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Sometimes you have to go under water to come up: A poetic, critical realist approach to documenting the voices of homeless immigrant women
Abstract and Figures
Methodological debates concerning feminist research design tend to focus more on the process of data collection than on the process of data representation. Nevertheless, data representation is fraught with difficulties, especially in communicating research findings concerning vulnerable populations to diverse individuals and groups. How do feminist social work researchers represent the voice of the research participants to community and service organizations while simultaneously meeting the expectations of the academic or political institutions soliciting the research? In this article, we discuss how we approached this dilemma with data collected through a research study on immigrant women experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity. Guided by feminist methodological principles, we drew on the tenets of critical realist theory, integrating this analysis with poetic inquiry to reconstruct the women's voices in the representations of research data. We discuss these modalities and provide two case examples to illustrate their application.
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... Najczęściej po poezję sięgają badacze zajmujący się problematyką związaną z wykluczeniem społecznym, na przykład rasizmem, bezdomnością, samotnym macierzyństwem (por. Hanley, View, 2014;Hordyk, Soltane, Hanley, 2014;Corley, 2020) oraz edukacją (np. Savishinsky, 2007;Görlich, 2016). ...
... Poezja otwiera nas na tajemnice ludzkiego życia, zwłaszcza w momentach epifanicznych, które trudno uchwycić za pomocą prozy, strukturyzuje nasze doświadczanie świata w formę hermeneutycznej spirali, odsłaniającej nowe perspektywy interpretacji spostrzeżeń i doznań w procesie nieustającego dialogu między częścią a całością (por. Faulkner, 2007;Hordyk, Soltane, Hanley, 2014). Poetyckie metafory pozwalają opisać to, co trudne do opisania, to co niezapoznane i wymykające się poznawczym schematom, na przykład doświadczenia graniczne. ...
... Moc ewokatywna jest szczególnie ważna, gdy zależy nam na tym, aby odbiorcy usłyszeli głosy stłumione, marginalizowane w dyskursie publicznym, skrzywdzone, zdominowane ze względu na swoją klasę społeczną, rasę, płeć, przynależność etniczną, niepełnosprawność itp. (Barone, Eisner, 2006;Furman, Langer, Taylor, 2010;Hordyk, Soltane, Hanley, 2014). Poezja może być orężem w walce o sprawiedliwość społeczną, stawać w obronie grup zdominowanych (Ohito, Nyachae, 2019), a także pełnić funkcję moralizatorską i dydaktyczną, ucząc norm moralnych i chroniąc istotne dla danej kultury wartości. ...
Poezja nie jest wciąż traktowana jako uprawomocniona naukowo metoda badania i reprezentowania zebranych danych w jakościowych badaniach empirycznych. Jednakże założenie o istnieniu sprzeczności między myśleniem naukowym i twórczością poetycką jest jedynie pozorne. Badania poetyczne to podejście badawcze, które wykorzystuje poezję jako metodę eksploracji, analizy i reprezentacji wyników badania. W artykule autorka wyjaśnia, dlaczego warto sięgać po formy poetyckie na różnych etapach procesu badawczego. Pokazuje, w jaki sposób można tworzyć poezję z uzyskanych danych, a także omawia cechy wyróżniające ars poetica, które mogą posłużyć za punkty odniesienia dla badań poetyckich w badaniach jakościowych, tak aby przekazać bogactwo ludzkich doświadczeń, które może nie być w pełni uchwycone przez tradycyjne teksty akademickie.
... Poetics becomes a valuable tool for decolonial public pedagogy in that it can make First Nations experiences and ways of knowing, being and doing accessible, makes apparent the interconnected experiences of different groups and drives emotive engagement and transformation (Charman and Dixon, 2021;Fujino et al., 2018). Hordyk et al. (2014) posit that the nonlinear way in which data are represented in poetry means that it can attend to the intersectional experience of oppression due to race, gender, religion, class or disability. In this way, poetic inquiry has the capacity to respond to calls for critical and decolonising knowledges and practices, particularly for wicked problems that ongoing colonisation creates for First Nations peoples (Barker and Pickerill, 2020;Cooms et al., 2022;Dudgeon and Walker, 2015;Sherwood and Edwards, 2006). ...
... Poetic inquiry provides accessible, powerful, emotionally transformative and accurate Decolonising qualitative research representations of marginalised and culturally diverse groups compared to traditional forms of inquiry (Foster, 2012;Kaunda and Alubafi, 2021;McCall, 2004). Hordyk et al. (2014) argue that poetry has the power to transform a reader and awaken passion for subjects that have otherwise been ignored. Through its unique form to reveal, analyse, articulate and enhance empathetic understandings of experience and social context, poetic inquiry emerges as a powerful and transformative tool in public pedagogy, conveying emotionally engaging representations of marginalised and culturally diverse groups, awakening passion and opening audiences up to new possibilities and realities. ...
... There is diversity in the types of poetic inquiry that can be applied and the ways that poetry can be incorporated into a project, as well as a multitude of poetic forms that can be used. There is a general avoidance of rules or expectations of how poetic inquiry should be applied as this could stifle the creative process; however, some authors offer guidelines for the ways in which poetic inquiry can and has been applied in research (Butler-Kisber, 2020; Fitzpatrick and Fitzpatrick, 2020;Hordyk et al., 2014;McCulliss, 2013;Prendergast, 2009). Butler-Kisber (2020) proposes that poetic inquiry can be framed as found and generated. ...
Purpose
Poetic inquiry is an approach that promotes alternate perspectives about what research means and speaks to more diverse audiences than traditional forms of research. Across academia, there is increasing attention to decolonising research. This reflects a shift towards research methods that recognise, acknowledge and appreciate diverse ways of knowing, being and doing. The purpose of this paper is to explore the different ways in which poetic inquiry communicates parallax to further decolonise knowledge production and dissemination and centre First Nations’ ways of knowing, being and doing.
Design/methodology/approach
This manuscript presents two First Nations’ perspectives on a methodological approach that is decolonial and aligns with Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing. In trying to frame this diversity through Indigenous standpoint theory (Foley, 2003), the authors present two First Nation’s women's autoethnographic perspectives through standpoint and poetics on the role of poetic inquiry and parallax in public pedagogy and decolonising research (Fredericks et al. , 2019; Moreton-Robinson, 2000).
Findings
The key to understanding poetic inquiry is parallax, the shift in an object, perspective or thinking that comes with a change in the observer's position or perspective. Challenging dominant research paradigms is essential for the continued evolution of research methodologies and to challenge the legacy that researchers have left in colonised countries. The poetic is often invisible/unrecognised in the broader Indigenist research agenda; however, it is a powerful tool in decolonial research in the way it disrupts core assumptions about and within research and can effectively engage with those paradoxes that decolonising research tends to uncover.
Practical implications
Poetic inquiry is not readily accepted in academia; however, it is a medium that is well suited to communicating diverse ways of knowing and has a history of being embraced by First Nations peoples in Australia. Embracing poetic inquiry in qualitative research offers a unique approach to decolonising knowledge and making space for Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing.
Social implications
Poetic inquiry offers a unique approach to centring First Nations voices, perspectives and experiences to reduce hegemonic assumptions in qualitative research.
Originality/value
Writing about poetic inquiry and decolonisation from a First Nations’ perspective using poetry is a novel and nuanced approach to discussions around First Nations ways of knowing, being and doing.
... As a qualitative approach, poetic inquiry aims to describe a journey of contemplative truth-seeking using artistic and creative expressions (Elliott, 2012). Poetic inquiry enables the researcher to choose "a variety of lenses through which to re-present what is seen" (Hordyk et al., 2014). Hence, poetic inquiry requires the researcher to live the stories of participants to see, hear, and feel what they share, attentively listening "under the words" (Prendergast et al., 2009, p. 16) from a non-judgmental point of view. ...
... 13). In his research on homeless immigrant women, Hordyk et al. (2014) successfully employed this methodological approach to analyze, reconstruct, and represent the transcripts to elicit the voices of women who were made visible and marginalized in their new destination. In a similar vein, this paper draws upon poetic inquiry in response to a recorded oral story of a language teacher who is also marginalized on her profession career path. ...
This poetic narrative aims to explore lived experiences of a language school teacher in a poor remote island in Vietnam. This article gives insights into how teacher identity was shaped through the eyes of a school teacher and how she struggled to rise to the challenge to become a better teacher version of herself. The self-portraits of how her identity was constructed and reconstructed unveil a sketch of bamboos embracing the aspiration of overcoming external factors to thrive and bloom in barren rocky soil and the harsh environmental conditions.
... While poetic inquiry is not common in academic writing, methodologists continue to move for its inclusion in qualitative data analysis (Patrick, 2016). It has been used by many in the helping professions, including those in social work (Hordyk et al., 2014;Kuri et al., 2022), education (Pithouse-Morgan, 2016), psychology (Reilly et al., 2018), and in nursing (Janesick, 2016). ...
... Any data collected can be used, including reflexive journals, policies, documents, and/or participant interview transcripts (Janesick, 2016). Some critical qualitative researchers use found poetry as a means to stay close to the participants words (Hordyk et al., 2014), and others find using direct quotes in poetic expression to be a method of engaging with the reader (Patrick, 2016). ...
The Nurse-Family Partnership is a targeted parenting intervention designed to improve maternal and child health. In Canada it is delivered exclusively by public health nurses who provide complex care to adolescent girls and young women. A process evaluation was conducted to better understand the experiences of public health nurses delivering the Nurse-Family Partnership program in Canada. Although the traditional qualitative data analysis led to the creation of significant findings and clinical implications, it lacked the "heart" of public health nursing practice. Through a reflective process, and to present an evocative account of the multifaceted nursing care provided by the study participants, direct quotes were used to create a poetic display of nurses' experiences. Through the power of found poetry, the complexities of clients' lives, as well as the challenges and joys of home-visitation nursing, were illuminated.
... This chapter demonstrates how integrating narrative voices and poetic inquiry can help academics and qualitative researchers to tell their stories and communicate their findings, while preserving their authentic voice (Hordyk et al., 2014). The discussion in this chapter is structured around the validity of such a research approach in qualitative research, (re)presented in the modes of storytelling, poetry and reflective narration. ...
Academia and its citizens, during periods of political violence and social conflict, are often overlooked. When attention is given, the focus tends to be on student activism, access to higher education, or curriculum development. The experiences of academics affected by conflict remain under-researched, despite the crucial role they play as educators and in generating, documenting, preserving and challenging knowledges. This is particularly concerning given that academics have−and continue to be−at risk as targets of sanction, persecution and oppression.
This edited volume seeks to address this gap by exploring, and evoking, the complexities of academic subjectivity, place and practice in contexts where intellectual and state authority are contested or in transition. It features contributions by academics, artists and memory activists who have stepped bravely outside of the parameters of their disciplines, with modes of enquiry and representation that include conversations, vignettes and case studies, critical ethnographies, oral life histories, interviews, poetry and collage. Within the ten chapters are consideration of conflicts within Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, England, Mexico, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Palestine, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Syria and Venezuela.
Being in Shadow and Light encourages a deeper understanding of academics’ navigation of these difficult conditions. The authors’ insider-outsider positioning brings forth the richness of ways through dilemmas−of omission, trauma, displacement, inheritance, injustice, distortion, desire. Grounding the many social, cultural, economic, and epistemic politics within academia, troubles the enclosure of ‘conflict’ in politics at the grand level, as if only within the realm of interest for state and international actors. Against sanitising the uncertainties and particularities of being an academic figure, the authors reflect on the states and sites of conflict as spaces which shape living.
This work is a call to recognize, document and study the often-overlooked subjectivities and contributions of academics thinking and practicing within societies undergoing conflict(s) and in their aftermath. As such, it will be of interest to academics, students and staff working within universities, as well audiences interested in intellectuals and institutions in contexts undergoing change.
... В последнее время среди зарубежных исследователей все более популярными становятся партисипаторные активистские методы и техники, основанные на творческих практиках. Например, такие как совместные с участниками исследования театральные постановки, базирующиеся на их жизненных историях, и дальнейший совместный анализ нарративов [Ansloos, Wager, 2019], совместное создание из текстов интервью поэтических текстов [Hordyk et al., 2014], фотовыставки и представление данных материалов широкой публике. Данные техники используются для усиления роли самих изучаемых в проведении исследования, а результат работ заключается не только в научном вкладе в существующую дискуссию, но и в социальных действиях отдельных структур, способных повлиять на положение информантов. ...
The focus of the article is a research reflection on the sociologist’s work in a vulnerable sensory field, using homelessness as an example, as well as an analysis of methodological aspects of studying this phenomenon. The author draws attention to the importance of discussing the challenges and dilemmas faced by social researchers during empirical data collection, as well as the language used by researchers and practitioners in conducting interviews and presenting results, avoiding exoticization and additional problematization of groups in vulnerable positions. The article touches on the place and role of the researcher in such fields, emotional involvement and boundary building, relationships with other experts and the challenges of choosing the most appropriate methodology. The empirical basis of the article is the data of the research conducted by the author in a qualitative paradigm over several years (N= 60).
... This study focuses its interest on homeless migrants, the majority of whom do not have legal documents, or whose asylum request is pending. The relevant literature regarding homeless migrants has highlighted several critical issues, such as the role of social services and humanitarian organizations (Juul, 2022), the 'housing strategies of migrants who are outside the institutional reception system' (Sanò at al., 2021, p. 977), the threats of deportation (Morgan, 2022) and gender power relations (Hordyk et al., 2014). However, the abovementioned literature suffers from a shortage of research on the commoning practices among homeless migrants. ...
In recent years, Athens has been at the center of the so-called “migration crisis”, as thousands of newcomers have found temporary or permanent refuge in the city. However, because the state’s housing policies have reduced the available positions of those who have the right to settle in state accommodation structures, an ever-increasing number of newcomers facing homelessness and live in city’s streets, parks and squares. In this context, a solidarity collective kitchen named “Our House” was self-organized by a group of newcomers on the city’s central square, Omonoia Square, where it remained for two years. Our House project activities, based on mutual help and commoning practices, claimed the homeless migrants’ right to the center of the city. However, in 2019 the square was turned into a construction site and Our House activities were prohibited. This paper is based on ethnographic urban research and discusses the solidarity practices of homeless migrants through the theoretical approaches of the right to the city, as well as critical approaches to homelessness and urban commons. The main findings of the paper focus on highlighting the homeless migrants’ commoning practices, and the paper’s contribution lies in the enrichment of theoretical discussions on the right to the city and urban commoning practices through the case homeless migrants’s self-organization.
... Moreover, we should remember that we, as researchers, are part of the dialogue. Hordyk et al., (2013) note that ". . . critical realist data analysis will have a significantly distinctive transforming influence on the researcher" (p. ...
open access available: http://bitly.ws/LAQ9
This introduction to the volume discusses the evolving field of Human-Machine Communication (HMC), drawing on insights from the philosophy of science. We explore critical debates in the field, underscoring the importance of challenging assumptions, embracing interfield work, and fostering dialogue in shaping our understanding of HMC. Moreover, we celebrate the vibrant collaboration between disciplines that drives progress in HMC. This piece serves as an invitation to join the exploration of this collection and contribute to shaping the future of HMC.
As arts-based research and poetic inquiry play increasingly visible roles in the qualitative research context, how do we help researchers new to these modalities learn to recognize the poetic in the actual stuff of their data? This chapter explores five qualities in data or in a research context that may alert a researcher to the presence of poetic occasion: concreteness, voice, tension, ambiguity and associative logic.
Poetic Inquiry: Vibrant Voices in the Social Sciences, co-edited by Monica Prendergast, Carl Leggo and Pauline Sameshima, features many of the foremost scholars working worldwide in aesthetic ways through poetry. The contributors (from five countries) are all committed to the use of poetry as a way to collect data, analyze findings and represent understandings in multidisciplinary social science qualitative research investigations. The creativity and high aesthetic quality of the contributions found in the collection speak for themselves; they are truly, as the title indicates, "vibrant voices". This groundbreaking collection will mark new territories in qualitative research and interpretive inquiry practices at an international level. Poetic Inquiry will contribute to many ongoing and energetic debates in arts-based research regarding issues of evaluation, aesthetics, ethics, activism, self-study, and practice-based research, while also spelling out some innovative ways of opening up these debates in creative and productive ways. Instructors and students will find the book a clear and comprehensive introduction to poetic inquiry as a research method.
Butler-Kisber, L. (2018). Qualitative inquiry: Thematic, narrative and arts-based perspectives (2nd ed.). London: Sage.
This is an approachable guide to a range of inquiry perspectives grounded theoretically and illustrated with many examples. It explores the traditional approaches of constructivist grounded theory (constant comparison) and phenomenological inquiry as well as narrative and the varied artful approaches that continue to push the boundaries of qualitative research.
Moving away from the quantitative and empiricist-positivist approaches that have often characterised migration research, Qualitative Methods in Migration Studies explores in a concise but comprehensive way the key issues involved in researching migratory phenomena in a qualitative manner. It addresses themes including the basic characteristics of contemporary migration, qualitative research into social processes related to migration, and the relationship between theory, research design and practice and will be of interest to students and researchers in migration across the social sciences.