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Psychosocial Aesthetics and Sensory Research Methods

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The Palgrave Handbook of Psychosocial Studies

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Abstract

Since Freud, key psychoanalytic thinkers have engaged with visual art and music and paid attention to aesthetic dimensions of symbol formation in clinical situations and in everyday life. However, within empirical psychosocial research, the importance of the aesthetic function has been largely disregarded.

Psychosocial Studies has been very much indebted to socio-biographical approaches in the study of lives and societal change processes based on open, narrative interviews. In this respect, it has echoed the narrative turn in social science and in other fields such as marketing and public relations, where storytelling is regarded as central to meaning making and engagement. Psychosocial research has brought to empirical social inquiry methods informed by an ontology of defended subjectivity; acknowledgment of the importance of the dynamic unconscious in social interaction and the research encounter; and a commitment to depth reflexivity in research analysis.

These have been important gains. However, this strong narrative and biographical influence has entailed a concentration on verbal texts with narratively structured temporal flow and on events and processes recounted in hindsight, rather than attention to quality of experience in the moment, including its aesthetic and affective aspects. This chapter considers how visual and sensory methods can complement and enrich or replace narrative interviews. It draws on examples taken from research in community and youth justice settings. Such methods have value when researching lived experience and sensitive topics which are hard to speak of, hard to think about, and sometimes hard to bear.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For a good overview of the field, see two edited collections: Jones et al. (2008) Special Issue on Performative Social Science (2008) in FQS Forum: Qualitative Social Research, and Leavey (2018) Handbook of arts-based research, especially Chapter 4, Gergen and Gergen, The Performative Movement in Social Science.

  2. 2.

    See for example journals Arts and Health: https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/rahe20?gclid=CjwKCAiAz%2D%2DOBhBIEiwAG1rIOhLIBPtx_vK897E1eMqvbE1xHR2Cwd_PeVna4_R6puUkoqOT8fFn2xoC82YQAvD_BwE and Applied Arts and Health https://www.intellectbooks.com/journal-of-applied-arts-health

  3. 3.

    In the early 2000s, notable exceptions were to be found in the fields of institutional observation Hinshelwood and Skogstad (2002) and infant observation, originally a training method which was adapted to meet requirements of social science research (Urwin, 2007) and Price’s (2006) observational study of classrooms. Relatively few psychosocial researchers were engaging in ethnographic inquiry in naturally occurring settings, reflecting prevailing trends in qualitative sociology.

  4. 4.

    The International Research Group for Psychosocietal Analysis from which these two volumes arose has played an important part in bringing these research communities together, enabling cross-familiarisation, especially through its annual working symposium at the Inter-University Centre in Dubrovnik. https://psycho-societal.org/publications/

  5. 5.

    The team was composed of Prue Chamberlayne, Stefanie Buckner, Tom Wengraf, and Lynn Froggett working together on a three-year project, all with a similar methodological commitment to using BNIM, but with markedly different research sensibilities. This diversity contributed to methodological innovation as the need for a sensory register slowly dawned on us.

  6. 6.

    Confabulation refers to the presentation of inaccurate or fantastical information, but not with the intent to deceive.

  7. 7.

    The poem itself is not reproduced here since the purpose of the extract is to illustrate the scenic composition (see Froggett, 2008), but Tom takes pleasure in the co-creation of this aesthetic object. Indeed it was the pleasure in expressing himself through the symbolic containment of the metered poem that mitigated the stress of working in a medium that so challenged him.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychosocial Research Unit, Institute of Citizenship, Society and Change, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK

    Lynn Froggett

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  1. Lynn Froggett
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Correspondence to Lynn Froggett .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK

    Stephen Frosh

  2. Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex, Colchester, UK

    Marita Vyrgioti

  3. Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex, Colchester, UK

    Julie Walsh

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK

    Stephen Frosh

  2. Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex, London, UK

    Marita Vyrgioti

  3. Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex, London, UK

    Julie Walsh

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Froggett, L. (2022). Psychosocial Aesthetics and Sensory Research Methods. In: Frosh, S., Vyrgioti, M., Walsh, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Psychosocial Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61510-9_29-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61510-9_29-1

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