Summary

Arts-based research is an exciting methodology and way of constructing knowledge about social phenomena. Accomplished works of arts-based research commonly possess several characteristics. These include but are not limited to the following, as further elaborated on in the work of Barone and Eisner (2006, 2011). The work of arts-based research must possess a potential for illumination. This is a capacity to reveal what has not been previously noticed in a set of social phenomena. Otherwise the work is redundant insofar as it rehashes the merely familiar, or the prevailing wisdom, concerning social issues, events, or topics. The work should have a potential for generativity. This is the capacity of the work to promote a disequilibrium in the reader or viewer, a kind of puzzlement that raises questions more than providing answers. Often this is the result of a purposefully crafted ambiguity in the text. The work should be incisive, focusing tightly on a social issue, theme, or topic. The work should be socially significant. That is, it should address social issues that are not trivial, but rather are important in and to a culture or society. The work should understand and engage aesthetic qualities (arts-based tools of language, their elements and principles) derived from the arts discipline or disciplines with which it converses.