Moodboards and LEGO: principles and practice in social research

Highlights:
Moodboards and LEGO are approaches to visual creative methods which provide opportunities for collecting rich qualitative data. Given their potential for empowering research relations, they can be used with a diverse range of participants, including vulnerable groups. They are an inclusive research tool, moving away from more common text- and oral-based methods to hands-on approaches, allowing participants to express themselves without relying on writing or words. This chapter introduces moodboards and LEGO as research methods, enabling you to:
1. Reflect on academic debates regarding the use of these methods
2. Understand the ways these methods can be employed in practice, including their role in existing research projects
3. Learn from first-hand accounts of using these methods in the field
4. Have a go at using these methods yourself.

Introduction:
Visual methodologies represent a significant development in geographical and social science research over the last decade (Rose, 2014). There is a diverse range of approaches, as other chapters in this book demonstrate, which use visual materials to generate evidence in order to explore research questions (Robinson and Gillies, 2012). In this chapter, we focus on ‘moodboards’ and LEGO to discuss the possibilities offered when these methods are used in research. Moodboards are a collage-based method used to represent the way a participant thinks or feels about the research object (Pimlott-Wilson, 2012). LEGO bricks are used as a research tool in various settings, most prominently organisational learning (Kristiansen and Ramussen, 2014), as a hands-on, playful means of representing abstract ideas and everyday experiences (Gauntlett, 2007, 2015; Wengel et al., 2019). Both approaches utilise existing materials (whether building blocks or images from magazines and other printed media) to enable participants to represent and work through their thoughts. They rely on the physical manipulation and arrangement of blocks or images, alongside ongoing dialogue, giving respondents time to formulate their thoughts. A driver behind the increased use of visual methods is the acknowledgement that our lived worlds are deeply orchestrated through visual cultures (Oldrup and Carstensen, 2012), and geography is a strongly visual discipline (Rose, 2003). Participatory approaches to visual methods, such as moodboards or LEGO, are a way to create connections with, and meaningful memories of, the research process (Dean, 2015). They are deemed to be ethically sensitive when working with vulnerable groups as they offer participants some power and control over the speed and depth of the research process because they lessen the expectation of immediate responses to questions posed (Elden, 2012; Pimlott-Wilson, 2012; Scherer, 2016; see Hall et al., this volume). However, as this chapter illustrates, the notion of visual methods as an empowering research practice, and the types of visual knowledge privileged in geographical research, is not without contention (Crang, 2009; Lomax, 2012, 2015). We begin with an overview of the use of moodboards and LEGO in human geography research, focusing on their development through other creative visual methods, and the possibilities and potential pitfalls of these approaches. We then provide practical examples of how these methods have been employed in practice, drawing on personal experience and the academic literature. There is a Note from the field for both (Boxes 7.1 and 7.2), where we reflect on the use of each method. Finally, a brief exercise helps guide you through incorporating moodboards or LEGO into your research design.