Drafts by Mah Rana
This chapter explores the power of creative making and film as an affectual framework and means o... more This chapter explores the power of creative making and film as an affectual framework and means of understanding the knowledge that emerges from arts research. Working with textiles and stitch, it builds on Katie Collins’ observations about the inclusiveness of such needlecraft metaphors as knitting, weaving, tapestry, embroidery and quilting to convey notions of kinship, identity, complexity, time, structure and style to argue for research as a ‘decentred’ activity: an inclusive ‘piecing together’ of fragments that can integrate all sorts of sources, is part of life ‘both every day and exceptional,’ and has depth and intensity rather than individuality and competition as its goal (Collins 2016). Such concerns locate the project within theories of material craft and experiential learning, and the particular forms of knowledge these generate. In particular, we draw on the notion of ‘craft-based ways of knowing’ or experiential knowledge in practice developed by Ross Prior (2013) in his work with actors and the ethnographic methodology employed by Sarah Desmarais (2016) to examine the value of crafts for health.
Conference Presentations by Mah Rana
A link to a short film that presents the 'Power of Making' in a mother- adult daughter relations... more A link to a short film that presents the 'Power of Making' in a mother- adult daughter relationship within dementia care.
Papers by Mah Rana
This paper signals the value of making for well-being as a reflexive research activity. It focuse... more This paper signals the value of making for well-being as a reflexive research activity. It focuses on a series of short reflective diary entries created by artist and researcher Mah Rana during her daily encounters with people, spaces, places, and things. The entries are personal and incidental, involve memories and snippets of conversation but, crucially, they are all positioned from her perspective as a self-identified ‘well-maker’. Someone, that is, who is alert to the particular values, benefits, qualities, and characteristics of creative making for mental and physical health: who takes note of how these manifest in our everyday lives, often in the quietest of ways
Intellect eBooks, Dec 15, 2018
Journal of Arts & Communities, 2020
This article presents findings of a Ph.D. case study that uses interpretative phenomenological an... more This article presents findings of a Ph.D. case study that uses interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to elicit a deep understanding of lived experience within the context of a ‘craft-encounter’ shared by an adult carer with her mother, who has dementia. Recent studies have evaluated the health and well-being benefits of participatory craft practice in community-based projects. However, a less examined site of research is the lived experience of participating in shared craft-encounters as a domiciliary based intervention for dementia care. This study elicits a nuanced understanding of lived experience of participatory textile-based craft and explores the value of working with video as an adjunct to IPA’s existing methodology as a way of attending to non-textual communication that is easily missed in the moment of occurrence. Reviewing primary-source video with participants produces additional data as a result of participants’ reflexivity and meaning-making through interpreta...
Journal of Applied Arts & Health
The importance of looking after our mental health has been a prominent topic of discussion nation... more The importance of looking after our mental health has been a prominent topic of discussion nationally, regionally and locally since the United Kingdom experienced increased levels of stress and uncertainty caused and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. People working in the arts, culture and health sectors – such as health professionals, artist practitioners, academics, charities and volunteer groups – are concerned with how the pandemic has adversely and disproportionately impacted vulnerable members of society. Encouragingly, invested groups and stakeholders in non-clinical practice have reported on the successes of everyday creativity in the form of psychosocial programmes that tackle social isolation by using the arts and culture as non-clinical opportunities to improve well-being. This article focuses on the Lived Experience Network (LENs) to highlight how involving experts by experience in research provides deeper understanding of what works and what does not when co-creatin...
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Drafts by Mah Rana
Conference Presentations by Mah Rana
Papers by Mah Rana