ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the role of the self in research. It argues that arts-based, practice-based research needs to address the issue of the self of the researcher. It shows the significance of self within the processes and in its outcomes, whether these are propositions, descriptions, explanations, theories, artefacts, changed practices or changed understandings. In the first section, I present a brief overview of the theory of the self which informs the argument of the chapter. In the second section, I outline the logic of research processes from the initial conception of a research project through to its end. Section 3 contains three examples of different kinds of ongoing, arts-based, practice-based research which are used to ground the subsequent discussion of how the self enters into arts-based research, and the implications of this for researchers. The fourth section draws on the examples from the third in order to provide an overview of the intersections of self and research. The fifth section addresses criticisms sometimes levelled at arts-based, practice-based research focused on its partiality. The final section concludes with some remarks about the significance of acknowledging the place of the self in research.
