Phantasmagorical Nature of Cadavre exquis: Surrealist Narrative Inquiry

• In Event: The Diverse Lives of Others

Abstract

The main objectives of this paper are to introduce surrealist portraiture (Author, 2012) as a mode of narrative inquiry and a pedagogical practice of liquid modernity (Bauman, 2007). Toward this end, we reconfigure data from three qualitative studies that explore educational experiences and the lived, storm-struck curriculum of displaced people within the gates of a dusty FEMA Katrina trailer park –the largest FEMA temporary housing facility in the US history—named Renaissance Village. This paper offers a research-based triptych composed of three distinct narrative montages—Lessons (Un)learned, The Ephemeral Curriculum, Renaissance Biopolitic— representing overlapping as well as irreconcilable depictions of a shared set of data.

Authors

• Jolanta Smolen Santana, Oregon State University

• Laura M. Jewett, The University of Texas - Brownsville