The project develops a new methodology that we call method mixing. Method mixing refers to the methods, performative practices and techniques of the body, of the use of sound, language, digital media and things/objects that we encounter in the field – and it refers to the methods of sensory ethnography, transcultural analysis, socio-material analysis and artistic research methods that help us to engage with the methods of the field. The reflexive mode of doing ethnographic research and analysis is crucial in this process, as we are an inter- and transdisciplinary team combining perspectives from cultural studies, sound studies, theatre studies, urban studies and education and gender studies.
The project is based on ethnographic fieldwork that is conducted over a period of three years (the project runs from Dec 2016-Nov 2019) in three postmigrant theatre productions and in the classrooms of three primary and secondary schools. We use qualitative research methods such as participant observation and semi-structured interviews, which we complement with approaches from sensory ethnography, which allows us to zoom in on the sonic, material and embodied methods, techniques and practices that we encounter in the field. This multi-faceted ethnographic work has also resulted in very unique ways of documenting and interpreting the data collected in the field: (1) performative writing that incorporates and reflects the sonic, spatial and corporeal materialities and the and socio-material assemblages found in the field, and (2) drawing as an ethnographic method that is also used to manipulate photographs taken in the field, thus incorporating and commenting the agential cuts (Barad) made in the ethnographic process.
The theoretical approaches that we draw from, enhance and refine in order to work towards our methodology of method mixing include new materialism/material feminism, sound and sensory studies, transcultural and postcolonial studies, and education studies. This theoretical work is anchored in and developed from the results of the fieldwork. The reconsidered, reworked and refined methodology then feeds back into the ethnographic fieldwork, also in reflection and feedback with the actors within the field.
More information about research activities, paper presentations, and workshops can be found on our blog here.
TRANSCULTURAL PRACTICES IN POSTMIGRANT THEATRE AND IN SCHOOL | METHOD MIXING AS TRANSMISSION 