Art as Inquiry and Post-Intentional Phenomenology as Art (Poster 6)

• In Event: Artful Inquiry in Qualitative Research: Philosophies and Enactments

Abstract

Purposes
By moving through the Post-Intentional Phenomenological (PIP) triangle and engaging the five principles of PIP, we consider how our processes as qualitative inquirers are grounded in artfulness and the ways in which artfulness and art are inquiry themselves. We conclude that PIP is a space where qualitative researchers can exist and expand as artists, shift into agency, and explore the positive and negative space that frames their seeing.

Perspectives
This paper explores the phenomenon of PIP as a space for artful inquiry and the consideration of inquiry as art. The Deleuzoguattarian concepts of rhizomatic lines of flight are central to this inquiry. A rhizome, “an acentered, nonhierarchical, nonsignifying system,” requires the researcher’s attention to the dynamic nature of any particular phenomenon (1987, p. 21). Lines of flight as a theoretical commitment in PIP acknowledges that the inquiry of phenomena is “partial, situated, endlessly deferred and circulating through relations” (Author, 2018).

Modes of Inquiry
The three points to the PIP triangle include: phenomenological material, thinking with theory, and post-reflexion. Additionally, the paper considers how the five principles of PIP (Author, 2024) serve as helpful metaphors for some of this paper’s framing. These five principles include: 1) all phenomena are in flux; 2) contexts shape, provoke, and produce phenomena; 3) slow down to open up; 4) see what frames your seeing; and 5) look at what you might look through. We use the triangle and principles to explore PIP as an artful space.

Materials
Four of the us were enrolled in a foundational methods course taught by the third author. Data, referred to here as phenomenological material (Author, 2018), was gathered from artworks created by three authors: narrative writing, poetry, painting, drawing, ceramics, and mosaic work. Additionally, post-reflexive writings drafted throughout three authors’ doctoral coursework came to serve as phenomenological material upon which we post-reflexed.

Substantiated Conclusions
When art is considered inquiry and PIP is considered an artful space, we see the importance of embracing both/and thinking in our work as qualitative researchers and in relation to our unique identities.

When we shifted our perception of PIP from method to space, we found the freedom to expand and move as artists, qualitative researchers, and both-as-one over place and time. As the authors shifted into agency as artist-researchers, they found new ways of being in spaciousness and freedom to create art through inquiry and inquiry through art.

Shifting the center of inquiry and engaging negative space influences the nature of inquiry. Working negative space, like working the PIP triangle, means working within a space which not only welcomes, but encourages alignment of creativity and inquiry.

Significance of Work
We assert that artful post-intentional qualitative inquiry not only crosses and blurs disciplinary lines, but expands and at times creates space for creativity. This artful inquiry serves as a way to validate the complexity of identity and lived experience by challenging dehumanizing notions of objectivity in relation to the artful, creative, embodied, reflexive, inquiring researcher.

[References omitted here due to word count (form lacks a separate field for references). See submission document.]

Authors

• Laurie Elisabet Hahn Ganser, University of Minnesota

• Melissa Surrette, University of Minnesota

• Mark D. Vagle, University of Minnesota

• Jessica Silk, University of Minnesota

• Andrew Fiegen, University of Minnesota