Focus on the Method in From the Stage to the Streets: Minoritized Youth Poets' Civic Actions

• In Event: Doing Diss. Differently: Black Aesthetics, Hip-Hop Scholarship, and the Dissertation

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to explore the civic actions of minoritized youth spoken-word poets ages 18-21 and the meaning-making by which they constructed civic identities. Conceived within a constructionist paradigm (Savin-Baden & Major, 2013) this poetic inquiry (Faulkner, 2009; Leavy, 2015; Prendergast, 2015) explored spoken-word youth poets’ civic identities, the impacts of schools, community centers, and digital contexts on youth poets’ civic actions. The research questions guiding this study were, “In what ways are spoken-word poets ages 18-21 civically active in addition to the performance of poetry and why? How do spoken-word poets construct civic identities? How do schools, community centers, and digital contexts influence teen spoken-word poets’ civic actions and identities?” Participants of this research were fifteen youth who earned the title of the 2016 or 2017 Youth Poet Laureate for their respective city; an honor earned through documented civic engagement and exceptional spoken word performance. The data collected for this research consisted of semi-structured interviews conducted with each participant. Data analysis included inductive coding, thematic, and poetic analysis (Charzman, 2006; Leavy, 2015; Prendergast, 2015). This research found that minoritized youth poets were civically active in traditional and non-traditional ways that prioritized their intersectional identities. Additionally, minoritized youths’ civic identities were informed by their early socialization and mentoring relationships found in spoken word communities. The significance of this research is that coupled with civic action, youth voice has the possibility of actively participating in the reform efforts to create a more equitable education for minoritized youth.
To achieve a liberatory research praxis, I turn to the hip hop aesthetic of sampling, characterized by taking previously recorded music and piecing it together with a variety of techniques to create a new instrumental track (Petchauer, 2015; Schloss, 2004). In this article, I propose a sampling of poetic inquiry (Faulkner, 2009; Leavy, 2015; Prendergast, Leggo, Sameshima, 2009), critical qualitative research (Denzin, 2017), and culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995, 2014) to argue for critical poetic inquiry to be understood as a culturally relevant methodology by additing spoken word poetry. I propose a new entry into qualitative research for researchers and participants that do not neatly fit into the white, hetero, Western identities sanctioned as “normative” in academia. Additionally, this method assists scholars who do share those identities and seek to do “ethically responsible activist research” (Denzin, 2017) research that centers the voices of minoritized research populations. I argue critical poetic inquiry through spoken word poetry is an entry point for minoritized scholars and participants to protest dominant, eurocentric epistemologies, research texts, and societal injustices. This article outlines the purpose, process, and product of the methodology as one culturally relevant methodological tool.

Author

• Camea Davis, Georgia State University