The writer as interlocutor: The benefits and drawbacks of bricolage in creative writing research

Abstract

Bricolage as a research methodology in the creative arts, and creative writing in particular, has become popular in the twenty-first century, following the lead of qualitative researchers in education and the social sciences. Although many base their understanding of bricolage on Claude Lévi-Strauss’s seminal explanation in The Savage Mind (1966), they have neglected to consider how he differentiates the bricoleur from the artist. This distinction also escapes a number of creative writing researchers who have adapted bricolage as a research methodology. They enumerate the benefits without sufficiently acknowledging the drawbacks, which include superficiality, overgeneralisation and misinterpretation of the theories and practices of other disciplines. Exploiting multiple disciplines can lead to insights that might not arise following a more conventional approach, but appropriate support needs to be given otherwise creative researchers risk producing work that cannot be deemed rigorous.