Art/Research International (Journal)
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272 research outputs found
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Unpacking Self and Silence: Looking Inward, Looking Outward, Looking Through
No full textLooking inward as a mother, I see that autobiographical narrative inquiry has further deepened my understanding that my children’s dual identity (Muslim Canadians) is not breaking them apart, rather putting them together. Looking outward as a researcher, poetic representation has given me a voice where, instead of fearing silence, I am able to “inhabit a more ambiguous and flexible sense of self” (Boler, 1999, p. 176). I am able to act as an interpreter between the chaos of my experiences and an assembly of unbroken monologues and sporadic dialogues. Finally, looking through as an amateur poet, I practice poetry “as a method of inquiry to move into [my] own impossibility, where anything might happen—and will” (St. Pierre, 2005, p. 973). I create opportunities for meaning making and insights as my stories and poems resonate for others, and in how my stories inform, enhance, and deepen parents’ and educators’ knowledge and conceptualizations of an inclusive school community
Cartographies of Memory and Affect: Nomadic Subjectivities
No full textThis visual essay maps an event, the lines of affect produced through the interconnections between memory/time, space/place, and the virtual/actual. The assemblage begins in the middle of these interconnections: lines of text interwoven with intensity and affect. As posthuman theory urges researchers to consider subjectivity as unbounded and nomadic, a process of becoming with the world, this article takes up arts-based methods to map and inquire into the flows between death and becoming as a generative, embodied, and productive process. This article suggests the methodological possibilities for arts-based analysis and inquiry to engage the entangled materiality of the posthuman present
Spaces In-between: Text Poems from Community Practice and Research
No full textA commitment on the part of the academy to address social issues has increased over the past three decades, resulting in service learning courses, volunteering opportunities, and community-university partnerships. Faculty, staff, and community practitioners collaborating to lead these efforts often carry enormous responsibility and answer to often competing interests of students, community members, and universities. Using the experience of an scholar/artist/teacher in a university-community partnership founded by the first author in a racially polarized town, this article explores the potential of arts-based methods, specifically poetry and collage, to mitigate the consequence of this work. The format is a dialogue between two engaged teacher/researcher/practitioners and friends to clarify the hidden experience of the researcher with narrative truth to articulate and share not only experiences, but also lessons learned as a contribution to our fellow teacher/researcher/practitioners
Queer Emergencies, 5.26.2017
No full textHal Foster (2015) asserts that art should address emergencies. While he speaks of visual and performance arts, I extend his claim to poetry. As such, I use my positionality of queer individual as an entrance point to using poetry to address queer emergencies. Starting with Hegel’s (1975) articulation that the lyric form of poetry starts with our own subjectivity and shows a “coming to consciousness” (Culler, 2015, p. 2) through thought and reflection, this poetry addresses a pressing queer emergency of our current political moment (Chechnya), while also extending its reach to/through the intersections with other queer emergencies of today’s climate. Through this inscription of the present, I strive to illuminate the personhood of queer victims, the intersections of current queer emergencies, and the temporal and real proximity of emergency to those of us who might feel safe based on other identity intersections
Is There a Definition? Ruminating on Poetic Inquiry, Strawberries and the Continued Growth of the Field
No full textOver the last ten years, Poetic Inquiry (PI) has proven itself as an emergent arts-based research methodology. It has gained greater acceptance in the larger community of qualitative research due in large part to the hundreds of published studies that employ the writing or analysis of poetry as a major focus of the research process (Finley, 2003; Prendergast, Leggo & Sameshima, 2009; Prendergast & Galvin, 2012). However, despite this greater acceptance and increase in studies found in the literature, there has not been a critical contemporary exploration of the history, theory and method of PI that could lend itself to defining what the method is, for those unfamiliar with it. This article provides a summary of PI as it exists in the literature today. This includes surveying the rhizomatic history of the method, exploring debates around who should or should not use the method and conversation around the current uses of PI in qualitative research
Editorial for Special Issue: Using Poetry and Poetic Inquiry as Political Response for Social Justice
No full textEditorial for special issue on Poetry and Social Justic
Review of the Sixth International Symposium on Poetic Inquiry: Breaking Through the Abstract: Poetry as/in/for Social Justice
No full textThis is a review of the 6th International Symposium on Poetic Inquiry held at Bowling Green State University, and graciously hosted by Sandra Faulkner. This symposium meets biennially with presenters from many different areas of the world such as Nova Scotia, Canada, and New Zealand. The theme this year was poetry in/as/for social justice. In this review, I seek to think through some of the questions and uncertainties that arose over the course of the few days we met in November. We complicated meanings of social justice at this contemporary time and revisited formulations of social justice through past events. Within this review, I write a personal/theoretical piece embedded with citations from poets, and in the end compose a poem that is an amalgamation of language from presenters’ abstracts and my own ideas
Praye(red)
No full textThis performance uses a poem autoethnographically to engage the poet-researcher’s lived experiences in order to examine the relationship of their identity intersections (queer, Latinx, gender non-comforming) to their culture(s) through the current events that inform their experiences and identities. Identifying as gender non-comforming, the poet uses terms like “Latinx” and the pronoun “they” to simply state and relate to a line of Sylvia Plath’s the Bell Jar that “I am, I am, I am.” The usage of literature helps the poet become aware of what they are feeling. Using poetic autoethnography, these pieces strive to amplify the emotions—sadness, anger, anxiety, and fear—that stem from their positionality in relation to events like the tragedy in Orlando. Further, using poetry to engage in embodied and often hidden epistemic realities, the poet looks to the relationship of identity, culture, and the gender/queer, Latinx body that carries this cumulative knowledge from lived experience to lived experience to express those feelings. Using these poetic connections, the poet strives to question their existence in the current world, and make sense of their authenticity
Christ Would Break Your Tongue
No full text“Christ Would Break Your Tongue” is part of my on-going exploration of growing up as a United Church minister’s daughter in small-town Ontario. In the title poem, I inquire into the interstices of gender, voice, and authority. In “Dominion” I grapple with how the Christian underpinnings of Western culture place humans above other creatures and lifeforms to the detriment of all living beings. In “Billy Stewart’s Geography” I begin to explore the church’s role in political oppression, colonialism, and residential schools, building on my poetic interests in family dynamics and place (Stewart, 2003; 2012). I use poetic inquiry (Butler-Kisber, Guiney Yallop, Stewart, & Wiebe, 2017; Faulkner, 2009; Galvin & Prendergast, 2016; Prendergast, Leggo, & Sameshima, 2009; Thomas, Cole, & Stewart, 2012) as a research method to reflect on and through language, letting the poems be the plumb-line of the research process. Poetry’s use of the associative, the particular, and the unconscious allow me to explore terrain which may have been previously un-worded. This is needed to write through shame and grief. I believe with Orr (2002) that “the more of our own stories that we can tell, the richer and more complex our selves become. The richer a use we make of our past experience, the more open we are to present experience” (p. 102). This openness is crucial in the search for word and action. Educator Maxine Greene (1977) calls us to be open or “awake.” How can poets be awake to this complex social/political moment and use their craft to speak? Poetry works with stories and lyric which are once personal, ideological and often shaped by religion. As a white settler Canadian, I strive to uncover the complicity of my religious and Northern Irish background in hierarchical and oppressive relations. My hope is to provoke
Arts-Based Approaches to Studying Traveller Children’s Educational Experiences
No full textIn this article, we present ideas on how arts-based methods can be applied to conducting research with a minority ethnic group (i.e., Traveller children) and offer ways to analyse data. We refer to the culture of Traveller children, report statistics on their educational performance and refer to recent research in Northern Ireland on their disengagement from compulsory post-primary (11-16 years old) education. We look through the lens of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory and consider a re-think of the approach typically used in research to tap into Traveller children’s educational experiences. We offer a brief summary of the principles of arts-based research, outlining the theoretical underpinnings of supporters who argue for its use in educational research settings. We elaborate on three arts-based research methods as options in the design of conducting research with Traveller children and offer advice on associated ethical issues. In exploring methods of analysis, we refer to the types of data and suggest a content and thematic analytical approach to interpret the data. In conclusion, we reiterate the importance of offering these culturally responsive means to engage with this minority ethnic group