Often, research focuses on communicating logos, here meaning arguments centered on ‘facts’ and ‘rational’ research results. But in questions of (in)equality, like when it comes to the analysis of (structural) discrimination, the affect and emotions experienced by the involved parties constitute an important part of the analyzed phenomenon. However, when researchers from the social sciences and humanities try to describe these pathos driven effects (pathos here meaning emotionally involved), we tend to resort to ‘data coding’, narrowing down our possible science communication to representing the words said by the interviewed parties in a structured logos-oriented manner. This method (that I myself have resorted to many times) can potentially lead to researchers not highlighting the more pathos-based part of the analyzed phenomenon, perhaps because such evidence is not seen as a valid part of a scientific approach or of science communication?

In short; I am very fascinated with the question of how researchers that work with human experiences can begin to incorporate affect and emotions into their data collection and in the presentation of their results.

Perhaps the aesthetics can help? Art, theatre and poetry is known for speaking to our emotions and the use of “poetic inquery” have already been presented as a way for the social sciences to better uncover emotional dimensions that could lead us to understand the human conditions more deeply and thoroughly (Prendergast 2009; Butler-Kisber & Stewart 2009). Poetry and the arts have also recently been presented as a potential tool to make problems such as the effects of climate change be better understood, not just in the scientific community, but also more broadly in society (Moser 2019). Working from a constructionist starting point, and thereby seeing research as not simple objective truths but as examples of “situated knowledge”, as philosopher Donna Haraway has called it (Haraway 1988), it is also worth asking whether such artistic representations could be a way for us researchers to make several perspectives and voices shown and felt via the presentation of our results.
My current questions are: Can we use formats known from the arts to better collect data that truly represent human experiences such as discrimination in our science communication? Can it be done without aestheticizing the experiences shared by our respondents in unfortunate ways? And how will the outside world react to such research, both within the research community (perhaps being provoked by the break with old traditions), but also outside the universities, where politicians in Denmark are currently attacking e.g., migration and gender studies for being too focused on ‘activism’, thereby not seeing them as ‘scientific’?

References
Butler-Kisber, Lynn & Mary Stewart (2009). “The Use of Poetry Clusters in Poetic Inquiry”, Poetic Inquiry – Vibrant Voices in the Social Sciences, Monica Pendergast, Carl Leggo & Pauline Sameshima (eds.), Rotterdam/Boston/Taipei, Sense Publishers

Haraway, Donna (1988). “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective”, Feminist Studies, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Autumn, 1988), 575-599.

Moser, Susanne C. (2019). “Not for the Faint of Heart - Tasks of Climate Change Communication in the Context of Societal Transformation”, Climate and Culture: Multidisciplinary Perspectives of Knowing, Being and Doing in a Climate Change World, G. Feola, H. Geoghegan, and A. Arnall (eds.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press

Prendergast, Monica (2009). “Introduction: The Phenomena of Poetry in Research”, Poetic Inquiry – Vibrant Voices in the Social Sciences, Monica Pendergast, Carl Leggo & Pauline Sameshima (eds.), Rotterdam/Boston/Taipei, Sense Publishers