Objects in focus groups: Materiality and shaping multicultural research encounters

This paper discusses some opportunities and challenges of using objects in focus groups, to explore multicultural encounters and experiences of living together. Drawing on feminist approaches to human embodiment, it argues that material approaches hold the potential to investigate the embodied and relational experiences of encounters with/across difference of diverse participants in sensitive ways. The materials were touchable objects such as pens and papers that help connect across differences in identity, experience and opinion, share experiences and stories with unknown others, communicate across (non)verbal barriers, misunderstandings and tensions, and accommodate moments of silence and reflection. Originally meant to ease and structure discussion, objects emerged as a central ‘medium’ or ‘instrument’ of research encounters through which participants can capture, express and share complex narratives about encountering others and multicultural living, underscoring the use of objects as an impactful method in feminist and participatory research.