Writing Qualitatively as/With/Through Disturbances

• In Event: Writing and the Articulation of Qualitative Research

Abstract

In the mushroom foraging world, Anna Tsing (2015) writes of disturbance with regard to several practices. To begin, disturbance is what creates an environment where matsutake mushrooms flourish: Human ecological disturbance cultivates growth. Disturbance is also what signals one to where the matsutake are hiding: Matsutake growth creates bulges in the ground that aid in their discovery. Further, disturbance is what cultivates ecological renewal: Wildfire as producing destruction, yet facilitating regrowth. Importantly, disturbance is sometimes necessary: “Restoration requires disturbance” (p. 152).

Of disturbance, Tsing (2015) explains that it “realigns possibilities for transformative encounter” (p 152). Through zigzagging with ecologies and methodologies, this chapter thinks with the transformative practice of disturbance as/with/through writing, as one that creates new encounters, new possibilities in inquiry. Disturbances break us from the rhythms of life, shifting the cadence of thinking/doing/being so severely or suddenly that we pause to notice a difference, a dissonance. An interruption or disruption. They are made of different intensities than what we are used to, causing us to feel as though something is lost, leading us to feel unbalanced, uncertain, unsettled. To be sure, disturbance signals change; however, what if we (re)focus on change as generative? As renewing and restorative, much like Tsing discusses? This chapter thinks with disturbance as an affirmative part of ecologies, artful inquiries, and qualitative writing practices, wondering: What are the disturbances enact upon us in our qualitative writing? How have I/how do we think as/with/through those disturbances? What is the potential therein?

Author

• Kelly Woodall Guyotte, University of Alabama
  Presenting Author