Visualizing pasts, futures and the present: how can creative research methods enable reflection, reflexivity and imagination?

In a reflexive biography of my work, employing creative methods, this chapter explores the temporal aspects of these approaches. The chapter draws on a number of qualitative research studies to consider techniques that can be useful for exploring different temporalities from the perspective of the present. It discusses the use of timelines, photo elicitation, collage, drawing, written narratives, and sandboxing, and outlines the ways in which diverse approaches can engender a focus across times. It explores the usefulness of timelines for structuring past experiences, the utility of drawing to encourage defamiliarisation from the mundane aspects of everyday life, and how narratives can elicit the imagination of a future self. The chapter reflects on the practical aspects of applying creative methods, and their affordances for unpacking the temporal aspects of qualitative inquiry