Avowing as Healing in Qualitative Inquiry: Exceeding Constructions of Normative Inquiry and Confession in Research With Undocumented Youth

• In Event: 47.098 - Sheraton Roundtable Session Eight - Osgoode Ballroom
  In Roundtable Session: 47.098-4 - New Possibilities, Traditional Methodologies

Abstract

This paper reimagines post-structural approaches to methodological inquiry in order to consider alternative enactments of research for social justice. In this primarily conceptual paper, we address how the post-structural turn in qualitative inquiry influences the interview. Employing Foucault’s concept and critique of the “confession” and his notion of “avowal,” we argue that avowal becomes useful for theorizing the qualitative interview with the unique populations. We share data from a two-year multi-site ethnography of undocumented youth perceptions of belonging, citizenship, and identity, arguing that the notion of avowal complicates and produces a way of healing for the youth not available under the framework of the confessional. We offer implications for the use of such Foucauldian concepts in the methodological processes.

Authors

• Sophia Rodriguez, University of North Carolina - Greensboro

• Aaron M. Kuntz, The University of Alabama