Indecent (emotional) exposure:

The world of arts-based research and research-creation is an exciting area of scholarship that’s beginning to receive more formal attention and recognition within mainstream academia. These types of projects allow us to incorporate more of our own personal perspectives into our research while using the artistic medium to create unique forms of knowledge. But how does one begin to navigate the blurred relationship between researcher and project? Is there a certain amount of personal influence that should be monitored or limited?

I’m a ComCult PhD student using creative writing as a method to study utopianism and alternate societies. As I’ve begun the writing process I’ve found myself struggling with how much of myself to incorporate into this project, especially in terms of emotions. However, I’ve found that the artistic medium has really allowed my emotions to be used strategically, as a device to better emphasize the stakes of this research.

Being a utopian scholar, or anyone that works in social justice related work, is unsurprisingly very exhausting. I think I was drawn to this field as it combined my interests in other worlds with my desire to do work that produces a social positive. Either way I’m driven by my emotions, as most of us are prone to do, when deciding where to place our ambitions.

Before beginning the writing process of my research-creation project, I was definitely more focused on disappointment as a guiding emotion. I felt that the more I learned about the world I lived in the more disappointed I was. It was like finding out Santa didn’t exist all over again, but worse. It was like finding out Santa didn’t exist but the Krampus does exist, and he decided you will spend most of your life working and none of your life in an environment that naturally aligns with the type of animal you really are. The analogy fell apart there, but you get it, I can see the matrix now, it may have taken me longer than others, but oh wow it’s rough out here and no one wants to talk about it. Disappointing.

Leave it to your own craft to expose how you really feel though. Sure, I can’t deny disappointment is a motivating emotion for me in the completion of this project, but it’s not necessarily the predominant driving emotion I thought it was. Because it turns out it’s anger. As I wrote I found myself naturally inclined to write my characters from an angry place. I’ve completed a few first drafts of several chapters and everybody is so angry. Sure that’s necessary considering I’m writing about overhauling society, but we need some emotional diversity and levity if I want this book to be enjoyable to read at all.

I assume I naturally wrote angry characters because I was funneling in my own perspective, as is normal for authors, but particularly with novice writers. It’s safer to reveal your thoughts and emotions in your art, disguised as an imaginary person’s true thoughts and feelings, but the deception is not necessarily hard to detect. This was revealing to me though, because my anger-motivated worldview may be easy for others to perceive but the human mind does a great job of deceiving itself, even when it utterly fails to fool others.

Since my project is based in queer utopianism and takes place in Toronto’s LGBTQ+ neighbourhood, the Church-Wellesley Village (CWV), my process also includes a series of research walks through this neighbourhood. It’s inspired my craft while also bringing to the forefront my personal connections to this work. I think about the way oppression is felt, and how it pushes people to seek out refuges, the way I have sought out life in the CWV. I walk by the Garden of Lost Boys (pictured), which memorializes community members that died during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1980’s and 90’s. I remember why my research is important, I remember why my anger is valid.

So now I have to ask myself, what do I do with all this anger? Now that I can see it, can I use it as a tool? Can I transform this energy into something more useful? Is this anger an obstacle I need to work through before I can progress to a new stage of understanding and connection with my world? Okay, that’s a lot of questions I don’t have the energy to answer right now. I do think anger can be useful. I think our emotions are always guiding our research but that research-creation grants the researcher permission to really expose and explore this source of motivation. The rest of the answers to my questions? Perhaps my eventual novel will help me answer them.

About the author: Kyle is a PhD candidate in Communication and Culture who studies social change and queer utopianism.

Insights & Ideas is a ComCult blog series showcasing the research and expertise of ComCult students. Designed to engage a broad audience, the series features op-ed-style posts that connect academic insights to real-world issues, making complex ideas accessible and relevant. Each entry highlights the unique perspectives and innovative thinking within the ComCult program. We invite you to explore more stories that amplify research and inspire ideas! (News and Events Archives)