The study has drawn on a number of creative methods to generate data from a range of perspectives. These have been used in conjunction with regular interviews with the aim of breaking away from ‘the standard interview’, a format that for some might also feel very similar to meetings with case workers, counsellors etc. Creative methods offer the participant a more active role in the research and can be seen as a way of (somewhat) democratising the interview. These methods activate other registers than the verbal and often bring a welcome change to the interview format and its (implicit) expectation to produce a (coherent) narrative. Finally, when researching mundane and taken-for-granted parts of our lives, creative methods can facilitate narratives about other experiences or sentiments than a ‘standard’ interview because they make us look at the ordinary in a novel way.
The specific methods that are used in this project are described in the links below.
Girls Growing Up 