The affective flows of creative writing research: How do bespoke research assemblages provide the methods and methodologies needed to open up new possibilities in creative writing research?

Abstract

This article builds upon our previous work on creative writing methods and methodologies (2021) by looking specifically at how New Materialist research methodologies (Fox & Alldred 2015) can be usefully applied to research into creative writing. Drawing upon our own research and our teaching about research into creative writing, we show how the New Materialist approach is especially supportive of research into creative writing because it offers researchers the chance to develop their own bespoke ‘research-assemblages’ (400) which can combine creative writing across different design modes using qualitative and quantitative research strategies. So, for example, as researchers we and our students have been able to create assemblages where a mixture of freewriting, reflective writing, autoethnography, multimodal research and Action Research has been put together to research the effects of creative writing activities connected with researching parks and their ecologies, examining the trauma of diasporic communities, using Google Streetview to improve descriptions of place, using digital storytelling to explore activist citizenship, and so on. The New Materialist emphasis upon ‘affect’ (how one thing is affected by another) and ‘affective flows’ (the ways in which affect plays out in various situations) is particularly supportive of research into creative writing because it puts the research emphasis upon investigating the complex interactions that take place when writers write and readers read their writing. Furthermore, the New Materialist concept of ‘lines of flight’ where thoughts, ideas, feelings, concepts are ‘deterritorialised’ (402) is relevant to creative writing which is often seeking to disturb, to defamiliarise, to prompt deeper thought and feelings. An ethics of social justice underpins our practices and in examining our own and our students’ work, we show how using New Materialism can be very helpful for creative writers and researchers into creative writing, providing a coherent but flexible framework through which creative writing can be meaningfully studied