Arts-based health research and academic legitimacy: transcending hegemonic conventions

TLDR

The study investigates how arts‑based health research challenges academic legitimacy by examining tensions in methodology, production, and dissemination. The authors conducted in‑depth qualitative interviews with 36 researchers, artists, and trainees in Canada to explore arts‑based health research practices. The study identifies four key tensions—structure versus flexibility, truth and accuracy obligations, conventional knowledge criteria, and impact measurement expectations—and calls for redefining knowledge, evaluation, and rigor in arts‑based health research.

Abstract

Using the Canadian context as a case study, the research reported here focuses on in-depth qualitative interviews with 36 researchers, artists and trainees engaged in ‘doing’ arts-based health research (ABHR). We begin to address the gap in ABHR knowledge by engaging in a critical inquiry regarding the issues, challenges and benefits of ABHR methodologies. Specifically, this paper focuses on the tensions experienced regarding academic legitimacy and the use of the arts in producing and disseminating research. Four central areas of tension associated with academic legitimacy are described: balancing structure versus openness and flexibility; academic obligations of truth and accuracy; resisting typical notions of what counts in academia; and expectations vis-à-vis measuring the impact of ABHR. We argue for the need to reconsider what counts as knowledge and to reconceptualize notions of evaluation and rigor in order to effectively support the effective production and dissemination of ABHR.