Quilt Tactics: Black Quilting as Thematic Method in Qualitative Research (Poster 2)

• In Event: Themes Without Coding: Expanding Approaches to Thematic Analysis

Abstract

Gathering and telling stories is fundamental to the successful application of numerous research methods. However, even though stories are used across various approaches to data exploration, storying is often disconnected from thematic analysis, a method geared toward identifying, analyzing, and interpreting patterns in qualitative data. In this poster, however, the author employs a storied methodology as an expanded approach to thematic analysis by detailing how Black communities use quilting methods to analyze the world and to convey meaning. Although they sometimes look like a random assortment of patterns connected on a textile base, Black quilts have long been a method of freedom for Black people, a visual literacy technique that gives Black folks the information they need to journey towards liberation. They are cyphered systems that use assemblages of words, figures, pictures, letters, and symbols and require viewers to engage in deep study and attention if they wanted to decipher the larger meanings stitched within. To interpret the codes, it is essential for viewers to follow the threads, observe the patches, and consider the larger picture presented. Thus, analyzing Black quilts requires viewers to engage in a multi-layered analytical approach in order to understand the greater meanings embedded within the text/textile. Considering this rich history, this poster expands orientations toward thematic analysis through the presentation of Black quilting as qualitative method. Specifically, the poster will first describe current uses of quilting in qualitative research; illustrate how Black quilting differs from contemporary, often Eurocentric methodological use; and explain the process of Black quilting as method by expanding thematic analysis through the Black quilting practices of piecing (sewing small bits of data together to create a patchwork quilt) and appliqué (stitching a small piece of data on top of a larger one to focalize the small piece in the midst of the larger quilt).

Author

• Stephanie R. Toliver, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign