Arts–Research Collaboration: Reflections on Collaboration as Creative Method

What is arts–research collaboration and how does it work? What does arts–research collaboration as method for qualitative inquiry do? What is the effect of collaboration on creative practice and academic research? Drawing on a collaboration between an anthropologist and an artist, this article addresses a surprising lack of qualitative inquiry into collaboration between creative practitioners and academic researchers. By recounting how the authors developed and used collaboration as method, the article identifies and analyzes underpinning qualities of how they worked together through arts–research activities. It advances existing debate by agitating for more theoretically grounded accounts of collaboration, including those that take a processual view on making and creativity to argue for considering collaboration, itself, to be materials from which creative practice and outputs emerge.