# Ethos of participatory arts-based and action research

We will meet fictional characters venturing through this Guidebook, they are based on the experiences of researchers, artist and arts-based and community-based facilitators in ParCos project. Characters are leading you towards a practical context and interaction and helping you to find a way how to use arts-based methods .


Sketch by Anne Pässilä, photo by Antti Knutas
Here again our fictional characters are saying hello to you. **Ava** is a facilitator working with various communities applying arts-based methods to participatory design. **Milo** is an artist working within communities and organisations applying his artistic skills and competencies especially in a context of social justice, collective voicing and ICT. **Sophia** is a voluntary member of a community center and interested in democratizing the ownership of data to citizens. **Ilona** is a six year old girl who is taking part in a participatory process.

The use of and creation of these fictional characters are based on dramaturgical thinking and inspired by Lawrence & Patricia (2015) and Pässilä & Owens (2016).

Sketch by Anne Pässilä, photo by Antti Knutas

Ava, Milo and Sophia are using arts-based methods on the participatory Action Research phases: plan, act, observe, reflect and we will also integrate principals of participatory design and user centred design. (Balestrini, et al, 2017 ). Ava appreciates Milo´s emphasis of organizing reflection and questioning taken-for-granted - power position by asking: “*Who is arts-based methods in this research for? Who will benefit from participatory action research and participatory design? What are we doing for the greater good?*” (Coghlan and Brydon-Miller, 2014; Leavy, 2015; Cotter, Pässilä and Vince, 2015)


Sketch by Anne Pässilä, photo by Antti Knutas
Sophia is actively involving different citizen groups in a reflective research and design processes. She is also inspired in collaborating with Ava and Milo and saying to them: “*My vision is that we together create valuable interaction designs that make a difference in people’s future lives. This is a focal point when building a dialogue within and across inter- and multi-disciplinary work on children, youth and media research, and addressing the demands from policy makers*”


Sketch by Anne Pässilä, photo by Antti Knutas

Ava responding to her: “*Yes, it is important in the development and testing of innovative qualitative research methods, both on a primary and meta-level. Focusing on the development of tools, worked examples and guidelines for conducting primary qualitative research with a special focus on arts-based methods and science communication with children.*”


Sketch by Anne Pässilä, photo by Antti Knutas
Milo echoing both of them saying: “*It is relevant more than ever before to focuses on the overlap between media, technology, public space and critical thinking. Our work at the grass roots level to empower children and their families to take action about their home, street or neighborhood could be seen as new form of beautiful solidarity and appreciative activism.* “


Sketch by Anne Pässilä, photo by Antti Knutas

Ava continues: “*Narratives and storytelling (Boje, 2008 ) can be a path to open and learn about benefits of “polyphony” and “Heteroglossia” articulated in an arts-based object or process based on own experiences and interpretation (Bakhtin, 1981 ). And not to underestimate the power of imagination and imaginative thinking*.”

They start together to recall a workshop which was orchestrated with young people and they all agreed that the concept of innovation then needs to be rethought.


Sketch by Anne Pässilä, photo by Antti Knutas
Sophia: *…it becomes a question of social and interpretative dimension of innovation where children and young people are part of the knowledge production related to process renewal as well as their interpretations of existing situations and assumptions.


Sketch by Anne Pässilä, photo by Antti Knutas

Milo: *The logic is to develop innovation awareness for breaking “silos of us and them”, facilitating participation, encountering each other and becoming aware of bottlenecks between various actors; citizen groups, civic officers, local business people and artist*s.


Sketch by Anne Pässilä, photo by Antti Knutas

Ava: *When creating innovations, citizens together explore and interpret their own experiences, assumptions and data; they make as well as break the sense of their actions, social processes and relations in them*. (Pässilä et al., 2013)

**References**
Bakhtin, M. M. (1981) *The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays* by M. M. Bakhtin. Austin: University of Texas Press

Balestrini, M., Rogers, Y., Carolyn Hassan, C. and Creus, J. (2017) *A City in Common: A Framework to Orchestrate Large-scale Citizen Engagement around Urban Issues*. CHI 2017, May 6–11, 2017, Denver, CO, USA.

Boje, D.M. (2008). *Storytelling Organizations*. SAGE Publications.

Coghlan, D., and Brydon-Miller, M. (2014). *The SAGE encyclopedia of action research *(Vols. 1-2). London, SAGE Publications Ltd.

Cotter R.J., Pässilä, A. and Vince, R. (2015) New Directions for Researching Critical Reflection in Organizations. In Jan Fook, Val Collington, Fiona Ross, Gillian Ruch, Linden West (eds.) *Researching Critical Reflection Multidisciplinary Perspectives*. Routledge, pp. 171- 182.

Lawrence, R.& Lipson, Cranton, P. (2015)* A Novel Idea. Researching Transformative Learning in Fiction.* Springer.

Leavy, P. (2009). *Method meets art: Arts-based research practice. *The Guildford Press, New York, London.

Pässilä, A., Oikarinen, T., Parjanen, S. & Harmaakorpi, V. (2013) Interpretative dimension of user-driven service innovation: Forum Theatre in facilitating renewal in Finnish public health care, *Baltic Journal of Management* 8(2): 166 – 182.

Pässilä, A. and Owens, A. (2016) Sensible Sensitivity: Arts Pedagogy in Management Development. Peter Stokes, Neil Moore, Simon M Smith, Caroline Rowland, Peter Scott (eds.) *Organizational Management: Approaches and Solutions*. Kogan Page, pp.191-218.

Video reference:
Evocative report by artist Laura Mellanen & researcher Anne Pässilä 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQasQFNYW5I