Doctorateness: where should we look for evidence?

This chapter considers the possibility of an “institutional theory of artistic research”. It proposes four distinct quadrants in which one might look for evidence for such a theory, which needs to have the capacity to accommodate the diverse positions on artistic research in the literature. The quadrants ("explicit", "implicit", "generic", and "specific") form a Boolean square with which one may also consider the contested term “doctorateness” in any field. The chapter concludes in due course, artistic research will gain a voice that causes researchers to re-describe activity in other disciplines owing to the way in which artistic research will be described.