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Solutions to sustainability: utilising art to communicate the ineffable

Suzanne Grob (Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia)

Qualitative Research Journal

ISSN: 1443-9883

Article publication date: 6 April 2012

520

Abstract

Purpose

Research problems focused on sustainability, such as changes to procurement practices, are new which necessitate new approaches to research methods. The purpose of this paper is to describe the application of an arts‐based inquiry technique to supplement a mixed‐methods approach.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper presents an application of arts‐based inquiry techniques as part of the qualitative analysis regime to communicate the approaches adopted by Australian organisations introducing sustainable procurement utilising the medium of collage.

Findings

Arts‐based inquiry is found to offer organisational research several complementary features. It engages multiple audiences in different “ways of seeing” and engaging with research.

Originality/value

Arts‐based techniques demonstrated in this paper offer sustainability and other researchers a complementary method of inquiry, to communicate change in society by opening the discourse between art, transdisciplinarity and sustainability, and to engage with multiple audiences in the process of change.

Keywords

Citation

Grob, S. (2012), "Solutions to sustainability: utilising art to communicate the ineffable", Qualitative Research Journal, Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 47-60. https://doi.org/10.1108/14439881211222723

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2012, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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