Theories and Methods of Artists Performing Fieldwork

This chapter serves as a theoretical and methodological framework for the book. The central discussion examines Patricia Leavy’s argument of how writing is itself a performative act that intersects with knowledge in ways that go beyond traditional data. Critically to the book, this chapter extends James Clifford’s definition of the term true fiction. The authors also offer the additional term choreographed narrative. They describe their application as fieldwork methods. In order to open up possibilities of other ways of knowing—the imaginative, the sensuous, the aesthetic—the authors rely on particular performances of writing (true fiction and choreographed narrative) in order to posit a notion of writing, regardless of genre (e.g., literary, scientific), as both a method of research and a method of performance.