Qualitative Inquiry Through a Critical Lens

Norman Denzin, Michael Giardina, Norman Denzin, Michael Giardina, Norman K. Denzin, Michael D. Giardina

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781134792351
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Research in Education

This volume highlights work being done in qualitative inquiry through a variety of critical lenses such as new materialism, queer theory, and narrative inquiry. Contributors ranging from seasoned academics to emerging scholars attend to questions of ontology and epistemology, providing, in the process, insights that any qualitative researcher interested in the state of the field would find of value. The authors:

• re-think taken-for-granted paradigms, frameworks, methodologies, ethics, and politics;
• demonstrate major shifts in qualitative inquiry, and point readers in new and exciting directions;
• advocate for a critical qualitative inquiry that addresses social justice, decolonization, and the politics of research;
• present plenary addresses and other key original papers from the 2015 International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry.

This title is sponsored by the International Association of Qualitative Inquiry, a major new international organization which sponsors an annual Congress.

Section II

Methodological Interventions

4

Poetic Inquiry

Transforming Qualitative Data Into Poetry

Valerie J. Janesick

Introduction

Qualitative researchers are expanding the repertoire of techniques used in data representation, analysis, and interpretation as we capture the lived experience of our participants. Poetry is one way to capture social inquiry. For example, the use of found data poems (FDP)—that is, poetry found in the narrative, spoken, or visual text—may transform data from the researcher’s reflective journal, the interview transcripts, and any site documents used in a given study. Found poetry offers another way of viewing and presenting data. In addition, identity poetry, also called I Poetry, may likewise add to our repertoire of techniques in capturing our own stories as researchers in a given study. Furthermore, participants in a study may create some identity poetry to offer yet another data set for analysis and interpretation. Qualitative researchers are now finding ways to use and design poetic inquiry (see Bishop & Willis, 2014; Glesne, 1997; Nicol, 2008; Prendergast, 2006). In this chapter, I write about ways to understand, conceptualize, explore, and expand our notions of poetic ways of seeing and knowing. While I will concentrate mostly on found poetry and identity poetry, other styles of poetry may be discussed. We will begin with dialogue and reflection on poetry to magnify lived experience.

Why Use Poetry in Research?

Since Aristotle argued that poetry is truer than history, writers have been using poetry to depict life as we experience it. For me as a qualitative researcher, I have been thinking about ways to use interview transcripts and other written or spoken words in new ways. Because poetry may capture the miraculous, the surprising, and the essence of everyday life, why not use poetry to represent that interview data, data from the researcher’s journal, and other texts such as emails, Facebook posts, and so forth?

Poetry uses the words of everyday life and goes further with these words in terms of using metaphor, possibly rhyme, and various rigorous structures to call our attention to the meaning of life. Poetry is a way to find out what a person means to say as well as what a person means when he or she speaks the words. The rhythm, the beat, and the sound of poetry awaken us to the beautiful in life and make us tap into our imaginations. If we look at the transcript of an interview, for example, the participant in a given study gives us a good deal of data. Why not take the words of the transcript and transform those words into a found data poem? In addition, some researchers (Furman, 2006, 2007; Furman et al., 2007; Furman, Lietz, & Langer, 2006; Maynard & Cahnmann-Taylor, 2010; Young, D. 2010) are calling poetry itself a form of inquiry. Furthermore, social scientists, such as Bochner (2002), call this approach poetic social science. He points out that basically by using poetry or any alternative to traditional approaches to research, we add to our knowledge of the social world. Likewise, as Eisner (2004) mentions, the ways we represent things eventually have an effect on how we perceive them and, of course, how we make meaning:

There is no single legitimate way to make sense of the world. Different ways of seeing give us different worlds. Different ways of saying, allow us to represent different worlds. A novel as well as a statistical mean can enlarge human understanding.

(p. 5)

Another reason to attach oneself to poetry is that it is an ancient technique with a long and dependable history indicating its importance for the humanity of each individual on earth, for as T. S. Elliot (1920) once wrote: “Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.”

But first, why should we even be talking about poetry in research to begin with? One might ask, Why are we doing this again? Perhaps the character of John Keating, played by Robin Williams in the Hollywood film (1989) Dead Poet’s Society, said it forcefully: “We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion.” In the film, set in a Northeastern United States academy, Keating inspires his students to appreciate and love poetry and to write and read poetry. He advises that the reason to write poetry is to make their lives extraordinary. I venture to say that in the future we should make room for poetry in our qualitative researcher courses and our research projects. We as qualitative researchers are engaged in passionate work in that we are attempting to capture the lived experience of another human being in a given social context. In that process of capturing life through poetry, we can count on a few things.

1. Poetry is about life and allows for building relationships and community. By the very act of writing and reading aloud a piece of poetry in a group such as a classroom, a duet made of researcher and participant, or any group public venue, we are on the road to making a relationship and ultimately building a community of poets. Poetry was never meant to be published in a tiny book and left on a shelf. Poetry is meant to be part of life, and, in this case, it could easily be part of any qualitative research narrative. Furthermore it recalls Keating’s idea that we can make life extraordinary through the writing and performance of poetry. By that very act, we engage an audience, a community if you will. We also may make our work more understandable to some by way of using poetry.
2. Poetry brings beauty into our everyday lives. How can it not do so? To read, write, and hear poetry, we already move into the artistic mode. We use words in new ways and take the ordinary stuff of daily life and make it extraordinary. In a world transfixed with digital gadgets, games, and distractions, poetry offers an alternative. That alternative allows us to recognize the beautiful in daily living. In order to recognize the beautiful, it is important to slow down, calm down, and find a space to write your poetry based on the data in your study.
3. Poetry opens up ways to see the world and makes a space for the spoken word as well as the written word. You as a poet will read aloud your poetry, and that very act opens up a new look at social reality. It also means you are engaged actively in making meaning of something in the social world. Rather than sitting on a sofa and watching television, playing video games, or becoming a bystander in life, the poet is engaged in life and is anxious to represent it poetically. Poetry allows us to forget about being a bystander in life and to actually take part in life. To use one example of the power of the spoken word of written poetry, take a look at the open mic (open microphone) evenings at your local coffeehouse or on the World Wide Web 2.0. Communities are seeing the value of having the spoken word as part of any evening that features local talent.¹
4. Poetry as inquiry builds resilience and sparks imagination and creativity. Poetry is imaginative and forces you the writer to be creative and push your imagination somewhere it has never been before. Creativity is active. It includes successes and failures. I am reminded of the classic story about Thomas Edison who tested over 10,000 substances to create a light bulb that would not explode. Fellow scientists asked him how he could fail so many times. His reply captures this perfectly. He said that in fact he did not fail at all. He merely discovered 10,000 things that simply did not work. I think of creativity as a habit and have written of this elsewhere (Janesick, 2016). Most often creativity can be viewed in three ways: First, creativity may be approached in ordinary conversation or writing by individuals with a curious mind. Second, personal creativity is that form of creativity an individual may experience by experiencing the world and life in original and novel ways without writing about it or speaking of it. Third, creativity may be viewed as referring to those individuals who change our world by inventions or written texts like noteworthy artists or scientists. Think of Steve Jobs, Pablo Picasso, or Diana Gabaldon, for example. The creative habit, and the creative act such as writing poetry, must be exercised and sharpened and a willingness to fail thought of as a type of creativity. What is amazing about creativity is that it takes so many forms and formats. No one researcher, no one writer, no one poet makes quite the same statement. Thus, there is a generative quality to poetry that widens our knowledge base and our understanding of our worlds.
5. Poetry leads to awareness and self-knowledge, which leads to social justice awareness with effort on the poet’s part at least. One of the amazing things about teaching qualitative research methods throughout my career is the realization that each research project, each dissertation committee I serve on, and any workshop I conduct leads closer to self-knowledge and the ability to articulate that knowledge. This becomes useful when describing the role of the researcher. Every one of our projects needs to have a segment where the research clearly describes the role of the researcher in the research project. Poetry can very easily assist in that process and not just with writing an identity poem. Any section of a project can be enhanced by the use of poetry. Likewise, by going deeper into an understanding of the self, a poet/researcher may come a bit closer to understanding social justice and advocating for social justice. Many poets have in fact been agents of change through poetry. Not to name everyone, but consider poets such as Walt Whitman, Sylvia Plath, E. E. Cummings, Keats, Aristophanes, and Shakespeare. These are people who uncovered inequality in their own time frame, and the meaning lasts beyond their years on this earth. Social justice themes are seen in much of the poetry for open mic competitions.²

In this respect, it becomes clearer as to how poetry might be integrated into our qualitative research projects. Specifically, two types of poetry are user friendly and may encourage the most reluctant researcher to see data from interview transcripts, observations, photographs, the spoken word, or site documents in a new way. First let us review found data poetry.

What Is Found Data Poetry?

Found data poetry is poetry found in interview transcripts, in documents from the research site, in performances, and in any spoken or visual text relevant to the research project. For example, someone’s resume or curriculum vitae, their emails, policy documents, and participants’ written statements and reflective journals may be fodder for a found data poem (see Janesick, 2016). Many in the field of arts-based research (ABR) have led the way in describing and validating poetry as a form of inquiry. Of all the art forms, poetry is quite suited to representing the mind and ideas. Poetry engages us and draws us into someone’s life experience. With any given set of words, the poet rearranges those words and develops a found poem. In this example, I wrote this poem following two workshops and at least two dozen classes with a favorite yoga teacher. I took notes at the workshops, during classes, and after classes. It is part of a series on finding poetry in various texts. I call this poem “Yoga Rules.” A version of this poem appeared in my book, Contemplative Qualitative Inquiry: Practicing the Zen of Research (2015).

Yoga Rules

Locate your spine, says the teacher,

Energetically push your kidneys into the mat.

Lean into the prominent information of your body.

Educate your 2nd toe,

Hang around in that pose for sometime.

Notice your disorganized thinking

Activate the interior of your floating ribs.

Let your thigh muscles scream.

Let your heart hang humbly forward.

Listen to the limits of your body.

Now stimulate the bone tissue in your left leg.

Use the entire periphery of your skin

As you roll from side to side.

Visualize the axis of your spine.

Use your skin to bring data to your self.

Address your right hip

And investigate your breath.

Step into your emotions

And keep your brain cool.

Make your sit bones really hear.

Permit your body to do its natural thing,

Stay for some time in the bones.

Your breath is like a horse and

Your mind is its rider.

When it wanders, rein it in.

Feel your connective tissues

Under the muscles

And make your energy unpolluted.

Breath into the edges of your diaphragm

Make your body more radiant,

Locate and educate your spine.

Another type of found poetry can be created directly from an interview transcript; in the example that follows, it is found in an interview transcript from the oral history interview of a New York first responder after the 9/11 attacks.³ The New York Times has...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Qualitative Inquiry Through a Critical Lens
• Section I Theoretical Imperatives
• Section II Methodological Interventions
• Section III Performing Inquiry
• Contributors
• Index