Pardon My MESI Work: Musically Enhanced Self-Inquiry as a Creative, Reflexive, Critical, and Multimodal Methodology

• In Event: Arts-Based Approaches for Expanding Methodological Terrain

Abstract

This work centers methodological findings from an original qualitative methodology—Musically Enhanced Self-Inquiry (MESI)—developed in (Author) by blending arts-informed research, critical autoethnography, self-inquiry, and musically enhanced narrative inquiry. This creative, reflexive, and multimodal approach contributes to expanding the boundaries of qualitative research design. This paper also provides illustrative examples of MESI in practice to demonstrate its application in educational research, identity exploration, and researcher development. Findings show that MESI: (1) offers a multimodal language for meaning-making; (2) invites spontaneous inspiration and student opportunity; (3) complicates writing through reflexive entanglement of data and analysis; (4) can reopen trauma; (5) supports flexible analytical frameworks; (6) fosters teachable moments; and (7) advances arts-based, multimodal, and autoethnographic methodologies.

Author

• Naomi Ramirez, San Diego State University