Methodologies of Possibility: Collage as Method in Critical Feminist Qualitative Research

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 11:40 am Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Art and New Materialisms: Creative Approaches to Inquiry (Table 5)

Abstract

This paper explores collaging as a research method and its implications for qualitative research in education. Grounded in a feminist onto-epistemology, collaging counters positivist approaches to research that present a false sense of objectivity. Instead, collaging invites researchers to get messy with their data, emphasizing the affective, aesthetic, and dialectical connections between the researcher and the data. Based on our experience using collage as part of the research process, we present an iterative process of interpretive analysis in collage that includes 1) collating, 2) intuiting, and 3) sensemaking. We offer collage as a hopeful methodology that opens the possibility for new connections and meaning in qualitative inquiry.

Authors

• Samantha Silberstein, University of North Carolina - Wilmington

• Alycia M. Elfreich, Montana State University