Transformation Through Practice: A Dialogical Exploration of Embodiment and Presence in Arts-Based Qualitative Research With Self and Others

In this article, we discuss the potential of artist-researchers inviting research participants to engage directly in arts- and practice-based ethnographic work. To enable openings for this engagement, we find that the artist-researcher ontologically must stay oneself but also be able to share the self so that embodied knowing and years of embedded repertoires may find pathways of externalization, which may be walked co-creatively with research participants. In a reflexive conversation, we—Pini (dance artist, anthropologist) and Høybye (collaborative songwriter, ethnographer)—share insights from our respective artistic and academic fields to discern which areas of practice and knowledge creation may be similar, and which may be different. The aim is to identify how ways of working that have been transformative for us may be facilitated in interventions for others, and more specifically young cancer patients in our joint ongoing research project.