Art/Research International (Journal)
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272 research outputs found
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Sketching Possibilities: Poetry and Politically-engaged Academic Practice
No full textIn this article I draw together and reflect upon my own experiences of writing poetry as a part of a politically-engaged academic life. My aim is to trace the political possibilities I have found in poetic practices, with the hope that describing and reflecting on my own experiences may illuminate pathways for others to integrate poetry into their academic practice. As I will detail, I have published research poetry and have been a leader of workshops that encourage academics to incorporate poetic and other forms evocative writing into their researcher toolkits. Often participants in these workshops have remarked how unusual it seems to think of poetry as a resource for academic work. I hope that this article might demonstrate some previously unimagined possibilities for new poetic enquirers, and provide stimulus for further thought for experienced practitioners to connect poetry and academic practice
Tumbling from Embodiment to Enfleshment: Art as Intervention in Collective Autoethnography
No full textWe, the four authors, found ourselves swept into the tenure process, tumbling as we inquired into what this transition meant to each of us and to all of us. Through a methodological grounding in collective autoethnography – and expanded by art intervention, we came together in our inquiry to explore key experiences as new professors, asking how we individually, collectively, and aesthetically move(d) through our transitions into tenure track assistant professorship. We found it was through the embodied acts of listening, attuning, and responding with/in our flesh as women and as researchers that we felt the friction of Tenure as another body in our collective. Tenure provoked our poems, tears, arguments, victories, aches, paintings, tenderness, stitches through fabric, movements, and identities. This article serves as a methodological unpacking of our arts-based research process that used Tumblr, individual and collective artmaking, and visits to each other’s homes. While our collective work seeks new potentialities of understanding our tumbling selves as women, artists, and researchers new to the academy, we also see this work as opening our stories to the world in order to create new possibilities beyond our project
A Beat of Goodbye: An Autoethnographic Account of My Last Days with Grandma
No full textIn this paper, I use field notes, journal entries, and memory recall to write an autoethnographic account of my experiences of the last days of my grandma’s life. I use writing as method in the form of an introspective narrative, layering artistic storytelling and academic references. My original research goal was to better understand the experience of loving and caring for a very old family member by showing the inside of how I experienced my grandma’s aging and final days, including her move to a retirement home, and her death a short time later. By sharing narratively my lived experiences of my grandma’s last days, I also hoped to disrupt some of the socially accepted interpretations surrounding physical bodies and aging, especially for women. Although my initial goal was to understand how these types of experiences transform us, in the process of telling this story I found that what I also gained was a deeper understanding of who my grandma was, and ultimately, who I am
An Inquiry into Self-Immolation as Social Protest
No full textThis poetic inquiry paper is a reflection on the phenomenon of self-immolation committed as compassionate protest. Whether the self-directed social protest of Vietnamese monk, Thích Quảng Đức, and Tibetan monastics and lay people, expresses selfless, altruistic action, dedicated to the greater good, merits reflection. Individuals seeking social justice in today’s troubled times may be interested in cultivating ahimsa, or non-violence, within themselves before attempting to implement it within their communities. In brief, they should change themselves before they change the world. With self-compassion that broadens to loving kindness and compassion for all, they may try to understand those from whom they seek justice before they commit to action. This inquiry concludes with ekphrastic poetry, “interpreting, troubling and addressing” (poets.org) the Tibetan painting, “Wheel of Life,” a depiction of the Buddhist concept of the “three poisons,” ignorance, desire, and anger, and contemplates their antidotes
“Follow Through”: Poetic Representation of Action Planning for Social Justice
No full textDuring an historic semester of student led protests for social justice, the University College of Education (pseudonym) facilitated an action planning session for diversity, inclusion, and social justice. This paper is guided by the question, how can data gathered from an action planning meeting on diversity, inclusion, and social justice be a/r/tographically (Irwin & De Cosson, 2004) represented to support self-awareness and transformative learning experiences? The four co-authors engaged in poetic representation (Ward, 2011) and describe how the data analysis and poem construction yielded opportunities for critical reflection in pursuit of educational equity. This work calls for continued dialogue, action, and emotional commitment to address issues of marginalization in education. The potential of arts-based research to help mediate transformative and lifelong learning regarding diversity and inclusion are discussed
A Novel Landscape for Understanding Physical and Mental Health: Body Mapping Research with Youth Experiencing Psychosis
No full textEstimates indicate the lifespan of individuals with psychotic illness is reduced by approximately 15-20 years. Consequently there is a need to address the physical health of those who live with a mental illness, like psychosis. The Bondi Centre provides an integrated model of care to young people with a first episode of psychosis. The Keeping the Body In Mind program focuses on prevention and early intervention of physical health issues and is offered alongside treatment for mental health and social issues as part of routine care. We used body mapping, an arts-based research method, to explore the complexity of this physical health intervention. Our aim was to develop an in-depth understanding of experiences of young clients of the early intervention centre, with a particular focus on the embodied relationship between physical and mental health. Six young people engaged in creating life-sized body maps depicting their experience of the physical intervention program over four 3-hour sessions, followed by an in-depth interview. Analysis of our body maps drew on thematic analysis and narrative inquiry. The narrative trope was one of recovery, highlighting the importance of the link between body and mind, individual and community, and the balance between light and darkness. There was an emphasis on developing feelings of connectedness (to self and others), hope and optimism for the future, a sense of having an identity, and a sense of meaning and empowerment. Recovery was conceptualised as an ongoing process rather than an end product or fixed state. Involvement in the body mapping process was consistently identified as therapeutic, offering an opportunity for reflection on the journey to recovery with a focus on past, present and imagined storylines of the future.
Bringing the Arts to the Everyday Lived Experiences of Young Children
No full textThe purpose of this arts-based education research was to explore the complex art forms in Bali, Indonesia, for a cross-cultural understanding of the everyday importance of the arts in the teaching and learning of young children. Five Balinese artists and one Javanese artist were interviewed to discuss their journeys as artists from a young age, their practicing art forms, and perceptions of the importance of the arts in their communities, cultural identity, and in the everyday lived experiences of children. While there is literature on the historical and complex art forms of Bali, giving context to the importance of time and place and hierarchies of the culture, little is documented on the interconnection between the arts as a paradigm that shapes culture and informs an understanding of the arts as important to teaching and learning. This research experience aimed to deepen the researcher’s understanding of how the arts are embodied and woven together in Balinese culture, and how this knowledge can be connected to the teaching and learning of children in the Canadian context
“The Opposite of the Skeleton Inside of Me”: Women’s Poetry as Feminist Activism
No full textThis article provides an exegesis and utilizes the author’s original poetry to show that women’s poetry is a form of feminist activism. The exegesis discusses Audre Lorde and Sylvia Plath, authors who have traditionally used poetry as an outlet for opposing the patriarchal oppression that women face. The author follows the exegesis with seven of her poems as a representation of how poetry can further feminist activism and work toward breaking down outdated gender norms and patriarchal ideology
Sympathizing with Social Justice: Poetry of Invitation and Generation
No full textIn this paper, we use Sameshima’s Parallaxic Praxis Model to create collaborative poetry. The model invites juxtaposing articulations to generate alternative thinking. Similar to Daignault\u27s (1992) notion of a “thinking maybe" space, we invite readers into what we call a liminal studio to theorize new understandings of social justice. In the data phases for this project, Viet Thanh Nguyen’s (2015) The Sympathizer served as a play object: The narrator, the sympathizer, is a captured communist spy in the aftermath of the Vietnam war, and his confession (the novel) considers a critical question for understanding social justice: “What is more important than independence and freedom?” Nguyen refuses simplistic overtures of social justice. Instead, readers are confronted with questions: “What do those who struggle against power do when they seize power? What does the revolutionary do when the revolution triumphs? Why do those who call for independence and freedom take away the independence and freedom of others?” (p. 178). These questions lead us to the frame of our own ten-part poem, the modern scholar under interrogation. Our poetry reframes social justice as the art of being/nothing, the something of nothingness being a language of resistance for a reimagined politics
Writing the Self: Slam Poetry, Youth Identity, and Critical Poetic Inquiry
No full textThe purpose of this study was to describe the slam poetry classroom space and its meaningfulness as a tool for the construction of the perceived and embodied identities of urban American middle school students. The aim of this article is to explain how critical poetic inquiry can participate in the activist tradition of amplifying the voices of the oppressed when exploring the slam poetry classroom space and co-creating its meaning with student-participants. This research questioned: How does the slam poetry space enable middle school students to break through social barriers? How does the slam poetry space engage middle school students in the process of identity construction? Themes that emerged from this study include that slam poetry class provided a place to negotiate prescribed identities and the slam poetry class was a location for youth to create ideal self-narratives. This research contributes a pedagogy that empowers teachers and students to engage in collaborative agency and change-making through dialogue via slam poetry and critical poetic inquiry. The organizing structure of this article uses poems authored by the researcher and subtitles to introduce each section