Remixing Narrative Inquiry With Hip-Hop Pedagogies, Poetics, and Literacies

• In Event: The Truth Is in Our Stories: Advancing Humanizing Narrative Research Methods in Teacher Education

Abstract

Objectives or purposes:

The purpose of this presentation is to advance narrative research methodologies that are informed by the literacies, aesthetics, and poetics of Hip Hop.


Perspective(s) or theoretical framework:

This study explores the way critical sociocultural theories of language and literacy (Freire, 1970; Freire & Macedo, 1987; Street 1984; 1995; 2001) shape our understandings of literacy in ways that illuminate the fundamental personal and political nature of narrative inquiry. This critical disposition is directly linked to the sociopolitical consciousness and media literacies that Hip Hop pedagogues advocate for in the teaching of popular youth cultures like Hip Hop. These sociocultural theories provide a framework for understanding language and literacy research within its social, historical, political and cultural contexts.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry:

Drawing on critical poetic inquiry (Davis, 2018; 2021), remix poetics (Rosal, 2013), and sampling (Petchauer, 2015) as arts-based methodologies influenced by Hip Hop, this presentation argues for the spoken word poem as, in, and for research purposes.


Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials:

The data in this retrospective study include the original poetry of the researcher, as well as archival audio recordings of spoken word poems written and performed by four young adults who participated in a youth poetry slam in high school. The participant-collaborators in this study are former students of the author with whom they’ve maintained a close relationship over the years. Their poems are sampled, remixed, and layered with original music and audio samples from semi-structured interviews and focus groups that explore the youth poetry slam in the context of radical healing (Ginwright, 2010) and critical consciousness (Freire, 1970).


Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view:

The findings of this study highlight the need for literacy classrooms, pedagogies, and policies that 1) build meaningful and sustainable pathways towards postsecondary futures in which youth continue to write, dream, and act in solidarity with one another, 2) reimagine the relationship between trauma and joy in the narratives we ask students to read, write, and perform, and 3) embrace the role of spirituality, healing, and collective memory in narrative inquiry.


Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work:

This study challenges us to think about narrative research through the multimodal lenses of sound, music, poetry, and arts-based methodologies that challenge traditional notions of knowledge production. Additionally, this study highlights the role of memory and its relationship to healing in the context of narrative inquiry and research.

Author

• Brian Mooney, Fairleigh Dickinson University
  Presenting Author