BU Research Blog

Drs. Zoe Pool and Rosie Read appear in an AHRC film produced at BU

entitled, “Social Science Discovering its Muse” 2006.

Royal London House 301, Lansdowne Campus

Wednesday 20 January 1pm – 2pm

“Performative Social Science”:

What it is, What it isn’t, and What it has become”

Dr Kip Jones, Reader in Performative Social Science, Presenter

Faculties of Health & Social Sciences and Media & Communication

“Performative Social Science” was a term first coined by Norman Denzin in 2001, the year that Kip Jones received his PhD and began to explore new ways to communicate Social Science findings to wider audiences.

What is Performative Social Science (PSS) then, Art or Science? It isn’t one or the other. It is enriching the ways in which Social Science subjects might be researched and/or findings disseminated or communicated to various communities. Ideally, audiences should be almost unaware of the seams where practitioners have cobbled together in-depth, substantial scholarship with artistic endeavor. PSS is defined as the use of tools from the Arts or Humanities in investigating and/or disseminating Social Science research.

The Seminar will explore Jones’ journey from early productions produced on his PC in his bedsit, to gatherings (physical and virtual) of like-minded academics (Illustrated above), to the production of a major short film based in solid qualitative research methods including auto-ethnography, and back again to ‘kitchen sink’ work, producing creative productions which inform his future efforts.