BeyondLabels

The underlying rationale for the research is based on conducting participatory research that is routed in social change specific to marginalized groups. The research is also influenced and in part shaped in the methodological perspective by the following quote by Martin Luther King:

“We do not ask you to march by our side. Although, as citizens, you are free and welcome to do so. Rather, we ask you to focus on the fresh social issues of our day. To move from observing operant learning …. to the test tubes of Watts, Harlem, Selma, and Bogalusa. We ask you to make society’s problems your laboratory. We ask you to translate your data into direction-direction for action” (King Jr, 1966)

ARC research adopts a performance ethnography approach and associated criteria based on a multiracial cultural studies perspective (Denzin 2002, Diawara, 1996). Such an approach is less certain than other more established interpretive enquiry methods (Denzin, 2003) but at the same time is natural to the ARC enquiry context. From a feminist, communitarian sense, there are various approaches to performance ethnography. For our study the ideologies and ‘world views’ are quite polarized from the drivers of many performance ethnographers but we share the need for performance ethnography in terms of criteria and techniques. Denzin (2003) and Stegner (1990) eloquently described the rationale and methodological perspective adopted for this research project.

"I seek an interpretive social science that is simultaneously autoethnographic, vulnerable, performative, and critical. This is a social science that refuses abstractions and high theory…………viewing culture as a complex performative process, it seeks to understand how people enact and construct meaning in their daily …….. free of prejudice, repression, and discrimination." (Denzin, 2003).

"I seek a writing form that is part memoir, part essay, part autoethnography... I write from scenes of memory, re-arranging, suppressing, even inventing scenes, forgoing claims to exact truth or factual accuracy, search instead for emotional truth, for deep meaning." (Stegner, 1990).

It is important to illustrate further the performances perspective and the idea of performances in public and democratic spaces that has informed this study in method and style. ARC adopted autoethnographic theatre perspective that we adapted for artistic expression. Issues of people coming together, through digital communities of practice, to participate in shared and reflexive performances. For the researchers performances involve co-participation in an interpretive process. Using the above theatre analogy scripts can be considered in context of pedagogic performance art narratives. The idea of edited experiences and often formed from group experiences were embraced. This has been used in exploring identities of refugee and migrants and in stitching together many dimensions and elements of culture through informal learning activities. Performance ethnography is a way to illustrate meaning and understanding about learning experiences in the context of personal identity (Pelias, 1999). Clearly challenging to achieve but natural for a multicultural education approach driven by pedagogy routed in anti-discriminatory practice.

Christian (2000) identifies three interconnected criteria that shape these representations of the world and in the context of this research into informal multicultural education in enabling identity expression through visual arts. These three criteria provide the guiding principles for the ARC research. 1) Interpretive sufficiency – the voices of visual artists need to provide depth, detail, emotionality and critical consciousness through the researchers being part of the collective. This enabled an immersive perspective into the role of informal multicultural education in the context of social movement of people and implications to identity through interpretive enquiry methods. Working together in a co-production process (informal multicultural education) culminating in visual arts acting as ‘voices’ for refugees and migrants. Paula Freire (2001) says conscientization to be formed - the marginalized gain their own expressive voices and collaborate in transforming their own identities. 2) Representational adequacy – the diversity of what became a loose ARC community of practice ensured a no tolerance approach to discrimination and stereotyping such as by racial, class, gender, religious issues and many more issues of importance. 3) Authentically Adequate - in terms of text and visual arts the research was influenced by Christian (2000) by meeting three conditions: (a) multiple voices are represented by exploring the Sonia Neito ‘undergrid’ to multicultural education as a framework for interpreting visual art and associated collaborations (b) deal with morality by challenging, through visual art, stereotype views in our communities and society of refugees and migrants (c) promote the changing of social perspective through creative expression. The performance ethnographic perspective embraced visual art and co-production with marginalized groups to provide a multi-voice that is hoped to empower persons, and discover identity implications (in some way).

We also engaged in the research design by ideas of Lincoln (1995) on authentic adequacy in that the research should: (1) reflect the researchers personality (criterion of positionality) in words and visual expression; (2) being able to address issues of the refugee community and promote there voice was core to the research in how it was conducted (community); (3) engage the non engaged in the context of asylum seekers and migrants who are often silenced through giving a voice (voice); (4) the researchers explore their interpretation of the situation, during, before, and after the research experience through exploring the Sonia Neito ‘undergrid’ framework (critical subjectivity); and (5) ARC was routed in forming a loose collective of equal stakeholders and this facilitated openness between researchers, educators and learners by performance ethnography not allowing such a divide to be recognised (reciprocity). ARC realized the conceptualised performance ethnography potential in the context of civic, participatory, and collaborative initiative. It creates a situation of co-participation and co-production in a common exploratory project specific to facilitating, through visual arts, a means for identity expression and facilitated by informal multicultural education practice. This performance ethnography research project clearly pulls from various perspectives including: feminist approach to ethnography, traditional ‘eastern theology’ on epistemology, and neo-Marxist approaches to community development.