Tom Cockburn is a social scientist at the University of Bradford who together with colleague Rory Francis – an artist at Manchester Metropolitan University, is looking to assess how action research and art can function together to initiate social change. He talks to Rita Dimasi about his research in this field, and the upcoming SOLAR Forum that he will host together with Rory Francis.
According to Cockburn, the role of an action researcher itself has a very long history. Originally the process was used by people who looked to initiate change within organizations, however in the 1970s and ’80s the process became part of the education system. Teachers used research to reflect upon their own practices, before initiating change, and then regularly reviewing that change. Since then, action research is used by many government organizations to initiate changes within their practices and policies. For instance, in the UK, most government money from the European Union and from central government in Westminster must undergo some form of action research to evaluate where and how it should be spent.
Cockburn believes that these developments have pushed action research a long way from its origins. ‘Most practicing sociologists, social scientists and practitioners interested in action research really see the critical edge in looking at initiating change, challenging injustices and using action research as a way of empowering people to become aware of their own circumstances,’ Cockburn explains. ‘It is really around this issue of social change, that action research, from my point of view, is so intriguing. To use research as a way of informing people about what their world is like and what their world could be like.’
What Cockburn and Francis want to explore in their SOLAR forum, scheduled to take place on January 17 in London, is the purpose of social change within this process, says Cockburn. ‘I personally think that there should be [social change]. The action research that I would be involved in would have this critical element. This end point of challenging injustice and initiating social change; where for others it is more about a notion of efficiency rather than initiating social change.’
Neither does Cockburn shy away from admitting that there is an agenda to the programme of associating social research and art. People’s agendas are vital, he claims, and he believes researchers and artists need to ask themselves exactly that – What are their agendas? Cockburn even goes so far as to declare that he would find it worrying if there was no agenda, because this leads to potential manipulation of research and art.
‘If people do have an agenda and are honest about that and aware of that, then I think it would make for better action research, better art and better social change.’
Cockburn has been working with art and artists for ten years now. His research usually involves young artists interested in the potential for social change and the excitement of being involved in something new. The collaborations include workshops, community theatre, photographic and filmmaking projects. However, he found that the artists became subordinate to the demands of the action research or social science, and this concerned him.
Cockburn believes his SOLAR Forum collaborator – Rory Francis, is an experienced artist who will not be easily manipulated, or subordinated by the social research. ‘What was useful for me in using younger people was that they helped break down barriers, because if you go in as a social scientist, particularly when interviewing young marginalised people, it is hard to get them to speak, and break down barriers. Artists have precisely those skills by virtue of having a shared task, and their approach leads to a better understanding between the researchers and the research,’ Cockburn assesses.
What Cockburn is looking to avoid is the subordination of art into social science. He adamantly avoid terms such as convergence, and instead only feels comfortable in describing the process as a parallel progression.
‘Parallel sounds much better than convergent,’ admits Cockburn. ‘What I think we are actually asking are very fundamental questions about what is an artist? What does an artist do? And what is a social scientist? What is an action researcher and what are we actually doing here? Are we actually gathering data and facts and figures? Are we just producing paintings or sculptors or is there something else that we are doing which is more interesting?’
Cockburn clearly believes it is the latter and sees the way art has represented social reality, as something social science should aspire to.
‘You can think of a whole variety of issues that artists have engaged in and represented and have been responsible for some kind of change in perception. Similarly, I do think good sociology does the same thing. Artists however have a grip on the medium in a much better way than our boring dry text does.’
Even artists who “just paint” are providing social commentary, Cockburn declares, when asked how he would relate to an artist who had no agenda. He argues that an artist who paints a landscape is reporting it. They are producing an image, which is being reported to some third party. The process then moves along to the analysis of the image. From there, the far end of the continuum towards activism and political questions is in sight. ‘And these political questions are very hard to ignore whether action researcher or artist,’ he says.
Cockburn wants the SOLAR Forum to be a genuine learning process. He does not want to seem to have the answers. His aim is to set the agenda for a dialogue and debate so as to see where people are coming from and what they are doing. ‘If we can broaden the experience from just us two, then we can have a better idea of what is going on,’ he says. ‘Particularly in what I think is, at the end of the day, a very exciting relationship between action research and art.’
It is expected forum participators will also be practitioners from the local government, social work, and teaching sectors –community workers who are using action research framework to secure finances. And if they are using artists or art itself then Cockburn would be very pleased.
The interest in this collaboration between two seemingly dissimilar fields is said to be evolving. Artists and social scientists are reported to be working with these issues, and if all goes well Cockburn plans to submit a bid to the British Academy to initiate international networks and links with other artist and social research networks across Europe.
The SOLAR Co-Learning Forum ‘When Does Art Become Action Research? When does Action Research Become Art’ will take place on January 17 2003 in London. For further information contact Amanda Tucker via email: Amanda2.Tucker@uwe.ac.uk or call 0117 344 8565/8556.
