addressing the ‘anCient quarreL’a bowerbird, in other words, is a researcher capable of drawing data and ideas
together from across fields and disciplines to find harmonies and synergies, and to
combine them in a manner that produces not only a satisfying and resolved creative
artefact, but a fresh way of understanding those points of connection and their wider
implications and applications.
another way to describe this ‘eclectic and often wild’ (Brady 2000) approach
to research comes from the work of the anthropologist Claude levi- strauss, who
introduced the term ‘bricoleur’ into the literature. a bricoleur is literally a handyman,
or odd jobs man; in levi- strauss’ terms, ‘a Jack of all trades or a kind of professional
do- it- yourself person’ (1966 [1962]: 17) – someone who does not necessarily possess a
wide range of specializations or specialized knowledge, but is able to make do with what
is available. The principal skill at work here is the creativity that is necessary in order
to be able to make what available functional for the necessary purpose. This ‘making
do’ is what allows the intuitive leaps and creative shifts designed both to heighten
the artistic quality of the work and develop its knowledge potential. The bricoleur’s
working methods also provide space for the multiple methodologies that allow the
artist researcher to draw from an established ‘toolkit’ of research practice; because in
this mode of practice, what matters is the making, and the making – built on a solid
foundation of thought and understanding – is what will deliver the outcomes. The
creative writing researcher may, for example, borrow the techniques of conducting
quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews from sociological research, careful
observation and recording from the natural sciences, close reading and textual analysis
from the humanities, cognitive examination from psychology, audience and reception
research from communication, and/or the processes of studying organizations from
business research. They may use all or any of these in combination and at different
times in the research process. Writers take what they need, from wherever they can
find it. and though such a process may sound slapdash and too casual to be taken
seriously, it is, in fact, grounded on very careful and sophisticated investigation into
research methodologies and how they function. sociologist pierre Bourdieu is himself
the model of a successful researcher who never simply obeyed a paradigm’s logic, or
straightforwardly went through the methodological motions. Rather, he insisted, ‘You
get what you can where you can’ (Bourdieu 1990: 29). The point behind this is that
methodology does not direct creative writing research (or art) practice; rather, the
practice directs the bricoleur- as- bowerbird’s selection of method.
the utility of creative writing researchutilizing these processes, we argue, creative writing research is not only able to make
contributions to improved practice and formal innovation in creative writing, but
is also able to contribute to the generation of new knowledge about discourses on
creativity as well as other areas such as social formation and historical narrative.
michel Foucault would not concur with this view. he resists the assumption that
creative writing has either the capacity or the responsibility to deliver knowledge,
pointing out that literature has, since the nineteenth century, distanced itself from
knowledge discourses and has, he insists, a different role to play in society than that
of generating knowledge: