Decentering (the) Studio: “Critical/therapeutic Inquiry” as Method and Personal Reckoning
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Authors
Lau, Chung Yan (Gracelynn)
Date
2025-07-04
Type
thesis
Language
eng
Keyword
Expressive arts therapy , Critical autoethnography , Depth education , Art-based research , Decolonization , Interdisciplinary research , Performative writing , Critical/therapeutic Inquiry , Modality of imagination , Poiesis
Alternative Title
Abstract
"Decentering (the) Studio: 'Critical/therapeutic Inquiry' as Method and Personal Reckoning" is a portfolio PhD project that serves as both an intimate critical autoethnographic journey and a qualitative research methodology experiment to articulate what I term "critical/therapeutic inquiry." It is a qualitative inquiry method drawing from expressive arts therapy practice, developed as a decolonial critical healing process for settlers/immigrants on Turtle Island to honour the gifts of their lineages while reckoning with their complicity entangled in settler-colonial histories. The project comprises creative, academic and practical outputs to map the interconnection of my personal reckoning, interdisciplinary academic discussion and future therapeutic-artistic practice.
This dissertation consists of a collection of six creative nonfiction essays and documentation of autoethnographic journey and expressive arts therapy-inspired workshops. It also includes a book chapter titled "Decentering from 'Settler' to Becoming 'Rhizobia': When Expressive Arts Therapy Disrupts the Logic of Imagination in Cultural Studies" submitted for the forthcoming book Re-emergence(s) of and Through Arts-Based Educational Research with the Artful Inquiry Research Group at McGill University, and a journal article titled "Expressive Arts Therapy as Critical Autoethnography: Towards a 'Critical/Therapeutic Inquiry' Methodology in Decolonial Therapy and Education" submitted for peer-review to the Departures in Critical Qualitative Research journal.
The six creative nonfiction essays are about an Asian Canadian settler from Hong Kong reckoning with the entangled legacies of settler colonialism that connect Hong Kong and British Columbia. The collection emerged from undertaking "critical/therapeutic inquiry." The book chapter, journal article and the accompanying analysis and reflection on the method experiment process articulate the four characteristics of "critical/therapeutic inquiry" grounded in the depth education paradigm. The project ends with a new beginning, "Imagination Care," with the inquiry program "Culturing Rhizobia," designed to apply this inquiry method in my future therapeutic-artistic practice.