Poetically Poking at Racialized Discourses: Narratively Analyzing Qualitative Data in (Black) Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis

• In Event: Working Toward Racial Justice in Narrative Research: #RaceJusticeNarrativeSyllabus

Abstract

Poem about How to Be a Good Black Girl
have $1 million dollars.
pay for college.
buy a house.
receive scholarship to college.
get into a high quality high school.
get on the honor roll.
travel.
donate money.
start my own business.
get married.
stay married.
speak with confidence. .
control body language.
stay on topic.
promote sisterhood not dissention.
speak to be understood.
listen to hear others.
use correct grammar.
stand or sit in a relaxed way.
be virtuous.

Objectives:
In this paper, we explore poetry’s promise for critical qualitative research by developing poems to further analyze how respectability discourses (Higginbotham, 1993) in written texts reinforce Black schoolgirls’ oppression. Hence, we unite poetry and feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (Lazar, 2007), and show how the former, as a narrative approach to qualitative data analysis, advances the latter’s utility as a critical methodology useful for uncovering the discursive manifestations of Black schoolgirls’ entwinements with social inequality.

Theoretical Framework:
Black girls are central to this inquiry. Thus, we turn toward Black feminism as a theoretical framework. Relevant is Black feminist theorizing of language (Christian, 1988; Hill Collins, 2000/2015). We focus narrowly on Black feminist theorizing of two language-related concepts—creativity, and voice—and apply those to de- and re-construction of data.

Methods:
In initial data analysis, we scrutinized respectability discourse in written text. Inspired by lingering questions, we turned to poetry to make more meaning of our (a) data, and (b) initial analysis. Raw data collected from an extracurricular program for Black girls, and products (e.g., analytic memos) of our initial analysis—conducted within a feminist CDA methodological framework—were data sources.

To de-construct data, we crafted two poems using language found in raw data. “Poem about How to Be a Good Black Girl” is the found poem that we fabricated. To re-construct analysis of this data, we developed a second poem putting language from the raw data in conversation with language from our initial analysis (e.g., words from analytic memos). The second poem is a multi-voice piece wherein our researcher voices are in dialogue with each other, and with the data. Black feminism informed our selection of poetic forms used, and our construction of the poems themselves.

Results & Scholarly Significance:
Using poetry to re-view data allowed us to magnify and respond to discursive manifestations of Black schoolgirls’ entwinements with social inequality. Writing poems prompted us to 1) creatively use language to more precisely identify relevant evidence that substantiates findings (evidenced in “Poem about How to Be a Good Black Girl”); 2) use our voices to speak to each other, and speak (back) to data, and 3) distill findings into forms more (affectively) accessible to the participant/community studied.

We conclude that poetry can benefit researchers invested in racial justice by improving “rigor” through deepening researcher’s reflexive engagement with their (racial) identity; and lengthen the reach of the research through decreasing the distance between researcher and research participant/community. Thus, poetry potentially increases the researcher, researched, and report reader’s knowledge of racial in/justice.

Authors

• Esther Oganda Ohito, Mills College

• Tiffany M Nyachae, Buffalo State - SUNY