Analysis in the Ruins of Science: Collage as Living Inquiry

• In Event: Qualitative Data Analysis and Its Influence on Educational Practice and Policy

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate, theorize and argue for analytical methods that operationalize poststructural critiques of qualitative research-as-usual (e.g. St. Pierre, 2011). Joining other qualitative researchers who work in the ruins of science (Lather, 2001), the presenters maintain that taken-for-granted qualitative research practices—the reliance on coding and the standardization of academic writing, among others—constrain inquiry and reify hierarchical structures within education, marginalize groups, and sort and rank individuals. In response, the presenter posits collage—the ripping, colliding, and remixing of data—as method, methodology, and scholarly text that allows for rigorous investigations different from those done by “positivist, scientific storytellers” (Gouzouasis, 2008, p. 231). Drawing from a/r/tography (Irwin & de Cosson, 2004), an arts-based form of post-inquiry based on the notion of “living inquiry,” (Springgay, 2008), the presenter argues that collage pushes against conventional notions of analysis and enacts a Deleuzian fold (Deleuze 1988/1993) in which questions are never quieted, conclusions never reached. Instead, collage analysis produces research that “doesn’t make us certain of ourselves” (Brockelman, 2001, p. 113), thereby generating an interminable stance of inquisitiveness and self-critique that holds promise for strong and ethical research.



References
Brockelman, T.P. (2001). The frame and the mirror: On collage and the postmodern. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
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St. Pierre, E. A. (2011). Post qualitative research: The critique and the coming after. In N. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (pp. 611-625). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.

Author

• Teri J. Holbrook, Georgia State University