The Pop-Up Stall: A Mass Object-Elicitation Method

This paper introduces a useful method for conducting creative social research into material objects and sensory phenomena, what we call the “pop-up mass object-elicitation stall” or “pop-up stall” for short. Our pop-up stalls involved using a curated collection of objects to elicit participant responses in commercial, community and public spaces. In the article, we position pop-up stalls as a material method that can be used within the facet methodology approach to offer strategic insights into research phenomena. We also relate pop-ups to intensive research approaches because of their rapid and voluminous production of varied qualitative data. We evaluate the pop-up stalls’ methodological effects and peculiarities, and explain for researchers things they might anticipate and consider during the planning, deployment and analytical phases of research. We propose three concepts for use in analyzing data generated by the pop-ups: situation, juxtaposition and suffusion.