Abstract:
Portraiture was created by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot (1983, Lawrence-Lightfoot and Hoffman Davis, 1997) in the late 1970s and early 1980s. At that time Portraiture offered an important voice in the evolution of qualitative methodology. Since then qualitative methodologies have evolved with quickening pace to challenge the core tenets of social science research and establish new ways of looking and knowing. Portraiture thus now sits in a very different world of research to that of its inception. In drawing on Portraiture as a research methodology it is necessary to explore this shift and its impact. This paper outlines my interpretation of Portraiture in the current state of qualitative methodology in which I view Portraiture as standing firmly within Arts Informed Inquiry. Seeing Portraiture through an Arts Informed Inquiry lens enables this methodology to step beyond the confines of attempts to bridge the arts and science. Instead Portraiture may be a freestanding structure with a purpose and role all of its own.