Dare to Draw in Academia

Abstract

Challenging the ‘wall of text’ in academia, we explore how drawing as a practice for knowledge creation can lead to new academic insights. The empirical data is based on our own drawing practices in research within higher education and organizational studies. Using drawing as an ethnographic approach, graphic facilitation, and care aesthetics, we invite scholars and practitioners alike to explore how drawing can enrich academic inquiry processes across fields. Through examples, we take a point of departure in our own engagements with participants in drawing exercises and dialogues relevant to their contexts. We analyse significant perspectives on how to tackle different situations when drawing is applied as a research practice. We are particularly interested in exploring how the act of “daring to draw” is negotiated in moments when participants experience frustration, discomfort and doubt about their own drawing abilities, or even choose to decline our invitation to take charge of the pens and pencils themselves. In these situations, drawing emerges as a relational practice shaped by interactions, emotions, and roles within the research setting. Rather than viewing the penholder as the sole research drawer, we propose understanding drawing as a shared and negotiated activity, where meaning is co-created through participation, hesitation, and refusal alike. This paper argues that when drawing is employed as a research method, it not only generates valuable context-sensitive knowledge but also demands careful attention to the evolving roles and actions of both researchers and participants.