A Crisis in a Crisis in a Crisis: Genre Flailing in Writing Qualitatively

• In Event: Writing and the Articulation of Qualitative Research

Abstract

For decades, the act of ‘writing up’ qualitative research seemed largely unchanged. In a crisis, however, objects that always felt so stable can start to wobble. Increasingly, many within and adjacent to qualitative research desire something more than conventional representational practices. Bringing the notion of genre flailing (Berlant, 2018) into this discussion foregrounds the objects, the attachments, and the desires bound up in this work. In the crisis of [insert latest crisis here], qualitative research writing feels wobbly, a feeling that can elicit a flailing response. Feeling magnetized by alternative writing genres, this paper analyzes our own eagerness to experiment with educational research through fabulation and fictocriticism. While it can be inventive, this paper argues for critical ambivalence toward the promise and peril of genre flailing.

Authors

• Nancy L. Lesko, Teachers College, Columbia University
  Presenting Author

• Seth A. McCall, Lake Superior State University
  Presenting Author