Narrative Sandplay Interviews: Methodology, Implications and Lessons Learned From a COVID-19 Border Study

Sandplay is often used in therapy to enable sensitive conversations and visually represent personal experiences. The method involves providing interlocutors with a large tray of sand and displaying a choice of miniature figurines to incorporate into their stories about their past, present, or imagined futures. In this paper, we report on a collaboration to develop and trial narrative sandplay as a qualitative research interview. We outline the historical background and epistemological underpinnings of narrative sandplay, offer a practical step-by-step guide to the interviewing method, and report on lessons learned from its use in a project about COVID-related border closure in Australia. The technique, we argue, offers five methodological opportunities: 1) Embedded reflexivity : the researcher must first experience a narrative sandplay interview themselves, a political act that encourages reflexivity about the historically entrenched power dynamics in the research process and disrupts the often extractive nature of the researcher's gaze; 2) Multistoried people: the fluid nature of sand and ability to continuously change the tableau allows people to decentre dominant narratives and move towards more inclusive and empowering ways of conceptualising their lives; 3) The powerful possibilities of play: the nonconformist and imaginative element of play enable new possibilities for understanding the self and finding solidarity with others ; 4) Attunement to space: the use of objects, movement and space sets a tone for the interview that is sensitive to materiality and the more-than-human; and 5) Recursive dwelling: recorded sandplay conversations are audio-visually rich, enabling researchers and participants to revisit, dwell in and dialogically accrue new insights and reflections from the material. In all, sandplay is a valuable contribution to the qualitative toolkit, offering rich, restorative and decolonising potential for both participants and researchers.