to maintain a critical and reflexive approach; that is, the researcher needs to continually question her subjective interpretations of her own experience and those of the other participants. In so doing she seeks to accurately represent the perspectives of those around whom the study is based (Ellis & Bochner, 2003; Fine, Tuck & Zeller-Berkman, 2008; Hesse-Biber & Piatelli, 2007; Marshall, 2001; Reinharz, 1992; Richardson, 2007a). Furthermore, criticality and reflexivity lead the feminist researcher to view herself as a facilitator and co-participant who collaborates with the other participants in order to represent their views and concerns in a way that is empowering to the marginalised group (Janesick, 1994, 2000). Thus, feminism is often linked with other methodologies, particularly critical and participatory. Additional key elements of feminist research are that studies are based in the lived experience of the participants and that theory is grounded in this lived experience.

In this thesis I have chosen to foreground women, of various ethnicities, who are art-makers. As a dance-maker, I am also one of the 10 participants. In addition, I have taken on the role of facilitator of the reflective practice of the other participants. Thus, in this thesis, the study concerns only female art-makers and I have the roles of a researcher who is an insider, a participant and the facilitator of the reflective practice of the other nine art- makers.

Participatory inquiry

In a similar manner to feminism, a participatory worldview flows directly into a research methodology of participatory inquiry66 (Heron & Reason, 1997; Reason & Bradbury, 2001/2006, 2008). Participatory, collaborative or co- operative inquiry is:

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The alternative view is as an outsider who seeks knowledge concerning a particular group of people to which she does not belong; this has been a common approach in past ethnographic and other social science studies.

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Participatory inquiry is also referred to as participative or co-operative inquiry and participatory action research.

a way of working with other people who have similar concerns and interests to yourself; in order to: 1) understand your world, make sense of your life and develop new and creative ways of looking at things; and 2) learn how to act to change things you may want to change and find out how to do things better. (Heron & Reason, 2001, p. 179)

In a participatory inquiry, “people collaborate to define the questions they wish to explore and the methodology for that exploration… (t)ogether or separately they apply this methodology in the world of their practice and find ways to represent this experience” (Heron & Reason, 1997, paragraph 33). Thus, as is often evident in feminist research, a participatory methodology implies that the participants, rather than the researcher, decide on areas for research which are important to them, how these areas will be researched, who will write up the research, how it will be disseminated and what group action will take place as a result (Bishop, 2005; Heron & Reason, 1997; Kana & Tamatea, 2006; Reason & Bradbury, 2001/2006, 2008; Smith, 1999, 2005). Thus, a participatory

methodology implies that the participants have the power to direct and manage the research processes while the researcher takes the role of facilitator of and co- participant in the research, its outputs and outworking in political action. Hence, researcher/researched dualities and power imbalances are challenged. Key foci of participatory research include critical subjectivity and critical inter-

subjectivity. By highlighting both the subjective and inter-subjective,

participatory inquiry encourages participants to question their own and others’ perspectives in order to achieve change; change is often manifested through political action. Finally, while a dominant aim of participatory research is political action, participatory theorists maintain that an important focus is “human flourishing, conceived as an end in itself” (Heron & Reason, 1997, paragraph 46; also Heron & Reason, 2001/2006). This implies that a study may take place in which the aim is the enrichment of the participants in their lived experience and political action may not be a direct result. Critical approaches to achieving political action and/or personal and/or group enrichment are aided by participant reflexivity and a focus on the practical and experiential lives of the participants.

In the study on which this thesis is based, the research is both researcher-initiated and participatory. As researcher, I initiated the study,

contacted prospective participants or followed up on participants suggested by others; in one case, I responded positively to an individual request to join the study. In addition, I prepared information and ideas on reflective practice and initiated and led sessions with all potential participants which included an introduction to a particular approach to reflective practice in art-making that I had developed. However, following this initiation, the approach more closely resembles a participatory rather than researcher-led methodology. During the period of the study, with continuing contact and support from me, each art- maker was free to undertake art-making projects of her choice in her own art- making areas for as long as she deemed appropriate, to maintain notes or journals in her preferred way, to choose the times and places for follow-up facilitated reflective practice and to decide what she wanted to talk about during those sessions. As a fellow participant in the study, I was making similar decisions about what dance-making I wanted to undertake, how I wanted to record my processes and thoughts and what I deemed appropriate to include in the research outputs. Finally, since the study concerns individual reflective practice in art-making, the focus is on human flourishing rather than political action per se; either outcome is appropriate in participatory inquiry.

Kaupapa Māori methodologies

Māori, in common with other indigenous peoples’ methodologies, are concerned with reclaiming a voice in research by “reclaiming, reconnecting and reordering those ways of knowing which were submerged, hidden or driven underground” in earlier colonial research (Smith, 1999, p. 69). Hence, decolonisation is often a key focus for indigenous peoples’ methodologies. One way of achieving such decolonisation and reclamation is through “a mix of existing methodological approaches and indigenous practices”, as mentioned in Chapter 2 (Smith, 1999, p. 143; also Denzin et al., 2008). In so doing, indigenous peoples seek to redress power imbalances of coloniser/colonised, researcher/researched and

dominant/non-dominant cultures. In this thesis, an interweaving of feminist, participatory and indigenous peoples’—in this case, kaupapa Māori— methodologies applied to an approach to reflective practice in art-making provides the kind of mix of methodologies that can address power imbalances.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, Māori scholars have named their

approach kaupapa Māori research67. According to Smith (2005), kaupapa Māori researchers employ “a set of arguments, principles, and frameworks that relate to purpose, ethics, analyses, and outcomes of research” which are derived from “the practices, value systems, and social relations that are evident in the taken- for-granted ways that Māori people live their lives” (p. 90). These practices, value systems and social relations are intrinsic to a kaupapa Māori worldview, as described in Chapter 2. Embedded in kaupapa Māori research, as in numerous other indigenous peoples’ approaches, is an assumption that research will be conducted collaboratively since a collaborative approach addresses issues of power-sharing, decolonisation and, thus, who will benefit from the research (Bishop, 2005, 2008; Denzin et al., 2008; Kana & Tamatea, 2006; Smith, 1999, 2005). In this way, an overlapping between feminist, participatory and kaupapa Māori methodologies becomes very evident; collaborative approaches can redress previous power imbalances in research.

However, like other areas of indigenous peoples’ research, a key element of kaupapa Māori is that it concerns Māori people undertaking research concerning themselves with or without outside involvement. This element intersects with insider/outsider issues, expressed particularly in a feminist methodology. Although a collaborative approach is favoured in which the researcher is viewed as a co-participant, kaupapa Māori research highlights particular issues of insider/outsider dynamics. A researcher may come to certain people as an outsider to their group because she has trained in research in a western academic context. However, another researcher may be undertaking research among her own people—that is, as an insider—but feel and/or be treated like an outsider in a western-style academic context (Smith, 1999).

Next, within a kaupapa Māori research context, methodological questions are posed that are very similar to those in feminist research:

Whose research is it? Who owns it? Whose interests does it serve? Who will benefit from it? Who has designed its questions and framed its scope? Who will carry it out? Who will write it up? How will its results be disseminated? (Smith, 1999, p. 10)

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The term kaupapa Māori, rather than indigenous or indigenist, is preferred by Māori researchers, since this term embraces the principles of a specifically Māori worldview (Bishop, 2005, 2008; Kana & Tamatea, 2006; Smith, 2005).

On the other hand, Smith (1999) maintains that indigenous peoples may be more inclined to ask such questions as “Is her spirit clear? Does he have a good heart? What other baggage are they carrying? Are they useful to us? Can they fix our generator? Can they actually do anything?” (p. 10). There is less evidence of such questions in the literature of feminist and participatory methodologies. Finally, like feminism, kaupapa Māori research is based in lived experience and grounded theory.

Summary

In the same way that there is a strong congruence between feminist, participatory and Māori worldviews, so there are numerous points of

interweaving between feminist, participatory and kaupapa Māori methodologies (See Appendix 2, Table 3) (Bishop, 2005; Borland, 2007; Denzin et al., 2008; Lykes & Coquillon, 2007; Maguire, 2001/2006; Richardson, 2007a, 2007b; Smith, 1999, 2005; Swantz, Ndedya & Masaiganah, 2001; Wadsworth, 2001). Therefore, feminist participatory inquiry, informed by kaupapa Māori

methodologies, is an appropriate approach to the study of reflective practice among ten female art-makers in Aotearoa New Zealand. As indicated, the major aims of feminism have been to foreground gender and the experiences of non- white women and men, women and men of non-dominant cultures, varying sexualities and/or lower economic groups, women of non-western nations and white women. Feminism seeks to signal and embrace the variety of individual experiences of dominant and non-dominant and/or colonised cultures. In this study, I was a researcher/participant of European origins who was studying the experiences of women from a variety of ethnicities. Five of the ten participants identified themselves as Māori, one as New Zealand-born Chinese, one as naturalised (immigrant) New Zealander and the other three as New Zealand- born Pakeha or European. In addition, all of the women were art-makers. Art- makers’ voices have been largely absent from research, implying that art-

making is also a non-dominant cultural practice in Aotearoa New Zealand and in research in general. However, within this feminist participatory inquiry, there are certain ethical issues to be attended to in this particular thesis. The following sections deal with such issues.