8th Biennial ACSPRI Social Science Methodology Conference

Making together: A methodology in the making
11-24, 10:30–12:00 (Australia/Melbourne), Zoom Breakout Room 1

The aim of this workshop is to demonstrate the methodological value of making together – the practice of working with others to create tangible artefacts. This aim will be achieved via a workshop during which a conversation will be curated with scholars, artists, and experts with lived experience of health issues and/or healthcare to understand how they have used this methodology, why, and the associated effects. Participants will be invited to engage in a creative making activity to make together (e.g., craft, digital body mapping, found poetry, etc.), as well as consider and critique how they might incorporate this methodology into their scholarship.

There has been limited scholarly engagement with the methodological benefits of making together. Literature on related areas largely highlights four points. First, making together offers therapeutic benefits, fostering self-expression, relationships, health-seeking behaviours, and personal growth (Harter et al., 2022; Kelly, Steiner, Mason, & Teasdale, 2021). Second, making together can offer pedagogical benefits, opening developmental opportunities, as students learn and form their professional identity (Hyde, 2007; Page, 2018). Third, making together can offer social benefits, serving as a form of activism to raise the profile of, understanding about, and action to address social issues (Hackney, Saunders, Willett, Hill, & Griffin, 2020; Pollitt, Blaise, & Gray, 2022). And fourth, artefacts represent a useful way to collect and analyse data, as well as communicate the associated findings – consider, for instance, photovoice (Krutt, Dyer, Arora, Rollman, & Jozkowski, 2018; Overmars-Marx, Thomése, & Meininger, 2018), research-based theatre (Bleuer, Chin, & Sakamoto, 2018; Brown, Ramsay, Milo, Moore, & Hossain, 2018), and found objects (Camic, 2010). Despite the myriad benefits of artefacts and the act of making together, with few exceptions (Mitchell & de Lange, 2011), the methodological benefits of making together remain underexplored. This workshop offers an opportunity to explore and critique making together as a methodology to aid sense-making and sense-giving.

Recording link: https://acspri-org-au.zoom.us/rec/share/6wVWMb2b6X_9QWRg8ZGR0mSDy5gZ_folWvTYWs4wubmAUVvuwnx4f9jPXg_2XSd_.9eniOoEOhLDCIdlf?startTime=1669246291000


Do NOT record this presentation – no

Associate Professor Ann Dadich is affiliated with the Western Sydney University School of Business. She is also a registered psychologist and a full member of the Australian Psychological Society. A/Prof. Dadich has accumulated considerable expertise in health service management, notably knowledge translation. This encompasses scholarship on the processes through which different knowledges coalesce to promote quality care. This is demonstrated by her publishing record, with approximately 200 refereed publications; the research grants she has secured; and the awards she has received. A/Prof. Dadich holds editorial appointments with several academic journals, including the Australian Health Review and the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. She is also the Deputy Director of the Sydney Partnership for Health, Education, Research and Enterprise Knowledge Translation Strategic Platform; she serves on the Australian Consortium for Social and Political Research Incorporated (ACSPRI) Executive Committee; she is a member of the Board of the Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management (ANZAM); she chairs the ANZAM Research Committee; she chairs the ANZAM Health Management and Organisation Conference Stream; and she convenes the ANZAM Health Management and Organisation Special Interest Group. She supervises doctoral candidates and teaches undergraduate units on change management, innovation, creativity, and organisational behaviour.

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Dr Priya Vaughan is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Black Dog Institute and the SPHERE KT Strategic Platform. With a research background in social anthropology and art history, Priya takes an interdisciplinary approach to health research, utilising arts-based, collaborative and socially informed methodologies. Priya is currently working on an ARC funded project which uses body mapping to learn from women with disability, experience of mental distress, or refugee background about their experiences of, and ways of coping with, stigma and discrimination.