Alongside a growing interest in creative methods, researchers are increasingly exploring how to bring creativity into data analysis. But how do you strike the balance between innovation and maintaining a systematic, rigorous and ethical approach?

Jess Miles talks to Helen Kara, Dawn Mannay, and Alastair Roy, editors of The Handbook of Creative Data Analysis, about the role of creativity in research, its benefits for analysis and communication, and the anxieties and difficulties people might experience around using creative methods for the first time.

Find out more about the book at: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/the-handbook-of-creative-data-analysis

The transcript is available here: https://www.transformingsociety.co.uk/2025/01/14/podcast-how-to-be-creative-with-data-analysis/

Links to resources:

• The Handbook of Creative Data Analysis: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/the-handbook-of-creative-data-analysis
• Creativity in research webinar: https://youtu.be/yBW0MIfR944?feature=shared
• Creative Research Methods in Practice series: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/creative-research-methods-in-practice
• International Creative Research Methods conference: https://creativeresearchmethods.com/
• 'Generating Materials' in Using Social Theory: https://doi.org/10.4135/9780857020253.n5
• Embodied Research Methods: https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/book/embodied-methods-social-sciences
• Epistemic Freedom in Africa: Deprovincialization and Decolonization: https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/41376/9781138588578_oachapter1.pdf
• 'Fabrication as ethical practice': https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2011.641993

Timestamps:

01:06 - How did the book come about?

06:13 - Why does creativity matter in research and data analysis?

12:28 - How does creative data analysis and co-production help with analysing, communicating and talking about research with a wider audience?

15:22 - How does creative data analysis bring the body into play and what's the significance of this?

21:15 - How does fiction and fictional elements fit into academic research?

26:25 - How can we mitigate the anxieties people have around using creative research methods?

34:50 - What would you say to someone looking to use creative research methods for the first time?

Intro music:

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