Beyond Disciplines: Spoken Word as Participatory Arts-based Research

For many, the arts and sciences stand at opposite ends of an unbridgeable divide: the sciences, rigid, objective, systematic and authoritative; the arts, fluid, subjective, dynamic and capricious. Yet, there is a long history of productive dialogue and interconnection between these fields. Arts-based research represents a particularly fertile form of arts/science interaction. This paper interweaves poetry, theoretical discussion and empirical research to make the case for spoken word poetry as an arts-based method of inquiry that can provide a radically different way of doing, being and collaborating in and through research. With reference to the innovative method of ‘collaborative poetics’ and to the work of youth slam/spoken word educators, I argue that social scientists and spoken word practitioners can learn much from one another’s tools, techniques and ways of thinking, creating new forms of knowledge, redefining the audience/author relationship, and facilitating a ‘critical resilience’ which enables both individual fortitude in the face of adversity and a means through which to challenge the conditions that give rise to this adversity. The paper thus considers how spoken word as participatory poetic inquiry enables participants, researchers and poets to address the critical complexities and challenges of contemporary life.

‘Enter the Dream Tiger’. Borges, Abbau and the Shrouded Hall of Mirrors of Educational Reflection

This article reflects upon initial teacher education programme’s employment of reflection. The article argues that the orginary ground of educational reflection, dominated by theorists such as Dewey and Schon, has been colonised by a form of ‘Total Reflection’ that is conceptualised and manufactured within the Teacher Standards and its associated discourse. Through employment of the concept of Abbau, the work of Borges and mirror theory, the article reveals how student teachers are not enabled to be reflective but instead are created as the celebrated automata whose professional image is shrouded, codified and solidified by a Master Weaving machine. The article suggests that if educational reflection is to become useful in teacher development, then it must return to its past incarnations.

‘Already Given Over’: Activism in Inquiry and in the World

This is the second of two part-issues on qualitative inquiry as activism. The first focused upon activism and/in the academy (academic work, academic cultures, academic practices, etc.), and this second focuses upon activism in the processes of research itself and activism beyond the academy, in the world. Drawing upon Butler’s claim that we are always already, from the outset, ‘given over’ to the human, non-human and more-than-human other, we argue for qualitative research to do what it can to make the future different, better, more ethical.

Troubling the Troublemakers Three Challenges to Post-Qualitative Inquiry

In recent years, a number of prominent scholars have criticized the current state of qualitative research and advocated a paradigm of post-qualitative inquiry (PQI). Incorporating insights from new materialism, PQI seeks to trouble what it calls conventional humanist qualitative methodology (CHQM). Although sympathetic to this overall project, the present article identifies and discusses three challenges in current PQI, namely the roles it ascribes to theory, to data, and to writing. It is argued that PQI risks succumbing to 1) theory-centrism, 2) researcher deletion, and 3) meta-reflexivity. By pinpointing these three challenges, the article hopes to nudge PQI one step further in its continuous theoretical “becoming.”

Reflecting on Violent Ruptures and Loss in Qualitative Research: A Poetic Inquiry

Presenting poetic approaches to qualitative inquiry, two immigrant educational researchers from different minoritized communities explore their loss of research participants due to increased state-enforced violence in the context of recent immigration policies (e.g., increased presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in immigrant communities and anti-Muslim rhetoric) through poetic inquiry. Presenting the processes and products of engaging with participant loss through poetry, the authors highlight a theoretical and methodological approach to qualitative inquiry, which works toward building intimacies among women of color feminist educational researchers. On the one hand, this work aims to develop qualitative methodologies that seek to reduce harm and violence and foster understanding among different communities of researchers and their participants. On the other hand, it seeks to illustrate how poetic approaches to qualitative research can be used as a reflexive tool to explore the hidden socio-emotional components of the educational research process.

The Future of Autoethnographic Criteria

Recently Szwabowski argued that we should not have any criteria by which to judge, evaluate, or review autoethnographic texts. While there are dangers of conformity whenever criteria are utilized, criteria can also act as a guide. Here, I cover the autoethnography triad of auto-, ethno-, and -graphy as the three main criteria for a work to be considered autoethnographic. I argue that criteria do not necessitate exclusion nor does it necessarily end dialogue. Criteria can act as a way to guide and edify the voices of future autoethnographers, including those who are working in different mediums such as animation, film, and photography.

Raising Our Collective Voices: A Sing-Along for Our Collaborative Futures as Qualitative Inquiry (Introduction to a Song Panel From ICQI 2021)

The short essay serves as introduction to a partial Special Issue section that chronicles the 2021 ICQI panel “Raising Our Collective Voices.” The introduction outlines the purpose of the panel in relation to the congress theme and participant responses to the call. After the initial COVID year from which we will continue to reel, it seemed more important than ever to revisit the modality of song linked with the theme of the congress. And more importantly to revisit the power, potency, and possibility of music and how particular songs, old and emerging, stir and inspire something in all of us—tapping into our collective conscious, penetrating our sense of being fully alive, and giving voice and sound to the fury, desire, and resolve in our living.

Black Mothering Legacies: Theorizing Lament as a Form of Justice Research

I feel compelled by the moment to take up these questions: What does it mean to mother a Black child within/against this historical moment within/against the (carceral) United States? What does it mean to mother a Black child when the legacy of enslavement in the United States is still the basis for assessing the “worth” of you and your children? How do I determine justice for my/a/the Black child in this historical moment? How does this justice come to matter? My approach to critical qualitative research is best understood through Cynthia Dillard’s (2006) notion of “endarkened feminist epistemology” (p. 3). Here I trace a lineage of Black mothering praxis that has been enacted in response to injustice across different historical moments and geographical locations in the United States. This lineage focuses on Black mothers who have lost their children to state violence, when that violence is perpetrated by the state or when the state fails to mete out justice for the taking of Black life.

We Matter Too: Employing Counterstorytelling to Expose the Equity Paradoxes Arresting Mattering and Racial Healing Among Faculty of Color

The present article problematizes faculty relationships within academic departments by applying critical race theory (counterstorytelling) to generate equity cases promoting racial healing. These equity cases illustrate the utility of an emergent typology, the equity paradox. More specifically, the equity paradox describes the web of reprisals endured by faculty of color who advocate for the authentic actualization of university-sponsored diversity goals. Each case is a fictional collage of counterstories created by the co-authors and informed by actual events personally experienced or directly witnessed. This approach allowed for ample complexity, authenticity, and utility because many faculty of color will relate to aspects of these case studies. Simultaneously, administrators and colleagues will gain insights into how racism impacts their colleagues of color. We integrate the racial healing and mattering construct throughout the equity cases to illustrate how racism impacts the individual, communal, and systemic functioning of academic departments. We conclude with implications for departmental transformation to redress the social, emotional, and professional harm of racism and reconstruct professional environments that foster healing and mattering among faculty of color.