ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the different ways in which arts-based projects have been approached. It explores the following themes: the relationship between the qualitative researcher and the subject; the critique of these projects; the treatment of voice in these projects; and the often political and/or therapeutic nature of these projects. The chapter provides some activities that the novice researcher can use to practice skills and advance dispositions that are central to qualitative research and arts-based research. Arts-based educational research has at its core an aesthetic way of knowing that is best understood as sense based, encompassing emotional, perceptual, embodied and nonlinear ways of knowing that might not be accessible through traditional epistemologies or linear research methods. Qualitative researchers have used a variety of arts to communicate findings. These have included performance-based arts, various art-making efforts including drawing, posters, or collage; and photography. Qualitative researchers often use arts as a way to elicit data.
