Thinking with Thinking with Theory in Qualitative Research

Thinking with Theory in Qualitative Research is a direct challenge to long held traditional forms of qualitative data analysis. Defining analysis methods like coding and thematic analysis to be reductive and simplistic, Jackson and Mazzei offer an alternative account of data analysis by “plugging-in” six poststructural theorists to data. Through interviews of two first generation academic women, Jackson and Mazzei demonstrate how researchers can employ complex theories to analyze data without relying upon traditional methods. The insightful, clear, and, at times, profound, findings of Thinking with Theory in Qualitative Research demonstrates the need for researchers to reexamine the continued reign of traditional forms of data analysis in the contexts of modern social life

Comience aquí, o aquí, no aquí: Introduções para repensar a política e a metodologia educativa em uma era pós-verdad

This special issue takes up urgent questions about how we education scholars might think and do policy and methodology in what has come to be known as the post-truth era. The authors in this special issue grapple with questions about the roles and responsibilities of educational researchers in an era in which research and policy have lost their moorings in T/truth. Collectively they reconceptualize educational research and policy in light of post-truths, anti-science sentiment, and the global rise of right-wing populism. At the same time we editors wonder whether post-truth is given a bad rap. Could post-truth have something productive to offer? What does post-truth open up for educational research and policy? Or, is the real issue of this special issue a collective despair of our own insignificance and obsolescence in the wake of post-truth. Whatever we editors and authors aimed to do, this special issue will not be heard by post-truth adherents and partisans. Perhaps its only contribution is encouragement to stay with the troubles of a post-truth era, even as we despair the consequences of our research and policy creations.Este número especial plantea preguntas urgentes sobre cómo los académicos de la educación pueden pensar y hacer políticas y metodologías en una era posverdad. Los autores se enfrentan a preguntas sobre los roles y responsabilidades de los investigadores educativos en un momento en que la investigación y la política han perdido sus amarres en V/verdad. En conjunto, reconceptualizan la investigación y la política educativa a la luz de las posverdades, el sentimiento anticientífico y el auge mundial del populismo de derecha. Los editores también se preguntan si a la posverdad se le da una mala reputación. ¿Podría la posverdad tener algo productivo que ofrecer? ¿Qué abre la posverdad a la investigación y la política educativa? O bien, ¿es el problema real de este número especial una desesperación colectiva de nuestra propia insignificancia y obsolescencia después de la posverdad? Independientemente de lo que nosotros (los editores y autores) pretendamos hacer, este número especial no será escuchado por los partidarios y partidarios de la posverdad. Quizás su única contribución sea un estímulo para permanecer con los problemas de una era posverdad, incluso cuando nos desesperamos por las consecuencias de nuestras investigaciones y creaciones de políticas.Esta dossiê especial levanta questões urgentes sobre como os estudiosos da educação podem pensar e fazer políticas e metodologias em uma era pós-verdade. Os autores se deparam com questões sobre os papéis e responsabilidades dos pesquisadores educacionais em um momento em que a pesquisa e a política perderam seus laços na verdade. Juntos, eles reconceitualizam a pesquisa e a política educacional à luz das verdades posteriores, do sentimento anti-científico e da ascensão mundial do populismo de direita. Os editores também se perguntam se a verdade posterior recebe uma má reputação. A pós-verdade poderia ter algo produtivo para oferecer? O que abre a verdade depois da pesquisa e da política educacional? Ou o verdadeiro problema desta questão especial é um desespero coletivo de nossa própria insignificância e obsolescência depois da verdade posterior? Independentemente do que nós (editores e autores) pretendemos fazer, esta edição especial não será ouvida pelos apoiadores e apoiadores da verdade posterior. Talvez sua única contribuição seja um incentivo para permanecer com os problemas de uma era pós-verdade, mesmo quando nos desesperamos com as conseqüências de nossa pesquisa e elaboração de políticas

Performing the Black-White Biracial Identity: The Material, Discursive, and Psychological Components of Subject Formation

The purpose of this new materialist study was to examine the subject performativity of ‘biracial’ individuals in an interview setting in order to disrupt the humanist assumptions of racial identity in psychological research. I also sought to promote critical resistance to subjectification to examine ‘race’ without reifying participants’ raced subjects. Four research questions guided this study: How does the researcher, researched, and interview intra-activity serve to instantiate the biracial subject? Under what material alterations to the interview process do different subjects come to be? Which subjects come to be or fail to come to be in the interview intra-action? How does purposeful entanglement function during the interview process? In this experimental critical qualitative inquiry study, I interviewed five ‘black-white biracial’ undergraduate students three times each while enacting a series of agential cuts within and between each interview. By altering the flow of material during the interviews, I provoked multiple identity instantiations and analyzed the process of subjectification/individuation. Grounded in Barad’s agential realism, and guided by Simondon, Foucault, and Butler my analysis of this data suggests that humanist models of ‘racial’ identity are insufficient, and findings further suggest that a posthumanist and post-qualitative account of ‘biracial’ identity offers more insight into the performativity of ‘raced’ subjects. This research provides a path for psychological identity research to ethically evolve past the linguistic and ontological turns

Contagious Sapiosexuality: Dreaming Conference Seduction as Ethics of Qualitative Research

In this paper we engage Baudrillard’s (1979/1990) writings on seduction to ‘dream up’ seduction as an ethical and generative-destructive force of qualitative research. Beginning with a dreamy conference seduction, we argue that seduction keeps us qualitative researchers thinking, moving, risking, and being passionate about our work and each other. As a playful, sometimes frivolous, yet deeply terrifying process, seduction moves us beyond ourselves and into theoretical unknowns; enables us to risk ourselves in ethically listening to others’ truths. We show and argue that conferences can be ripe spaces for the spread of contagious sapiosexuality and urge qualitative researchers to experiment and play with conference seductions

Work/Think/Play/Birth/Death/Terror/Qualitative/Research

Inspired by work/think/play in qualitative research, we centered the idea of “play” in a qualitative research project to explore what proceeding from the idea of work/think/play might look like and accomplish. We pursued play in an experimental qualitative inquiry over dinner one night at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association. Our article centers on one work/think/play inquiry three of us conducted. Through a playful account of how play unfolded in our work/think/play inquiry that evening, we explore research play as generative, deadly, and censored in the context of neoliberalism and other terrors. We reflect on what (good) play does in qualitative research, what our work/think/play/birth/death/terror/qualitative/research accomplished, if anything. Maybe research play is vital, what keeps us fit to do critical qualitative research. Yet research play moves (well) beyond normative rules of much qualitative research. Is it worth the risk? Can we know? Even after

Purposeful Entanglements: A New Materialist Analysis of Transformative Interviews

In this article, we explore transformative interviewing through the lens of new materialism. Rather than viewing transformation through a humanist perspective that centralizes a transcendent self, we draw upon Barad’s agential realism to reconsider transformation following the ontological turn. Thinking with agential realism, we engaged two interview studies, one on biracialism and one on masculinity, to demonstrate how the materiality of our interviews (e.g., research bodies, computer programs, questionnaires) intra-acted with our participants to both facilitate and hinder our attempts at transformation. We conclude by theorizing transformation as a type of purposeful entanglement that proceeds from the material-discursive intra-actions of our inquiries