Portraiture Across Platforms and Places: Methodological Possibilities From Multi-sited Literacy Research

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 7:45 am - Gold 4
  In Roundtable Session: Leading with Ethical Commitments in Research Design

Abstract

This paper explores portraiture methodology for a multi-sited qualitative study of collective reading practices across digital and physical spaces. Drawing on Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis’s (1997) work, I articulate how portraiture’s narrative, aesthetic, and relational commitments uniquely position it to investigate reader identity formation within hybrid infrastructures. While often used to explore individual experiences, I argue that portraiture also captures collective, infrastructurally mediated practices—blending attention to discourse, space, and materiality. This paper further illustrates how portraiture can accommodate diverse literacy ecologies—#Bookstagram/#BookTok, a local bookshop, and a school library—while also attending to research’s ethical, affective, and infrastructural dimensions. Through reflections on design, data collection, and analysis, I explore portraiture as a research design and an ethos of inquiry grounded in complexity and co-construction.

Authors

• Maggie Bryant, Baylor University

• Carlson Coogler, Baylor University

• Tony Lee Talbert, Baylor University