Graphic Social Science
Graphic social science involves the use of graphic form(s) to communicate research. I began experimenting with graphic methods in 2017, first simple cartoons, then graphic essays in comic form, later illustration and collage. Click below for project summaries and links to their galleries.
A Feminist Family History in Eight Lives
This project’s origins lie in the intensely personal pursuit of my family history, which I am now turning into a graphic narrative from the perspective of a feminist academic and artist. While there have been rapid technological advances in archival and digital records used by family historians, genealogy’s patriarchal bias has been far slower to change. Roots and Routes is a response to the frustration I have long felt as female ancestors are consigned to generic, silent spaces. In this project, I draw on my portfolio of research skills and creative methods to create a resistant, exploratory reading of the lives of my grandmothers and six of my great-grandmothers.
Five ‘Survive’ Lockdown
This graphic novella emerged from the findings of the project Living and Working in Lockdown. What’s gender got to do with it? For this qualitative researcher, the scale of response to the survey (n=543) was a) gratifying but b) somewhat overwhelming! Five Survive Lockdown is a way of exploring the complexity and particularity of the lived experiences embedded in those data
My Brilliant Career? An Investigation
This graphic essay was produced in a large scale (4 x A2 panels) comic format and conformed to the structural conventions of an essay or article. It communicates the findings of the Gender(s) at Work research project and features three ‘characters’ embodying the glass ceiling, the glass escalator and the glass cliff.