I’ll Paint you a Picture and You’ll Hear my Story: Broadening the Scope of Narrative Research for Arts-Based Service Learning

This chapter explores “reflective multimodal narrative” research as a methodology in arts-based service learning (ABSL). The chapter builds on the notion that imposing written or spoken data creation, which is currently dominant in Western research methods, limits the extent to which diverse student and community ABSL participants can narrate their experiences “in and on their own terms” in a research context. We assert that researchers need to be flexible and responsive to ABSL participants’ diverse cultural and personal preferences and abilities in gathering stories (data) to be interpreted and analysed when evaluating ABSL projects. Reflective multimodal storytelling is one way of supporting and documenting the dynamic, reciprocal intercultural learning that ideally takes place in ABSL programs.