Qualitative Inquiry at a Crossroads: Political, Performative, and Methodological Reflections (International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry Series)

215 Pages·2019·1.548 MB·English

by  Norman K. Denzin, Michael D. Giardina

Qualitative inQuiry at a
Crossroads
Qualitative Inquiry at a Crossroads critically reflects on the ever-c hanging
dynamics of qualitative research in the contemporary moment. We live at a
crossroads in which the spaces for critical civic discourse are narrowing, in
which traditional political ideologies are now questioned: there is no utopian
vision on the horizon, only fear and doubt. The moral and ethical foundations
of democracy are under assault, global inequality is on the rise, facts are derided
as ‘fake news’—an uncertain future stands at our door.
Premised on the belief that our troubled times call for a critical inquiry that
matters—a discourse committed to a politics of resistance, a politics of possibility—
leading international contributors from the United States, United Kingdom, Aus-
tralia, Spain, Norway, and Denmark present a range of perspectives, challenges,
and opportunities for the field. In so doing, they wrestle with questions concerning
the intersecting vectors of method, politics, and praxis. More specifically, contrib-
utors engage with issues ranging from indigenous and decolonizing methods, arts-
based research, and intersectionality to debates over the research marketplace,
accountability metrics, and emergent forays into post-q ualitative inquiry.
Norman K. Denzin is Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Communications,
Sociology, and the Humanities at the University of Illinois, Urbana-
Champaign, USA.
Michael D. Giardina is Professor of Media, Politics, and Physical Culture in
the Department of Sport Management at Florida State University, USA.

Qualitative inQuiry
at a Crossroads
Political, Performative, and
Methodological Reflection
Edited by Norman K. Denzin and
Michael D. Giardina
First published 2019
by Routledge
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© 2019 Taylor & Francis
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identified as the author of the editorial matter, and of the authors for
their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77
and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-367-17438-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-17439-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-05679-6 (ebk)
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: Qualitative Inquiry at a Crossroads 1
Norman K. Denzin and Michael D. Giardina
Part i
Performative reflections 17
1 Between Bodies: Queer Grief in the Anthropocene 19
Anne Harris and Stacy Holman Jones
2 “I Wanted the World to See”: Black Feminist
Performance Auto/Ethnography 32
Wilson Okello
3 Canvasing the Body: A Radical Relationality of Art,
Body, and Vibrant Materiality 48
Tami Spry
4 Intersectionality in Education Research: Methodology as
Critical Inquiry and Praxis 52
Venus E. Evans- Winters and Jennifer Esposito
vi contents
Part ii
Methodological inflections 65
5 Voice in the Agentic Assemblage 67
Lisa A. Mazzei and Alecia Youngblood Jackson
6 Wondering in the Dark: The Generative Power of
Unknowing in the Arts and in Qualitative Inquiry 80
Liora Bresler
7 Virtuous Inquiry, Refusal, and Cynical Work 96
Aaron M. Kuntz
8 Theorizing from the Streets: De/colonizing, Contemplative,
and Creative Approaches and Consideration of Quality in
Arts- Based Qualitative Research 109
Kakali Bhattacharya
9 Stay Human: Can We Be Human after Posthumanism? 126
Svend Brinkmann
Part iii
Political interventions 139
10 Resisting the Commodified Researcher Self: Interrogating
the Data Doubles We Create for Ourselves when Buying and
Selling Our Research Products in the Research Marketplace 141
Julianne Cheek
11 Contesting Accountability Metrics in Troubled Times
through Communicative Methodology 157
Aitor Gómez González
12 Seduction and Desire: The Power of Spectacle 171
Bronwyn Davies
13 Stitching Tattered Cloth: Reflections on Social Justice
and Qualitative Inquiry in Troubled Times 186
Karen M. Staller
Notes on Contributors 199
Index 204
aCknowledgments
We thank Hannah Shakespeare and Matt Bickerton at Routledge for their
support of this volume and the larger ICQI project. Thanks are also due Amy
Thomas for expert copyediting, Wearset Ltd. for production design, and
Lamont Williams for assistance in compiling the index. Many of the chapters in
this book were presented as plenary or keynote addresses at the fourteenth
International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, held at the University of Illinois,
Urbana- Champaign, in May 2018. We thank the Institute of Communications
Research, the College of Media, and the International Institute for Qualitative
Inquiry for continued support of the Congress as well as those campus units that
contributed time, fund, and/or volunteers to the effort.
The Congress, and by extension this book, would not have materialized
without the tireless efforts of Mary Blair, Robin Price, and James Salvo (the
glue who continues to hold the whole thing together).
For information on future Congresses, please visit www.icqi.org.
Norman K. Denzin
Michael D. Giardina
October 2018

introduCtion
Qualitative inquiry at a crossroads
Norman K. Denzin and Michael D. Giardina
In October of 2018, an article titled “Academic grievance studies and the cor-
ruption of scholarship” was published in Areo, a small “opinion and analysis
digital magazine focused on current affairs.” Authored by Helen Pluckrose,
James A. Lindsay, and Peter Boghossian (2018), the article recounted the
authors’ efforts to publish ‘fake’ papers in leading journals in the humanities and
social sciences—especially but not limited to those with a cultural studies, iden-
tity studies, or critical theory focus.1
In their article, the authors state the intent behind the hoax:
Something has gone wrong in the university—especially in certain fields
within the humanities. Scholarship based less upon finding truth and
more upon attending to social grievances has become firmly established,
if not fully dominant, within these fields, and their scholars increasingly
bully students, administrators, and other departments into adhering to
their worldview. This worldview is not scientific, and it is not rigorous.
For many, this problem has been growing increasingly obvious, but
strong evidence has been lacking. For this reason, the three of us just
spent a year working inside the scholarship we see as an intrinsic part of
this problem.
(para. 1)
In explaining their hoax, the authors detail how they spent a year writing 20
‘fake’ papers—with falsified (read: made- up) data or empirical material—and the
process by which these papers were peer reviewed, accepted, or rejected from a
variety of journals in what they pejoratively term “grievance studies,” which
according to them includes “(feminist) gender studies, masculinities studies,