Episode 21

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Published on:

1st Apr 2025

Creating, knowing, and caring - with Merel Visse

How are the practice of art and the practice of care connected? In what ways might intellectual inquiry be a caring practice? And what part do wonder, poetry and 'unknowing' play in research - and in care?

These are some of the questions we explore in this episode, with Merel Visse. Merel is a scholar, artist, editor and educator. She holds a faculty position in the Caspersen School of Graduate Studies at Drew University in New Jersey in the United States, where she chairs a master’s and doctoral degree program. Merel is also affiliated with the University of Humanistic Studies in the Netherlands, Care Ethics Chair. She serves on several editorial boards in the U.S.A. and was an artist in residence at the New York School of Visual Arts, and in 2018 at the NARS Foundation in Brooklyn. In the Netherlands, Merel co-founded the Meaningful Artistic Research Program, a collaboration between the University of Humanistic Studies and HKU University of the Arts, and with Elena Cologni at Anglia Ruskin University in the UK, she co-leads the Art and Care Platform Series.

Merel is the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters on art, care ethics, and research methodology. She’s the Visual Art Section Editor at the International Journal of Education and the Arts, for which she and Elena Cologni recently co-edited a special issue on ‘Art for the Sake of Care’. In April, she will start serving as the co-editor of Visual Arts Research (VAR), a publication from the University of Illinois Press. In 2018, Merel co-edited the book Evaluation for a Caring Society, and in 2021 she co-authored the book A Paradigm of Care with Bob Stake. Merel and Bob recently submitted their manuscript for a mini-book on Researching Care with Case Studies to Routledge. Merel is currently focusing on the manuscript for Precarious Knowing, a project that recently expanded to include members of the 'Enduring' research group, and is set to be published by Springer.

We discuss the following topics in this episode:

The roots of Merel's interest and involvement in art and care (03:48)

The 'Precarious Knowing' project (11:32)

Merel's practice as an artist (11:50)

The Meaningful Artistic Research Program (16:03)

The Art and Care Platform Series (18:59)

Special issue on 'Art for the Sake of Care' (20:45)

Relational autoethnography as a commitment to care (26:35)

Evaluation as a caring practice (30:23)

The role of wonder, 'unknowing' and the poetic in research and care (33: 52)

An 'aesthetic-apophatic' approach to qualitative inquiry (46:05)

The hospital bed as a landscape for materialised care (51:03)

Merel's forthcoming book on 'Precarious Knowing' (53:54)

Merel's collaboration with Bob Stake on 'A Paradigm of Care' and the forthcoming book 'Researching Care with Case Studies' (57:12)

A selection of Merel's journal articles

'Autoethnography as a praxis of care - the promises and pitfalls of autoethnography as a commitment to care' (with Alistair Niemeijer)

'Apophatic Inquiry: Living the Questions Themselves' (with Finn Thorbjørn Hansen and Carlo Leget)

'Sometimes, Indirect is More Direct. An Aesthetic-Apophatic Phenomenological Approach to Self-Reflexivity in Qualitative Inquiry'

'Art for the Sake of Care: Editorial Introduction' (with Elena Cologni)

Other publications referred to in the episode

François Jullien, Detour and Access: Strategies of Meaning in China and Greece

François Jullien, The Silent Transformations

Finn Thorbjørn Hansen, Solveig Botnen Eide, and Carlo Leget (eds.) Wonder, Silence and Human Flourishing: Toward a Rehumanization of Health, Education, and Welfare

Matilda Carter (ed.)The Bloomsbury Handbook of Care Ethics

Some of the writers, scholars and thinkers mentioned in the episode

Hans-Georg Gadamer

Joan Tronto

Maurice Hamington (see Episode 6)

Inge van Nistelrooij (see Episode 17)

Carlo Leget (see Episode 8)

Finn Thorbjørn Hansen

Louis van den Hengel

Jake Smit

Jamieson Webster

Nirav Christophe

Marloeke van der Vlugt

Simona Kicurovska

Andries Hiskes

Elena Cologni

Christine Leroy (see Episode 7)

James Thompson (see Episode 11)

Liora Bresler

Alistair Niemeijer

Norman K. Denzin

Robert E. Stake

Thomas Schwandt

Tineke Abma

Hanneke van der Meide

François Jullien

Donald Wijsenbek

Frans Vosman

Maria Puig de la Bellacasa

Sandra Laugier

Truus Teunissen

Jacqueline Kool

Paul Lindhout

Links

International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI)

Care Ethics Research Consortium

For a transcript of this episode, follow this link to the Careful Thinking Substack.

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About the Podcast

Careful Thinking
Exploring ideas about care
At some point in our lives, we will all have the experience of caring for another person - or of being cared for ourselves. But what exactly is ‘care’, and what do we mean by ‘good’ care? How do our beliefs, identities, and the social, cultural and political contexts in which we live, shape our experience of caring or being cared for? And how can ideas, theories, and the findings from research, help us to think more care-fully – and to care more thoughtfully?

Careful Thinking explores these and similar questions, inspired by a belief that thinking critically about care can both deepen our understanding and improve the everyday practice of care. In each episode of the podcast, you'll hear an in-depth conversation with a researcher, writer or practitioner at the cutting edge of current thinking about care.

If you would like to give us your feedback, or suggest a guest or a topic for a future episode, you can get in touch at carefulthinkingpodcast@gmail.com. And you can leave comments on episodes and join in the discussion at https://carefulthinking.substack.com.

About your host

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Martin Robb

Martin Robb is Professor of Care Ethics and Culture at The Open University (UK), where his research has focused on questions of identity, relationships, and care. He is the author of 'Men, Masculinities and the Care of Children: Images, Ideas and Identities' (2020) and the co-editor of 'Men and Loss: New Perspectives on Bereavement, Grief and Masculinity' (2025).