The Debate on Research in the Arts

Henk Borgdorff

Amsterdam School of the Arts

If the urgency of an issue can be measured by the ferocity of the debates surrounding it, then the issue of ‘research in the arts’ is an urgent one. Under labels such as ‘art practice as research’ or ‘research in and through the arts’, a discussion topic has arisen in recent years that has elements both of philosophy (notably epistemology and methodology) and of educational politics and strategies.

That makes it a hybrid issue, and that does not always promote the clarity of the debate. The crux of the matter is whether a phenomenon like research in the arts exists – an endeavour in which the production of art is itself a fundamental part of the research process, and whereby art is partly the result of research.

More particularly, the issue is whether this type of research distinguishes itself from other research in terms of the nature of its research object (an ontological question), in terms of the knowledge it holds (an epistemological question) and in terms of the working methods that are appropriate to it (a methodological question).

A parallel question is whether this type of research qualifies as academic research in its own right, and whether it appropriately belongs at the doctoral level of higher education.