Kip Jones

KIP JONES, an American by birth, has been studying and working in the UK for more than 20 years.
Under the umbrella term of 'arts-led research', his main efforts have involved developing tools
from the arts and humanities for use by social scientists in research and its impact on a wider
public or a Perfomative Social Science.

Jones was Reader in Performative Social Science and Qualitative Research at
Bournemouth University for 15 years.
He is now a Visiting Scholar and and an independent author and scholar.

Kip has produced films and written many articles for academic journals and authored chapters
for books on topics such as masculinity, ageing and rurality, and older LGBT citizens.
Jones' most recent work involves working with Generation Z youth to tell their stories using
social media.
His ground-breaking use of qualitative methods, including Auto-fiction, biography
and auto-ethnography, and the use of tools from the arts in social science research
and dissemination are well-known.

Jones acted as Author and Executive Producer of
the award-winning short film, RUFUS STONE, funded by Research Councils UK.
The film is now available for free viewing on the Internet
and has been viewed by more than 14,000 people in 150 countries.

Areas of expertise
• Close relationships, culture and ethnicity
• Social psychology, sociology
• Ageing, self and identity
• Interpersonal processes, personality,
individual differences,
social networks, prejudice and stereotyping
• Sexuality and sexual orientation
• Creativity and the use of the
arts in Social Science

Media experience
His work has been reported widely
in the media, including:
BBC Radio 4,BBC TV news,Times
Higher Education, Sunday New
York Times, International
Herald-Tribune
and The Independent.

Tuesday 30 December 2014

Kip Jones’ Ten ‘Rules’ for Being Creative in Producing Research


Since the end of the year seems to be the time for lists, top ten lists, etc., I decided to compile mine about being creative whist producing cutting-edge research. Not for the faint-hearted! Here goes:

  1.      Be curious. Be a detective. Be ready to be surprised by answers you never expected. It should, in the end, be a good story that you can tell.
  2.      Insure that the method fits the question(s). This can often take some time. Be willing to investigate until you find the right method. This will save you a lot of grief later.
  3.      Explore methods. Combine them, expand them, reinvented them, but be prepared to then follow them.
  4.     If your research question is about people, find a way to really involve them in the process, not just answer some stupid questions.
  5.      Don’t panic if you method produces a lot of data. Swim in it. It’s fun and it is here that the surprises bubble up. Whatever you do, try to avoid reducing the amount of data by ‘categorising’ it. (I detest little boxes.)
  6.      Think hard and long about how you want to share the results of your efforts. Text is only one of many possibilities. Really try to get your personal interests out of the way in this process and let the data lead you in selecting a format or art form.
  7.      Research is about discovery; Dissemination is about putting your findings into action. Ideally, we can be creative at both.
  8.      About half of your effort (and time) should be on producing the research, the other half on creating the outputs.
  9.      Creative outputs produce unexpected outcomes. Be willing to experiment, ‘go it alone’. ‘Doing’ and ‘making’ produce additional findings. Use them, they are rich and you’ve earned them.
  10.   Be willing to make 100 versions, then one more (Sister Corita Kent). It’s that last one that you will use.

Note: Remember, oh ye serious social scientists, that in Big Science, some of the greatest discoveries were made through mistakes and acknowledging the unexpected. Some famous Scientists also slept with their lab assistants and even a few later married, but we won’t go there, at least not now. Therefore:

Rule 11: Be curious about the history of your craft. Soak up as much as you can. It will both inspire and lead you.







Kip Jones to Advise on Springer's Arts-based Educational Research Book Series

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Charles Voysey’s inscription on a handcrafted chest, 
which became the motto for the Society of Designers in 1896
Kip Jones is please to announce that Springer Publications has invited him to act as an Adviser on their new Arts-Based Educational Research Book Series. With more than 200 Nobel Prize winners among the authors of its books and journal articles, Springer’s editors discover the best authors and help to disseminate their research, while delivering the next big thing in scholarly communications.
Arts-Based Educational Research is increasingly employed across the disciplines of social science, education, humanities, health, media, communications, the creative arts, design, and trans-disciplinary and interdisciplinary research.
The hinge connecting the arts and research in this Arts-Based Educational Research book series is education. Education is understood in its broadest sense as learning/transformation/change that takes place in diverse formal and informal spaces, places and moments.

Kip is fond of reminding others that the concept of “Head, Heart and Hand” has a long history, including in the Arts. Charles Voysey, an artist/craftsman, utilized the phrase in his participation in the Arts & Crafts movement in 19th Century Britain.

Call for Submissions: Springer Publications announces its arts-based educational research book series. Queries and submissions should be sent via email in a word doc. format to Barbara Bickel at editor.aber.springer@gmail.com

 

This book series offers both edited collections and monographs that survey and exemplify Arts-Based Educational Research. The series will take up questions relevant to the diverse range of Arts-Based Educational Research. These questions might include: What can arts-based methodologies (such as arts based research, arts informed research, a/r/tography, poetic inquiry, performative inquiry, art practice based research etc.) do? How do the arts (such as literary, visual and performing arts) enable research? What is the purpose of Arts-based Educational Research? What counts as Arts-Based? What counts as Educational? What counts as Research? How can Arts-Based Educational Research be responsibly performed in communities and institutions, individually or collaboratively? Must Arts-Based Educational Research be public? What ways of knowing and being can be explored with Arts-Based Educational Research? How can Arts-Based Educational Research build upon diverse philosophical, theoretical, historical, political, aesthetic and spiritual approaches to living life? What is not Arts-Based Educational Research? 
The hinge connecting the arts and research in this Arts-Based Educational Research book series is education. Education is understood in its broadest sense as learning/transformation/change that takes place in diverse formal and informal spaces, places and moments. As such, books in this series might take up questions such as: How do perspectives on education, curriculum and pedagogy (such as critical, participatory, liberatory, intercultural and historical) inform arts based inquiries? How do teachers become artists, and how do artists become teachers? How can one be both? What does this look like, in and beyond school environments? 
Arts-Based Educational Research will be deeply and broadly explored, represented, questioned and developed in this vital and digitally augmented international publication series. The aesthetic reach of this series will be expanded by a digital on-line repository where all media pertaining to publications will be held.