Affinity Between the Aims of Social Work and the Mechanisms of Arts-Based Research

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 7 takes readers through the process of designing and implementing expressive inquiry. It is observed that social work is primarily a women-led field, yet the perspectives of female service users have been historically absent from traditional modes of research. Consequently, knowledge of their wants and needs have been assumed and misjudged by researchers or have remained unknown. It is contended that, unlike traditional methods of inquiry, participatory arts-based modalities bring forth—unfiltered by presumed biases—the lived experiences of vulnerable populations. To illustrate, the reader is invited into the cultural world of Bedouin women presenting examples of art-based participatory inquiry that expand critical knowledge about their situational realities, hopes, and dreams. The approaches in the chapter illuminate how arts-based inquiry should be thought of as not an end but a method to gain new knowledge with the goal of social and political change.