Gesturing Toward Human(e) Research: Thinking Through Entanglements in Participant Observations

• In Event: 25.082 - Fairmont Royal York Roundtable Session Three
  In Roundtable Session: 25.082-8 - Ethics and Positioning in Qualitative Research Encounters

Abstract

In a post-truth era, the classical humanist subject is rendered unviable, as we have reached the limits of fixed methodologies that preclude different knowledge production and differently-produced knowledge (Lather, 2013). In contrast to classical arborescence, I encounter rhizomatic differences when I revisit existing ethnographic research and draw from Alecia Jackson’s (2017) “thinking without method,” which makes the unthought realizable. In this conceptual paper, data become alive as actors in active dialogue (Barad, 2007). Advocating a Derridean différance, I attempt to disentangle useful methodological instruments from the instrumentalization of thought, which is driven more by efficiency and routinization than by public good, and I argue that through careful post-qualitative inquiries, participant observations can be used in the service of equity-oriented research.

Author

• Ah-Young Song, Teachers College, Columbia University