A Politics of Witnessing: Definitional Ceremony as Social Justice Work in Academia

2020 ◽  
pp. 194084472096820
Author(s):  
Sarah Strauven
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Qualitative Inquiry ◽  
Australian Case ◽  
Narrative Practice ◽  
Work First

The work outlined in this article has in part evolved as a response to Mr. Behrouz Boochani’s call to academics to engage with his work. First, I propose academics consider a form of public engagement drawn from narrative practice as social justice work in academia. In the next section, I illustrate my argument with an Australian case by discussing (a) a peaceful resistance undertaken by the refugees on Manus Island through the lens of definitional ceremony, (b) a public witnessing response by Dr. Surma to the written account of Mr. Boochani of the resistance, and (c) his reply to this act of witnessing. I complement this with my own response to both scholars on account of witnessing their exchanges. In the final section of this article, I articulate in more detail how this proposition of conceiving social justice work in academia is based on a politics of witnessing and acknowledgment. I argue that its epistemological and ontological dimensions hold promise for post-qualitative inquiry and that narrative practices more generally, can assist us in performing relationally situated research.

Arts-based Research as Social Justice Activism

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Keifer-Boyd
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Qualitative Inquiry ◽  
International Congress ◽  
Arts Based Research ◽  
Critical Reflexivity

A social justice approach to arts-based research, as presented in this article through examples from five different perspectives on what constitutes arts-based research, involves continual critical reflexivity in response to injustice. At the First International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, I identified five distinctly different perspectives on what constitutes arts-based research. The variations seemed to emphasize contiguous relationships such as: arts-insight, arts-inquiry, arts-imagination, arts-embodiment, and arts-relationality. Starting from a study of arts-based research, I construct historical and theoretical traces to and from these five facets of a social justice approach to arts-based inquiry. My analysis offers potentialities for an intermingling of these five faces of arts-based research in the interest of social justice. The examples of arts-based research as social justice activism presented here are intended to inspire transdisciplinary researchers to imagine ways to conjoin arts-based processes, subjects, and forms with social justice enactments of research.

Stitching Tattered Cloth: Reflections on Social Justice and Qualitative Inquiry in Troubled Times

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 559-566
Author(s):  
Karen M. Staller
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Intervention Strategy ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Qualitative Inquiry ◽  
Visionary Leadership ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Reformer ◽  
Mass Migration

This article is a transcript of a keynote performance delivered at the opening of the 14th Annual International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI). I compare the troubled times we face during the first year of President Donald J. Trump’s administration in 2017 with conditions existing during the mid-to-late nineteenth century. Similarities include mass migration, religious intolerance, nativist and anti-immigrant movements, racial injustice, political division, acute income inequality, and debates over the role of science and religion. Finding inspiration in the work of social reformer Charles Loring Brace (1826-1890), I examine his efforts in founding the Children’s Aid Society (CAS) of New York in 1853. Guided by a moral compass and radical new view of social justice work, Brace used qualitative methodological approaches and melded disciplinary knowledge to devise a comprehensive intervention strategy to alleviate child suffering. His goals were nothing short of eradicating poverty and homelessness, decreasing crime and delinquency, reducing illiteracy, reducing unemployment, and improving child and maternal health outcomes. For nearly four decades Brace worked to establish a multi-service child welfare agency that continues to exist 165 years later. He contributed to creating a new profession of applied philanthropy or social work. I compare these efforts with the building of ICQI. Norman K. Denzin, ICQI’s founder, possesses the same kind of visionary leadership, commitment to social justice, and ‘dangerous’ ideas as demonstrated by Brace. I suggest ICQI grew from a similar set of building blocks and possesses the same transformative power as CAS demonstrated in troubled times.

Points of Hesitation

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julianne Cheek
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Critical Issue ◽  
Qualitative Inquiry ◽  
Qualitative Health Research ◽  
Over Time

Qualitative health research has long had as one of its mantras a commitment to, and focus on, human rights and social justice. However over time, it is possible that such centrality can have the effect of creating a sense of the familiar, and with such familiarity assumptions about how human rights and social justice are being advanced through the process of qualitative inquiry. A sense of comfort or even complacency can emerge that may sometimes obstruct or prevent us from pausing to think deeply and re-examine these assumptions and how they impact on our thinking and actions as qualitative researchers. This paper aims to surface questions designed to produce points of hesitation able to assist in exploring the critical issue of how qualitative research does, and might, fit with an agenda based around the advancement of human rights and social justice. Using examples from my own research I explore and reflect on issues that have troubled me and subsequently forced me to hesitate and think deeply about what may have seemed self evident or given.

“What We Do Crosses over to Activism”

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marika Cifor ◽  
Michelle Caswell ◽  
Alda Allina Migoni ◽  
Noah Geraci
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Community Archives ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ethical Orientations ◽  
Semistructured Interviews ◽  
Community Organizers ◽  
Using Data

Using data gleaned from semistructured interviews with seventeen community archives founders, volunteers, and staff at twelve sites, this paper examines the relations and roles of community archives and archivists in social justice activism. Our research uncovered four findings on the politics of community archives. First, community-based archivists identify as activists, advocates, or community organizers, and this identification shapes their understandings of community archives work and the missions of community archives. Second, community-based archives offer substantial critiques of neutrality in their ethical orientations and thus present new ethical foundations for practice. Third, by activating their collections, community archives play significant roles within contemporary social movements including struggles for racial justice and against gentrification. Finally, community archives are at the forefront of the profession in their engagements with activists. Community archives have much to contribute to practice and scholarship on activism, outreach, and public engagement with the past.

scholarly journals "Look at Me:" Portraiture and Agency

2012 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet S. Sauer
Keyword(s):  
Special Education ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Young People ◽  
Observational Data ◽  
People With Disabilities ◽  
Qualitative Inquiry ◽  
Significant Disabilities ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Research Paradigms

<p>Keywords: disability, methodology, portraiture, social justice, special education&nbsp;</p><p>Historically, the dominant research paradigms involving the study of people with disabilities involved experimentally designed studies or other medically orientated approaches. This paper examines portraiture as a form of qualitative inquiry offering emancipatory possibilities for children with significant disabilities and transformative positive reinterpretations of disability as a social construct for their teachers and other people in their lives.&nbsp; Three narrative portraits of young people with disabilities were created based on a year-long portraiture study involving the collection of observational data, informal interviews, artifacts, and discourse analysis to capture the &ldquo;essence&rdquo; of their humanness.&nbsp; Through an examination of this portrait study and others from across the humanities, this paper provides examples where the &ldquo;subjects&rdquo; asserted themselves in ways akin to Giroux&rsquo;s agency (1987) suggesting portraiture might provide a unique and credible avenue to respectfully study and learn more about people with disabilities too often left on the fringe of society.&nbsp;</p>

scholarly journals Fostering Hope for a More Socially Just World: A Review of Corey Johnson and Diana Parry’s Fostering Social Justice Through Qualitative Inquiry: A Methodological Guide

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Qualitative Inquiry ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Just World ◽  
Just Society

Social justice is about hope and transforming society where resources, rights, and power are equitable without signs of oppression. Qualitative researchers escape the boundaries of the positivism and develop understanding in context. When a researcher combines a qualitative methodological approach with a social justice paradigm, he or she brings a sense of hope for a more just society. The book Fostering Social Justice Through Qualitative Inquiry: A Methodological Guide by Corey Johnson and Diana Parry provides readers and researchers the theory and practice to make a positive, transformational difference in our world.

scholarly journals A qualitative inquiry into social justice issues facing educators of students with autism spectrum disorders

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Adam John Stephens
Keyword(s):  
Special Education ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Phenomenological Study ◽  
School Personnel ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Qualitative Inquiry ◽  
Learner Outcomes ◽  
Social Justice Theory ◽  
K 12

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of various educators charged with the task of educating students with ASD within three public Midwestern school districts. Through the lens of social justice theory, this phenomenological study sought to further the understanding of the unique and varied needs of both the ASD student subgroup, and the multiple school stakeholders charged with providing equity within ASD education. The researcher examined the views and perceptions of special education administrators, special education teachers, and paraprofessionals with regard to challenges and obstacles to ASD equity, and methods used to overcome those obstacles. Participant responses demonstrated that the social justice principles of distribution, recognition, and opportunities (Hytten and Bettez, 2011), are reflected in the practices of ASD educators at varying levels levels. However, within certain school personnel, a lack of knowledge and valuation of students with ASD is still prevalent. Therefore, the implications of this study demonstrate a need for K-12 school districts and higher education institutions to offer more opportunities for educators of students with ASD to learn about their unique traits and strategies the study findings and research have shown improve learner outcomes for students across the autism spectrum.

scholarly journals Qualitative research between craftsmanship and McDonaldization. A keynote address from the 17th Qualitative Health Research Conference

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svend Brinkmann
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Qualitative Inquiry ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Justice Research ◽  
The Third ◽  
Qualitative Health Research ◽  
Social Justice Research

Although qualitative research methods remain marginalized in certain disciplines, qualitative inquiry has within the last couple of decades become generally accepted as a legitimate scientific way of working. Today, society at large is making more use of qualitative research than ever, not just in laudable social justice research, for example, but also in relation to market and consumer research and focus groups for different political parties. With this in mind, I wish to discuss three current questions for qualitative researchers: The first I will refer to as “ethical progressivism versus new ethical challenges”. Is qualitative research as such more ethical and progressive than quantitative research (as some have argued), or do qualitative researchers on the contrary face more elusive and perhaps difficult ethical challenges? The second question is called “solid evidence versus subjective anecdotes”. How should qualitative researchers respond to the current call for evidence? Should they seek legitimacy by accepting the dominant politics of evidence, or should they play by their own rules with the risk of increasing marginalization? The third question is “method versus intuition”. Should qualitative researchers strive for maximum transparency by following accepted methods, or should they proceed more intuitively like artists to create their stories? Both sides of the questions have their influential advocates today. I will argue that all three questions are handled most fruitfully by conceiving of qualitative research as a craft.

scholarly journals The Intersections of Identities and Justice-Oriented Efforts of Urban Literacy Educators

2019 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-204
Author(s):  
Allison Skerrett ◽  
Thea Williamson ◽  
Amber Warrington ◽  
Cori Salmerón ◽  
Randi Beth Brady
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Qualitative Inquiry ◽  
Relationship Building ◽  
Teacher Preparation Program ◽  
Critical Education ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
Urban Educators ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Socially Situated ◽  
Literacy Educators

This article draws from an ongoing longitudinal qualitative inquiry into the preparation and development of social justice–oriented urban English teachers. It examines the cases of three graduates of an urban education–focused teacher preparation program who claim different intersectional identities and have completed their fourth year as urban educators. The article explores two research questions. First, how do these teachers understand and enact critical education practices within their curriculum and instruction, socially situated relationships, and institutional structures? Second, how do they experience and understand their sociocultural identities as contributors to their practices as critical educators and the associated outcomes? Two findings are discussed. First, the teachers felt greatest agency and success within their classrooms (in comparison to other institutional spaces) to enact social justice–oriented curricula, instruction, and other educational practices, using relationship-building with students as the foundation of their work. Second, identity constructs of gender, age, and race significantly mediated the teachers’ relationship-building efforts with colleagues and administrators, the teachers’ feelings of agency, and their activities and outcomes related to justice-oriented change at institutional levels beyond the classroom. This study contributes a rare longitudinal example of how in-service critical educators’ sociocultural identities impact their literacy pedagogies and institutional efforts to advance educational justice.

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