New Directions In Theorizing Qualitative Research: The Arts 1975501772, 9781975501778

Table of contents :
Contents
Introduction Arts-Based Research for Troubled Times • James Salvo
1. Small Acts of Activism: Singing Utopia • Anne Harris
2. Still Hanging/On: “Strange Fruit” and “Glory”: Songs of/as/in Protest • Bryant Keith Alexander
3. Suburban Black Suburban Blue • David Carless
4. Singing in Troubled Times • Kitrina Douglas
5. Tightrope Walking: Songs for Healing • Marcelo Diversi
6. Our Ethical Responsibility to Refine ABR Definitions • Dafna Moriya
7. Disinterestedness as a Post-Pragmatic Criterion for the Ethical Practice of ABR • Richard Siegesmund
8. Relational Whirlpools • Joseph D. Sweet, Emppu Nurminen, & Mirka Koro-Ljungberg
About the Authors
Index

Citation preview

The Arts

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New Directions for Theorizing in Qualitative Inquiry A book series edited by Norman K. Denzin and James Salvo

New Directions for Theorizing in Qualitative Inquiry consists of thematic edited volumes that help us understand the philosophical concepts undergirding theory and how to put theory into practice to bring about social justice. The chapters in each volume, from established and emerging scholars and largely drawn from papers at the annual International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, represent new directions for incorporating theory into justice-oriented qualitative research. Taking particular interest in theorists who haven’t yet had mainstream influence, the series is designed to reach a wide audience of scholars and students in the humanities and social sciences, including those seasoned in the philosophical language of theory and novices to theoretically-oriented research. The series aims to bring about experimental ways of reading lives to implement radical social change. Books in the series: New Directions In Theorizing Qualitative Research: The Arts (2020) New Directions In Theorizing Qualitative Research: Indigenous Research (2020) New Directions In Theorizing Qualitative Research: Performance as Resistance (2020) New Directions In Theorizing Qualitative Research: Theory as Resistance (2020) If you have a manuscript or a proposal for a book-length work, please send it to Norman Denzin ([email protected]) or James Salvo ([email protected]). All books published by MEP are peer-reviewed. We will acknowledge receipt of your material, but it maybe 4-6 weeks before we can provide initial feedback about your proposal.

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New Directions in Theorizing Qualitative Research The Arts

edited by

Norman K. Denzin and James Salvo

Gorham, Maine

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Copyright © 2020 | Myers Education Press, LLC Published by Myers Education Press, LLC P.O. Box 424 Gorham, ME 04038 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, recording, and information storage and retrieval, without permission in writing from the publisher. Myers Education Press is an academic publisher specializing in books, e-books and digital content in the field of education. All of our books are subjected to a rigorous peer review process and produced in compliance with the standards of the Council on Library and Information Resources. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available from Library of Congress. 13-digit ISBN 978-1-9755-0177-8 (paperback) 13-digit ISBN 978-1-9755-0176-1 (hard cover) 13-digit ISBN 978-1-9755-0178-5 (library networkable e-edition) 13-digit ISBN 978-1-9755-0179-2 (consumer e-edition) Printed in the United States of America All first editions printed on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standards Institute Z39-48 standard. Books published by Myers Education Press may be purchased at special quantity discount rates for groups, workshops, training organizations and classroom usage. Please call our customer service department at 1-800-232-0223 for details. Cover design by Sophie Appel Visit us on the web at www.myersedpress.com to browse our complete list of titles.

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contents Introduction Arts-Based Research for Troubled Times • James Salvo vii Chapter 1. Small Acts of Activism: Singing Utopia • Anne Harris 1 Chapter 2. Still Hanging/On: “Strange Fruit” and “Glory”: Songs of/as/in Protest • Bryant Keith Alexander 19 Chapter 3. Suburban Black Suburban Blue • David Carless 41 Chapter 4. Singing in Troubled Times • Kitrina Douglas 55 Chapter 5. Tightrope Walking: Songs for Healing • Marcelo Diversi 71 Chapter 6. Our Ethical Responsibility to Refine ABR Definitions • Dafna Moriya 77 Chapter 7. Disinterestedness as a Post-Pragmatic Criterion for the Ethical Practice of ABR • Richard Siegesmund

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Chapter 8. Relational Whirlpools • Joseph D. Sweet, Emppu Nurminen, & Mirka Koro-Ljungberg111 About the Authors

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Index

139

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introduction

Arts-Based Research for Troubled Times JAMES SALVO1

It was as though the country were saying to its citizens, “In nonsense is strength.” Kurt Vonnegut (2011, p. 9)

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s of late, it seems timely to reflect on the passage that opens this introduction from Breakfast of Champions. As citizens of the United States of America, a country that is called America for short—at least on vibrantly red, yet sad hats—one finds oneself living in what some have called an era of post-truth. Post-truth hasn’t limited itself to the United States, however. As Lee McIntyre (2018) observes in his recent philosophical work on post-truth, post-truth appears to be a growing international trend that includes not only the United States and the United Kingdom, but extends to “disinformation campaigns by politicians against their own people in Hungary, Russia, and Turkey” (p. 5). That this phenomenon of strength in nonsense is becoming global is alarming, and thus, we might look to procedures that help us discover the truth that seems ever more veiled by a post-truth ethos. Of truth procedures, the philosopher Alain Badiou (1999) writes that there are four: science, politics, love, and art. We mustn’t, Badiou argues, become sutured to any one truth procedure, but must engage 1. The author would like to thank Mitch Allen, Norman Denzin, and Chris Myers for their support in this project.

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all the procedures to experience the revealing of truth. Becoming sutured only allows us to fail in our project. For instance, positivism is one such type of suture, a suture that claims that all truth is knowable through the procedure of science. To be sure, as qualitative inquirers, we’re all too familiar with this particular mistake. Further, certain strains of Marxism might suture one to the political, and we might imagine that some overwhelmingly lovesick author of bad poetry might be so sutured, too. That the present volume is dedicated to the pursuit of truth through arts-based research isn’t to fall victim to a suture, however. Rather, it’s a dedication to a truth procedure so as to more fully explore it. Perhaps, one might add, such a dedication to arts-based research could also be an attempt to suggest that art can be mobilized to reorient the political, especially when we find the political aim straying from its proper target of truth, going astray only to serve all and only interests economic. In any case, these days, art can bring us a certain amount of happiness. Vonnegut’s artful sentence might make us laugh, but one can’t be entirely certain that our laughter isn’t only nervous. That said, just as much as we need art now, we need artsbased research. In his contribution to the Handbook of Arts-Based Research, Norman Denzin (2017) writes, “The poetic representation of lives is never just an end in itself. The goal is political, to change the way we think about people and their lives, and to use the poetic-performative format to do this. The poet makes the world visible in new and different ways, in ways ordinary social science writing does not allow” (p. 682). If we take poetic representation in its broadest sense, in the sense of poiesis, we understand the poetic to be that which creates ex nihilo. To create ex nihilo isn’t to create something from the void—what mathematics expresses as the empty set—but to bring forth something heretofore not there, to create within the context of nothing. Nothing, as opposed to the void, is that which comes about in opposition to what’s there. Thus, if the goal of the poetic is—in a certain context—to bring about the political, could it be then, that in this context, the nothing alongside of which the poetic brings about this change—a change in the way we think about people and their

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lives—is a nothing coming about in opposition to the current political situation? In other words, perhaps when the poetic aim has the target of political change for the better, this aim is what’s ethically necessitated by our having become lost in the abundance of political nothingness. Might we not say that our era of post-truth thrusts us into this overwhelming nothingness, into a seemingly infinite list of what’s lacking in the political? Checks and balances have effectively disappeared, as has a commitment to democratic practice, due process, and yet other forms of procedural justice. Absent is a concern for refugees as humans, for other species, for the planet itself. Gone is the concern for the collective futures of all the beings on the Earth that have a world. It’s in this way that we might take Denzin’s assertion to be one that points to an ethical responsibility we have with regard to the poetic. Such is our problem, and our ethical responsibility seems to be an almost infinite one when we encounter the face of it, so it would seem that this is an awful lot to ask the poetic to solve . . . or is it? Regarding Denzin’s latter point about the social sciences, Badiou seems to affirm this. In a passage remarkably similar to Denzin’s, Badiou (2000) writes, “Poetry makes truth out of the multiple, conceived as a presence that has come to the limits of language. Put otherwise, poetry is the song of language qua capacity to make the pure notion of the ‘there is’ present in the very effacement of its empirical objectivity” (p. 22). To unpack this passage, we should note that Badiou says this in the context of Plato’s wish to banish poetry from the polis, from the city, yes, but more accurately, from the political. Neither Denzin nor Badiou would agree. As Badiou points out, the poetic expresses thought, so to speak, that isn’t a thought, expresses what’s beyond the limits of thinking. And when even Plato himself finds himself to have encountered these limits, he often must resort to metaphor, to poetic language. It may be the case that modernity tends to reverse Plato and make the poetic the ideal. This isn’t quite right either, but if we’re to believe that we’re in a postmodern situation, then perhaps this doesn’t matter. In any case, back to the passage in question of Badiou: We should­ n’t understand the multiple here to be the multiple of Deleuze in

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Difference and Repetition. It isn’t the multiple of, “Repetition is no more the permanence of the One than the resemblance of the multiple” (Badiou, 2000, p. 126), which seems to assert that ontologically speaking, there’s neither one nor multiple. Badiou’s multiple is better understood in terms of set theory, so in this passage, wherein this multiple is to be understood as something that has come to the limits of language, we might think Badiou is putting poetry in relation to his concept of the event. In other words, we can read this passage as asserting that the poetic serves as an affirming judgement upon that which would’ve otherwise been indiscernible. If, in its pure form, the “there is”—against which we might say there’d be all the emergent nothing—is phenomenologically unavailable, then the poetic makes it present and available, and it does this being the song of language. Here, we might point out that though the song of music—at least of music without lyric—may not speak, it does move. And with lyric or otherwise, in any case, we might remember that dictum of Archibald MacLeish, the dictum often repeated by the New Critics: A poem should not mean, but be. Such is the power of the poetic, and as we’ve said, we’d need something this high-powered in our era of overwhelming political nothingness. So in our position as researchers, what songs shall we sing? How might we consider the ethics of our arts-based practices? The first chapters in this volume focus on the transformative pow­er of song. In chapter 1, Anne Harris considers the power of protest songs to explore the difference between “‘call-to-action’ songs employed directly by activist movements, and the quieter, more reflective narrative present in some hard-times anthems that call us to look beyond the current crisis and toward a horizon of hope.” She develops this idea in terms of utopian belonging, utopian other time, and utopian other space. In chapter 2, within the context of building broader arguments of the power of song as protest, Bryant Keith Alexander’s performative essay documents ideological performance that uses found lyrical texts (song lyrics) as primary source material. Less about the pleasure of listening, the essay is an invitation into the messaging of the songs as protest.

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Chapter 3 explores songwriting and musical performance as an approaches to qualitative research itself, with an eye specifically toward critical autoethnography. Here, David Carless uses the example of a song he wrote in 2008 called “Suburban Black Suburban Blue.” He shows “how moments of history, biography, culture, politics and lived experience can coalesce within a song. Here, rhythm, melody, words, personal voice and the dynamics of musical performance combine to evoke insights, emotions and meaning in ways that support impact, solidarity and transformation.” In chapter 4, Kitrina Douglas considers the relationship between singing and research. Following Arthur Frank’s insight that stories do not merely narrate events, but bring attention to issues worth noticing and the lives of people, Douglas makes the same case for song. She reflects on the process of songwriting itself and on the performance of a song she wrote being sung by another researcher performer. In chapter 5, Marcelo Diversi explores song by exploring the figure of João Bosco. The second set of chapters considers the ethical responsibility we have with regard to the poetic. In chapter 6, Dafna Moriya considers this from the perspective of definitions as they relate to artsbased research itself. Pointing to how arts-based research can refer to different sorts of research practice, Moriya argues that we need to be clear how we take up arts-based research every time that we do, for this is a way to accumulate meaningful knowledge that will, in its turn, inform ethical practice. In chapter 7, Richard Siegesmund explores the 18th-century aesthetic and ethical origins of disinterestedness, when it was considered a serious analytic stance. Following Geertz, who “reintroduced the term as a solution to morally insensitive quantitative research and overly narcissistic qualitative methods,” Siegesmund wishes to examine how these insights resonate in arts-based research, arguing that “it is possible to see Geertz’s earlier reconceptualization of disinterestedness as a criterion for the assessment of the quality of ethical engagement in works of ABR.” Chapter 8 closes the volume with Sweet, Nurminen, and Koro-Ljungberg’s article. In its highly creative way, the article raises questions of research to come.

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References Badiou, A. (1999). Manifesto for philosophy. New York, NY: SUNY Press. Badiou, A. (2000). Deleuze: The clamor of being. (L. Burchill, Trans). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Deleuze, G. (1994). Difference and repetition. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Denzin, N. K. (2017). The pragmatics of publishing the experimental text. In P. Leavy (Ed.), Handbook of arts-based research (pp. 673–688). New York, NY: Guilford Press. McIntyre, L. (2018). Post-truth. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Vonnegut, K. (2011). Breakfast of champions: Or, Goodbye blue Monday!. New York, NY: Dial Press.

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chapter one

Small Acts of Activism: Singing Utopia ANNE HARRIS

Rainbows are visions But only illusions And rainbows have nothing to hide 

(Williams & Ascher, 1979)

Introduction

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he theatrical trinity of “time, place, action” can be understood as a performance-based model through which to experience the intersectional and nonlinear nature of human experience (Harris, 2015). We orient our lives along temporal lines, but they are insufficient to capture the unruly nature of memory, emotion, relationship, and the cyclical return to social action. This essay uses the power of protest songs to consider the difference between the full-frontal “call to action” songs employed directly by activist movements and the quieter, more reflective narrative present in some hardtimes anthems that call us to look beyond the current crises and toward a horizon of hope. Drawing on the “Rainbow Connection” from The Muppet Movie (1979), “Happy Days are Here Again” from the 1930 film Chasing Rainbows, and The Wizard of Oz’s theme song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” (1939), I argue that prolonged periods of social crisis require a more effective response to inspire 1

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populations toward resilience and hope than the usual anthem of change that typifies shorter-term activist movements and moments. The current turn toward nonrepresentation (or more than representation) in research (Lorimer, 2005; Thrift, 2008; Vannini, 2015) parallels the rise and dominance of visual culture, especially seen in online meme culture, which typifies not only everyday social media, but also online activist movements. A kind of visual turn from 1960s gay, student and civil rights’ “protest song” era, today’s activism is enacted in fully hybrid online-offline ways but generally understood to be driven by the ability of visual artifacts such as memes and videos to go “viral,” galvanizing millions almost instantaneously. But memes don’t always tell the whole tale. Selfies are perhaps the most popular version of self-(non)represen­ tation online, but activist memes and digital artifacts more frequently emerge from collectivities: marchers, banner holders, monument climbers. Memes and online (or “armchair”) activism pivot on two main concerns: (a) deploying the most effective hook (“clickbait”) to galvanize the greatest number of people to online or other action, which results in (b) the greatest circulation (hits or shares). Think of it as stories and numbers: #saytheirnames #metoo #blacklivesmatter #icantbreathe If traditional “protest songs” were about unifying bodies in public places, memes are about circulation and scalability; that is, knowing millions of like-minded others are out “there,” even if we are not together. Of course, there is a wide and ever-expanding range of effective tactics for social movements and activism, some time-tested and others emerging. Elsewhere, I have written about the power in silence as activism (Holman Jones & Harris, 2018), of hybrid social

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movements (Harris, 2016; Boler, MacDonald, Nitsou, & Harris, 2015), and of the activist effect of more-than-human solidarity (Harris & Holman Jones, 2019, 2018a, 2018b; Holman Jones & Harris, 2017). Previous generations, too, had creative tools for galvanizing social movements (some, as now, recycled). AIDS activism successfully employed street art and happenings, film, photography, material creative artifacts like the 1990s Names Project AIDS Quilt, and direct action protest marches. We used diverse strategies and organizing principles from the multi-pronged social unrest of the 1968 civil rights movement, student rebellions, the birth of the gay rights movement in the same year (in the USA), and from the 1970s women’s movement. Anger was our emotion of choice back then, outrage, confrontation. But as an affective mode, anger is not always equally welcome. While the Arab Spring (2010–2011) and Occupy (2011–2012) movements and umbrella revolution in Hong Kong (2014) deployed direct action strategies like occupation of public spaces (Harris & Holman Jones, 2018a), public oratory (including the human mic), pamphleteering, and social media broadcasting, it also marked the beginning of a more pedagogical, interactive style of protest culture appealing more to emotions, creativity, and identification than to outrage. The people’s puppets of occupy (Holman Jones & Harris, 2018) and other arts-based activist interventions use play, aesthetics, and interactivity to change minds. Story itself can be argued to be on its own commodification curve in contemporary marketing and creative industries. Using familiar activist techniques, multinational marketing campaigns now rely on big data to create the “small story.” Instagram and Facebook, too, now use the building of a story rather than just images; the resurgence of attention on making “your story,” even when it’s made up of photographs, reinforces the human connection to narrative and storytelling. In the wake of smart technology, increasing digitization, and algorithmic ghettoization, a return to story seems to signal a need for story’s particular way of enacting relationality, sociality, and affective connection. While visuality may transcend language barriers, story brings us back to the local.

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Karen Barad (2003) has argued persuasively the differences between material, linguistic, and representational understandings of meaning. She challenges readers to consider “how did language come to be more trustworthy than matter?” and why “materiality itself is always already figured within a linguistic domain as its condition of possibility?” (Barad, 2003, p. 801). She goes on to argue that a “performative understanding of discursive practices” (Barad, 2003, p. 802) might put language back in its place and offer new ways of expanding the long history of challenges to linguistic knowledge making. Many other scholars join Barad in arguing for a “material  turn”  now, which follows the linguistic debate as a by-product of poststructuralism’s crisis of representation. Indeed, both digital and nondigital scholars are interested in the ways in which matter seems to be “speaking” for itself. Digital and social media scholars explore the materiality of the digital in less binarized ways than “representational” or nonrepresentational (see new materialism, object-oriented ontology, and post-humanism; in addition to the work of Barad (2003, 2007, 2012), see also Anderson, 2009; Bennett 2009, 2016; Bennett, Cheah, Orlie, & Grosz, 2010; Harris & Holman Jones, 2017; van der Tuin, 2011; and Manning 2009, 2010). While a “picture paints a thousand words,” pictures alone seldom constitute full protest actions, and certainly demand narrative and affective enhancement when moving from a march to a movement. But what of the discursive, performative, and imagistic power of music in 21st-century direct action protest culture? A Quieter Activist Affect By looking simultaneously at the three songs1 “Rainbow Connection” from The Muppet Movie (1979), “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz (1939), and “Happy Days are Here Again” (from the 1930 film Chasing Rainbows) as interrelated examples of affective activism (Harris & Holman Jones, 2018b). I have theorized that we live in a time of terrorist affect (Holman Jones & Harris, 2018), and that protest culture is both more and less effective than it once was. We compare activist affect with terrorist affect in order to understand how politics and everyday life are now, more than

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ever, operating on an emotional level and in response to affects and emotions such as terror, unity, fear, hope, and so on. In my performance in May 2018, I chose to sing this mashup while a backdrop of images of war, terror, and systemic abuse from around the globe played behind me. The juxtaposition of these songs’ hopeful words with the harshness of the images was intended to remind the audience how cathartic yet partly ineffectual our successive waves of protests can seem to be, even while so many of us continue to believe in their necessity. At such times, I argue, in the past we have returned to perhaps softer, less “outraged” strategies for responding to ubiquitous despair. Where change is perhaps not possible, activists legitimately turn to themselves for community building and fostering hope, rather than the usual outward-facing activist actions. These three songs represent a more reflexive, internal, or at least quieter affect that asks us to believe—or importantly, to feel—that something more is coming. The 1960s protest cultures were typified by music that was inspirational as well as by resistance songs. In the United States, those like Joan Baez, Woody Guthrie, and Bob Dylan galvanized a generation of young people who wanted something better. Like now, the 1960s were a time of “excess” emotion, in response to the dehumanization of Vietnam, of people of color and its civil rights responses, of gay liberation, chemical warfare, senseless loss of life. Then, as now, we thought we were facing the potential annihilation of the species through the ghastly potential of chemical—and ultimately nuclear— war technologies. The late 60s and 1970s continued—albeit in a more fatigued and possibly disillusioned manner—the kinds of loss of faith in authority, confidence in public figures (think Nixon, Bay of Pigs), and belief in a resolvability of the Cold War standoff that resulted in the 1970s concern with nuclear winter. The fact that The Muppet Movie and its theme song “Rainbow Connection” came at the end of this decade of American counter-culture corresponds with the tone of a search for something better, a utopian place to which we can imagine and redirect our desires, and a marked move away from the protest songs of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. It’s less a call to action than a reflective dream, an acceptance of hard truths

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through lines like “Who said that every wish would be heard and answered,” and an urge to look toward the skies, futures, dreams, and love, in order to make sense of things. Importantly, there is a collective sense of things in its refrain that “Someday we’ll find it”— not alone, but together. Similarly, the 1930s were a period of financial and social upheaval, following the stock market crash of 1929. The Great Depression was typified not so much by rage but by despair. The 1930s was bookended by the two other songs in my trilogy, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” (1930) and “Happy Days are Here Again” (1939). Both songs cry out for something better: “Somewhere” in an abstract rhetoric that seeks the utopian not-here where “skies are blue,” and “Happy Days” through a celebratory assertion that “the skies above are clear again.” All three songs’ reliance on the visuality of the sky is more than hopeful metaphor; it is what Muñoz (2009) calls “a utopian performativity, which is to say a manifestation of a ‘doing’ that is in the horizon, a mode of possibility” (p. 99), which is a refusal to be contained not only by current sociopolitical conditions, but by temporality. Quite simply, Muñoz (2006) equates performance and being with “[h]ow does one stage utopia? Which is to say, how do we enact utopia?” (p. 9). For Muñoz, performance is aligned with materiality at least as much as with the more traditionally oriented consideration of time (temporality and ephemerality) in performance studies. Both time and materiality are at the heart of these songs that perform protest even when they are not protesting. These songs—songs to encourage, to motivate, to inspire—do very different work than protest music. For Muñoz (2009), The queer futurity that I am describing is not an end but an opening or horizon. Queer utopia is a modality of critique that speaks to quotidian gestures as laden with potentiality. The queerness of queer futurity, like the blackness of a black radical tradition, is a relational and collective modality of endurance and support . . . it is a being in, toward, and for futurity. (p. 91)

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There is a difference between overt protest/activist culture, and the ways in which art can critically reflect and challenge dominant culture and abuses, plugging into emotions of the general population (Jones & Harris, 2018; Muñoz, 2006). Art and activism, after all, are different, even if sometimes they employ the same techniques. As Sarah Schulman has claimed, art challenges while entertainment reflects (Facebook post). Activism challenges too, but with the attention to social change taking precedence over aesthetic and affective concerns. In other words, it’s more important in a march or a movement to gather, to assert resistance (even if/while not asserting an alternative, as in the Occupy movement), than it is to feel a sense of belonging, solidarity, or renewed sanity by feeling “less alone.” What has in more recent times been termed socially engaged art has in the past been called community art, activist art, or protest art. While socially engaged art claims to have as its primary objective social change (through art), community art, or what used to be called “CCD” (community cultural development), also sought social change through collaborative processes, usually art. Activist or protest art has social change at its fore, but attends perhaps more stridently to the aesthetics than do the former categories. Singing Utopia The three songs in my “mash-up” share a focus on utopias. They all reference another place and a better time, sometimes in the future, but always the not here. Our political times seem weary of being shocked by the human rights abuses and egregious bold enactments of sexual violation, racism, xenophobia, religious persecutions, and more. While memes and marches still predominantly focus on cal­ ling out unwanted behaviors or conditions, and requesting online responses including outrage, songs like these three show something different: a weariness from extended oppression, a shift of externally focused attention from what to do about it to a more internally oriented focus on how we shall overcome.

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Utopian Belonging Parallels have been drawn between the 1979 song “Rainbow Conn­ec­ tion," sung by the character Kermit the Frog in the film The Muppet Movie, with “Over the Rainbow,” sung by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz, both reflecting the characters’ urgent desire for something more in life, a desire that typifies the central quest of both films. Such orientations are central to direct action activism as well as to utopian dreaming. Protest articulates not only a dissatisfaction with the status quo, but it also embodies a commitment to take action toward that desired change, whether online or offline (or both). Gathering is central to activism and protest culture, but so is utopian dreaming. Both pivot on a desire to belong with others. It is central to the emotional and affective power of protest itself. Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection The lovers, the dreamers, and me.

Judith Butler (2014) has written extensively since the Occupy movement about public assembly and “the right to appear.” She acknowledges that “politics requires a space of appearance” (in Schulman, 2016). So here I am asking, “What is the space of appearance that these three songs demand that is different from the space of appearance demanded by outrage and protest?” The affective resonance of these songs may be quieter, may be reflective, but they are still calling for a collective change. Butler goes on to more fully explore the costs and considerations of public assembly today as an extension of her work on what constitutes a liveable life (Holman Jones, 2017). Building on the protest cultures of the 21st century, Butler incorporates a consideration of the body—not just speech acts—into her theorization of assembly by linking it with precarity. Whether gathering in “virtual” ways through digital connection, or in local ways that constitute embodied demonstrations, Butler finds hope in the evolving ways that people gather today, and the ways in which emerging technologies are garnered for these purposes. Her analysis itself is a kind of analytic companion to these three songs,

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in which the utopian sits not in opposition to radical direct-action politics, but alongside it. But what is the “rainbow connection” of utopian belonging these songs describe? It is collective, and—like the Occupy movement—it goes beyond a manifesto of particular demands. When Kermit sings [w]hat’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing And what do we think we might see? Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection The lovers, the dreamers, and me

we can hear the timeless possibilities of belonging not just with other humans, but the posthuman call to once again belong with nature too (Harris & Holman Jones, 2019). Even an alignment with lovers and dreamers, rather than terrorists, activists, or corporate managers, might seem like an unlikely choice these days. But a closer look at “radicalization” arcs and the rise of radical belonging suggest something else: What convinces young people to join organizations that radically reject the dominant systems (whether it involves bombs or not) is remarkably similar whether it’s terrorism or activism. Belonging. And this kind of radical need for belonging, for finding meaning, can help explain the affect of singing together or gathering in other affective ways. Affect scholar Kathleen Stewart has described a political/collective affect, an affect that comes up between bodies as “bloom spaces.” She narrates what it was like in coal mining areas of West Virginia when Ronald Reagan was elected and the affect of change came like prickles on the skin, even before the knowing or the feeling of change arrived. I got into the habit of watching things arrive in the company of others. Things like a shift in the sensorium, or the stink of some national transformation settling over the hollers, or the sheer weight of power coming down. . . . It was then that I began to think, along with others, that nameable clarities like family or friendship or love or collapse or laughing or telling stories or violence of place are all bloom spaces. They are all forms of attending to what’s

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happening, sensing out, accreting attachments and detachments, differences and indifferences, losses and proliferating possibilities. (Stewart, 2010, p. 344)

For me, Stewart’s way of writing affect theory is a utopian performative that allows her readers to experience affect in our bodies rather than think about affect as a concept. For me, Stewart’s description of bloom spaces is about living the queer futurity that can’t be named but can be experienced, only in the now, and only between bodies. Utopian Other Time In “Happy Days Are Here Again” (1930), songwriters Jack Yellen and Milton Ager paint a musical picture that we have arrived at a utopian other time that follows this time. This hard time. So long sad times Go long bad times We are rid of you at last

The song lyrics promise that we are rid of sadness and badness and gray times “at last.” Not for now, but seemingly forever. This is not an activist anthem, not by a long shot. It invites a collective celebration that our “cares and troubles are gone” and that “there’ll be no more from now on.” Even in the 1930s, people did not believe that hard times were gone forever. It is not a literal call to celebrate a social change, but rather it is an anthem of hope and belief in resilience. A utopian moment, not a utopian future. The song promises a perfect time, not place, which is signaled once again by returning us to the skies with the lyric “[t]he skies above are clear again”; skies as the symbol of other time (i.e., a place that is not able to be visited). Judith Halberstam (2005) theorizes queer time and queer space as developing in “opposition to the institutions of family, heterosexuality, and reproduction” (p. 1) specifically, but dominant culture overall. By signifying other kinds of being, Halberstam moves

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beyond the specifics of gender and sexuality and proposes alternatives to normative life. Halberstam (2005) defines “queer” as referring to “nonnormative logics and organizations of community, sexual identity, embodiment and activity in space and time” (p. 6). Specifically, Halberstam (2005) articulates queer time as “a term for those specific models of temporality that emerge within postmodernism once one leaves the temporal frames of bourgeois reproduction and family, longevity, risk/safety, and inheritance” (p. 6). Muñoz and Halberstam do not approach queerness or futurity in the same way. Halberstam is of course critical of a futurity that is reproductive of normative culture, but still finds examples and enactments of queer time that do not negate all futures out of hand. The future is important, and not—as for Muñoz—to be disregarded, but not a future that looks like the present. In other words, a Muñozian queer futurity might bear more likeness to the wistful, soulful “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” vision, and a Halberstamian one might lean more toward “Rainbow Connection”’s prolonged adolescent hope. But what of the present-tense bloody-mindedness of “Happy Days are Here Again,” for the weary post-Depression publics and counter publics who have lost not only their fight, but perhaps also normative hope? What if the “happy days” of this song (and even the utopian “Rainbow Connection” and the blue skies place of “Somewhere over the Rainbow”) are meant ironically? Would that lessen their affective power? Perhaps, like Holman Jones (2007) has said, what we hear “isn’t stable, modern irony at all, but a postmodern sort of irony . . . multiple, contingent, unstable, and discordant voices that abandon the quest for harmony altogether” (p. 77). Distance—even the romantic, idealistic distance present in these three songs—can provide the multiplicity of view that proximity can’t always. And whether that offers a queering of futurity or not, it certainly moves in different affective ways from protest anthems and calls to arms. Yet this quiet, soulful torch-inflected kind of music is exactly the anti-anthem that Judy Garland’s rendition of “Somewhere” became. So how do reflective—even torch—songs become political anthems?

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Utopian Other Space “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” was recorded in 1939 as part of The Wizard of Oz film and is associated with its singer Judy Garland, who made it famous; it became her signature song as well as a universal standard. It was written by composer Harold Arlen with lyrics by Yip Harburg and won an Academy Award for Best Original Song. As is well known, Garland continued to perform it unchanged for the next 30 years, which she ascribed to her belief in remaining true to the original character and to the message of really taking her listeners somewhere over the rainbow. But where is that place? The song focuses on the utopian other place, rather than another time. What does this shift in the utopian attention allow? Halberstam (2005) defines queer space as “the place-making practices within postmodernism in which queer people engage and it also describes the new understandings of space enabled by the production of queer counterpublics” (p. 6). That is, new forms of cultural production become possible in the “crisis and opportunity” of postmodernism, or what Halberstam (2005) calls “a crisis in the stability of form and meaning, and an opportunity to rethink the practice of cultural production, its hierarchies and power dynamics” (p. 6). In the three songs discussed here, this becomes an expansion of cult­ural production through activist practices that might not look like traditional activism but behave like it. Small Acts of Activism In an age dominated by visuality, singing offers an embodied social engagement that literally resonates between singers—body to body—in ways that “assemble a we,” as Butler would have it. Virtuality is not so committed to the affect of gathering, even if does carry a scalable “shock and awe” impact when we see photos of massive marches on social media. What’s missing is the emotion, and the affect, or what Kathleen Stewart (2007) might call “a surging, a rubbing, a connection of some kind that has an impact” (p. 128). This is an impact that exists between bodies, and

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which only emerges in the event (or what Barad has theorized as intra-action). The speed and collective power of hybrid lives and social movements allow local actions to go viral almost immediately, and in that scale to inspire a certain kind of awe: the scalability of big data. Yet anyone who has spent any amount of time with lifelong activists knows that the power of a movement is in the goosebump-raising details of the stories from those who were there. It is not something easy to convey, except person to person. As off-gridders, DIY artists, makers, creatives, slash culture/gig economy young people (and all other minoritarian subjects) know, a bearable or livable life (Butler 2004) is not the same as a good life, for a good life requires social recognition (2004). Butler (2004) links this to the question of what lives are grieve-able and makes explicit the reasons why and how all lives are not grieve-able in dominant culture. Through Butler’s well-established lens, I recognize the three songs under consideration here as gesturing toward a utopian good life, while traditional protest anthems address the bearable or livable life. In other words, they are in the same neighbourhood, but they do different work. Sara Ahmed (2010) has written about how new attention to “a bearable life” can help us think about Butler’s notion of livable and unlivable differently (p. 97). She visits a range of definitions of the good life, drawing on historical and philosophical sources to think through what it might be (for queers) now, and the dangers of hope and futurity. Usefully for us in thinking about the three songs under consideration here, Ahmed (2010) sees danger in futurities, but necessity there too, in that “for a life to count as a good life, it must take on the direction promised as a social good, which means imagining one’s futurity in terms of reaching certain points along a life course” (p. 71). But what happens when the social good becomes (visibly) fractured, even to those living the “good life”? Questions of bearable and livable can shift, and “happiness becomes a forward motion: almost like a propeller, happiness is imagined as what allows subjects to embrace futurity, to leave the past behind them, where pastness is associated with custom and the customary” (Ahmed, 2010, p. 137). But queers and

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other minoritarians have always known that the past will never be left behind, and that civil rights, happiness, and all the promises of futurity are only temporary, and cyclical, and that progress can always be reversed or ceded. Affective activism requires more than global reach, and scale is no longer—in an age of big data—its most accurate measure. Producing big data sets is no longer difficult, and it does not ensure impact. Singing as a form of activism that is focused on and enacted through its affect, which travels from body to body, voice to voice, may be traveling and materializing as small acts of connection, but the potential for sustainable social change requires this. In an interview with Sara Ahmed, Butler has said What if we shift the question from “who do I want to be?” to the question, “what kind of life do I want to live with others?”? It seems to me that then many of the questions you pose about happiness, but perhaps also about “the good life”—very ancient yet urgent philosophical questions—take shape in a new way. If the I who wants this name or seeks to live a certain kind of life is bound up with a “you” and a “they” then we are already involved in a social struggle when we ask how best any of us are to live. . . . Important also is to ask: Whose stories do we read, and how important might the story be in telling a history, in explaining how science changes, or in making clear how a philosophical concept works, or can work? (Ahmed, 2016, pp. 491–492)

The project of affective activism then is collectivity, even when discourse is insufficient. Have you been half asleep? And have you heard voices?

Songs like this are, I’m suggesting, a necessary corollary to more traditional protest songs to keep the rage flowing, but more broadly in order to keep atmospheres (Anderson, 2009) of resistance going. Like John Lennon’s utopian “Imagine” anthem, these songs are not performing a binary “other” to activist calls to arms like The Beatles’

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“Revolution” (1968) or Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not be Televised” (1971); rather they are co-informing and co-sustaining. Of course, a corporeal or material analysis can be made too, about how the body transforms, vibrates during singing as its own form of return, of connection to the vibration or frequency of others, including nonhuman others, of a materiality of “showing up” and being present. In my interactive (collective) performance of these songs at the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry conference in 2018, my performer’s body became a bridge between the listeners and me, and the panel, an intra-action in which together we experience and enact an affective activism through song that its preexistence as lyrics and music has not foretold; the lyrics themselves remind us how we are under its spell, we know that it’s probably magic. In our assembling as socially engaged artist-audience-allies-citizens, we overcome not regimes per se, but importantly we overcome the ennui that has come to contaminate the very notion of citizenship, gathering and political agency. Somebody thought of that And someone believed it And look what it’s done so far

In the event of our musical intra-action and the affect that is collectively produced in that room, we take action. We change our times. We transform ourselves from shattered and alienated individuals into a collective in which utterances and bodies both have power. It is, in a very literal sense, a performance of overcoming. Drawing on Jane Bennett’s (2010) notion of vibrant matter, singing here embodies what she formulates as the nonhuman (animal, plant, metal, machine) formation of a public through “conjoint action” arising from a problem rather than an act of will. In this conjoint action, the singing body is offered as its own utopia, as a site of tactility and vibration, a place of beginning—again—together.

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References Ahmed, S. (2010). The promise of happiness. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Ahmed, S. (2016). Interview with Judith Butler. Sexualities,19(4), 482–492. Anderson, B. (2009). Affective atmospheres. Emotion, Space and Society, 2(2), 77–81. Barad, K. (2003). Posthumanist performativity: Toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 28(3), 801–831. Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entan­glement of matter and meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Barad, K. (2012). On touching—The inhuman that therefore I am. differences, 23(3), 206–223. Bennett, J. (2009). Vibrant matter: A political ecology of things. Durham NC: Duke University Press. Bennett, J. (2016). The enchantment of modern life: Attachments, crossings, and ethics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bennett, J., Cheah, P., Orlie, M. A., & Grosz, E. (2010). New materialisms: Ontology, agency, and politics. Durham NC: Duke University Press. Boler, M., Macdonald, A., Nitsou, C., Harris, A. (2014). Connective labor and social media: Women’s roles in the “leaderless” occupy movement. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 20(4), 438–460. Butler, J. (2004). Undoing gender. New York, NY: Routledge. Butler, J. (2014, February 11). Public assembly and plural action [Lecture].  Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A_XVaM5kFo Butler, J. (2015). Notes toward a performative theory of assembly. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Halberstam, J. (2005). In a queer time and place: Transgender bodies, subcultural lives. New York, NY: NYU Press. Harris, A. (2015). Twice upon a place. Applied Theatre Research, 3(1), 5–19. Harris, A. (2016). Creativity, religion and youth cultures. New York, NY: Routledge. Harris, A., & Holman Jones, S. (2019). The queer life of things. New York, NY: Lexington Books. Harris, A., & Holman Jones, S. (2018a). ‘Creativity, intimate publics and the proxemics of pop up poetry performance.’ In S. Burgoyne (Ed.) Creativity in Theatre: Theory and action in theatre/drama education, (pp. 89-104). The Netherlands: Springer.

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Harris, A., & Holman Jones, S. (2018b, October 5). Activist affect. Qualitative Inquiry. doi:1077800418800753. Holman Jones, S. (2007). Torch singing: Performing resistance and desire from Billie Holiday to Edith Piaf. Lanham, MD: Altamira Press. Holman Jones, S. (2017). Assembling a we in critical qualitative inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & M. G. Giardina (Eds.), Qualitative inquiry in neoliberal times (pp. 130–135). Oxford, UK: Taylor & Francis. Holman Jones, S., & Harris, A. (2017). I am a monument. In S. Holman Jones & M. Pruyn (Eds.), Creative selves/creative cultures: Critical autoethnography, performance, and pedagogy (pp. 113-130). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave MacMillian. Holman Jones, S. & Harris, A. M. (2018). Queering autoethnography. New York, NY: Routledge. Lorimer, H. (2005). Cultural geography: The busyness of being “morethan-representational.” Progress in Human Geography, 29(1), 83–94. Manning, E. (2009). What if it didn’t all begin and end with containment? Toward a leaky sense of Self. Body & Society, 15(3), 33–45. Manning, E. (2010). Always more than one: The collectivity of a life. Body & Society, 16(1), 117–127. Muñoz, J. E. (2006). Queers, punks and the utopian performative. In J. Hamera (Ed.), The SAGE handbook of performance studies (pp. 9–20). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Muñoz, J. E. (2009). Cruising utopia: The then and there of queer futurity. New York, NY: NYU Press. Schulman, S. (2016). Conflict is not abuse: Overstating harm, community responsibility, and the duty of repair. Vancouver, BC: Arsenal Pulp Press. Stewart, K. (2007). Ordinary affects. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Stewart, K. (2010). Afterword: Worlding refrains. In M. Gregg & G. J. Seigworth (Eds.), The affect theory reader (pp. 339–353). Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Thrift, N. (2008). Non-representational theory: Space, politics, affect. New York, NY: Routledge. Van der Tuin, I. (2011, July). New feminist materialisms. Women’s Studies International Forum, 34(4), 271–277. Vannini, P. (Ed.) (2015). Non-representational methodologies: Re-envisioning research. New York, NY: Routledge. Williams, P. & Ascher, K. (1979). ‘Rainbow Connection’ [song]. The Muppet movie soundtrack album. Walt Disney Records.

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Endnotes 1. I n my performance at International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry 2018, upon which this essay is based, I sang a mash-up of these three songs.

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chapter two

Still Hanging/On: “Strange Fruit” and “Glory”: Songs of/as/in Protest (or From Stage to Page: Documenting Ideological Performance) BRYANT KEITH ALEXANDER

Southern trees bear a strange fruit. Blood on the leave and blood at the root. Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze. Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. 

Abel Meeropol (1937), Billie Holiday (1939)

One day when the glory comes. It will be ours, it will be ours. Oh, one day when the war is won. We will be sure, we will be sure. 

John Legend and Common (2015)

T

he performance of “‘Strange Fruit’ and the ‘Glory’ of Possibility” at the International Congress on Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI) 2018 was included on a panel curated by Stacey Holman Jones entitled “Bridge Over Troubled Water: Singing and Songs as Qualitative Inquiry in Troubled Times.”1 In her invitation to participate on the panel, Stacey wrote, “Taking the ICQI theme of ‘Qualitative Inquiry 19

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in Troubled Times,’ I thought it would interesting to explore what songs and singing do to help us heal and dream, to come together in sound and in silence, and to protest and push back. I’m hoping that the panel will feature, above all, your beautiful voices (indeed, a completely SUNG panel would be the dream goal, if you’re up for it!).” I took the call seriously and offered a completely sung ideological performance. In this written project, I offer a thick description of the performance with integrated logics as to how the performance was constructed as a response to the call, “to come together in sound and in silence, and to protest and push back.”2 This performative essay also serves as an example in documenting ideological performance that uses found lyrical texts (song lyrics) as primary source material within the context of building broader arguments of the power of song as protest. In other words, while this paper is its own performance, the staged performance existed in the crafted presentation of sung and unmanipulated song lyrics without any additional narrative exposition or a written script independent of the lyrics. The performance was less about the pleasure of listening as an invitation into the messaging of the songs as protest, and thus, expounds on the intentionality of performance methodology as mode, evidence, and embodied process of reasoning. The paper offers an exemplar of bringing such ideological performance from the stage to the page as the necessary burden of proof in the criticality of qualitative performative scholarship.3

Scene 1: “Strange Fruit” [THE PERFORMER, an African American (Black) male enters the performance space from stage left in silence wearing a black hoodie with white lettering across the chest that reads: “I CAN’T BREATHE.” The hood is pulled over THE PERFORMER’s head and white earbuds are in his ears with the white cords streaming down his chest connected to a cell phone that is in the front pouch of the hoodie. He appears to be listening to music, but in the moment, he is not. There is music playing through the ear buds at this point.]

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Figure 1. Performer, Bryant Keith Alexander “I Can’t Breathe

The image is at first intended to be iconic of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old African American (Black) male who was wearing a hoodie when fatally shot by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch guard. On the evening of February 26, 2012 in Sanford, Florida, Martin was walking back to the house of his father’s fiancée in an upscale condominium complex from a nearby convenience store. Zimmerman, a member of the community watch, saw Martin and reported him as suspicious to the Sanford Police. Moments later, a confrontation between the two individuals took place and Zimmerman fatally shot Martin in the chest.4 Later, Zimmerman was acquitted. The message “I Can’t Breathe” on the hoodie is a reference to the Eric Garner case: On July 17, 2014 Eric Gardner, a 43-year-old African American man died on a Staten Island sidewalk after a police officer put him in an illegal choke hold during an arrest for selling bootleg cigarettes. The final moments of Garner’s life were captured on video and publicly broadcast. His last words, “I can’t breathe,” became a rallying cry for what was becoming the Black Lives Matter protest movement. Later, a grand jury acquitted the White police officer.5 The two conflated images, hoodie and epigram, become emblematic of the current social climate and wholesale attack on African American (Black) males in the United States—to which these images become signal, signifier, and symptom as well as effigy, epitaph, and indictment in the need for protest of racial injustice. The use of the earbuds is more representative of American youth, particularly African American (Black) youth who carry their music with them as a connection to the rhythmicity of Black cultural life, pop culture, and maybe the lessons of resistance found in rap and hip hop.

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[THE PERFORMER centers himself to the audience and in a deep baritone, begins to sing a capella the iconic song “Strange Fruit.” THE PERFORMER sings the song with a direct gaze sweeping the far corners and seats of the audience, inviting the mostly White audience into both the performative moment and the historical moment to which the song narrates in the context of the panel.]

Figure 2. Meeropol, “Analysis of Strange Fruit” Image

[The song is sung at a quick clip, moving through all three verses with precision, allowing the specificity of the lyrics to be punctuated by the melancholic and haunting melody—which invokes and evokes the pained juxtaposition of African American bodies hanging from trees like fruit.] 6 “Strange Fruit” was first written as a protest poem by Abel Meer­ opol and became one of the first racism protest songs to be recorded in popular music in 1939 by Billie Holiday.7 The song has continued relevance in the Trump Era when the question, “Do Black Lives Matter?” or “Do raced and gendered bodies—Mexicans, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and women matter at the rise of the #MeToo Movement?”8 The song uses both metaphor and analogy to

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depict dead Black bodies hanging from poplar trees in the South as a strange fruit for the birds to pluck, and the wind to suck.9 The comparisons are implicitly and explicitly descriptive for they make real the act of hanging Blacks as a public performance of pleasure, privilege, and the propriety of Whiteness in the South. All of which makes racism not merely “a prejudice against someone because of their race,” but “a prejudice against someone because of their race, when those views are reinforced by systems of power” to do so—publicly, sometimes collectively and communally without sanction.10 The incident in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 12, 2017 in which hundreds of white nationalists, alt-righters, and neo-Nazis participated in a “Unite the Right” rally, resulting in the death of three counter-protesters and two police officers, is yet another testament to the ongoing struggle and consequence of and against systems of White power in/as racism.11 In the song, there is a juxtaposition of Black bodies to/as fruit, “strange fruit” in/as “crop” to be “plucked” and “sucked.” And the juxtaposition of the “smell of magnolias” against “the smell of bur­ning flesh” (a testament to other spectacular atrocities of Black bodies), evidences the facile disregard to whether Black lives matter, either there and then, as well as in the here and now. This in relation to rampant police brutality, the dangers of driving/walking while Black in America, and the general disregard of Black civil liberties, all of which make the song “Strange Fruit” a pained anthem to Black suffering that is pertinent not just as historical archive but as a current-day protest song.

Scene 2: “Glory” [At the end of singing “Strange Fruit,” THE PERFORMER fumbles in the pouch of the hoodie in a disturbed and frustrated manner. He pulls out his iPhone (music device) and attempts to switch to a song in his music library. This, as to switch from the song in his head ( from his historical memory, “Strange Fruit,” which is not really playing on the music device) to a song that actually emanates from

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Figure 3. Partial lyrics of “Strange Fruit” drawn from Genius, and image of a lynching.12

the device. He makes the selection. In that moment, from a small wireless speaker that he draws from his pocket the song “Glory” by John Legend and Common is heard loudly broadcasting into the space. With a revived energy, THE PERFORMER sings along with the chorus while staring at the audience.] “Glory,” a modern-day protest song is the key single on the soundtrack from the 2015 movie, Selma.13 John Legend and Common, who co-performed “Glory,” won “Best Original Song” at both the 2015 Golden Globe Awards and the Oscar at the 87th Academy Awards. Inspired by the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches and the civil rights movement, the song juxtaposes the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, which was happening in the time frame of the movie, with and in relation to the particular history of civil rights movement to which the movie narrates. The Ferguson unrest involved the immediate protests and riots the day after the fatal shooting of Michael

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Figure 4. Partial lyrics of “Strange Fruit” drawn from Genius and images of protest

Brown by White police officer Darren Wilson on August 9, 2014. Michael Brown was an 18-year-old African American male, while walking with a friend in the center of a two-way road and was fatally shot by Darren Wilson, a 28-year-old White police officer. The officer stated that an altercation ensued when Brown attacked Wilson in his police vehicle for control of the officer’s gun until it was fired. Brown and his friend Dorian Johnson then fled with the officer in pursuit. The officer stated that Brown stopped and physically charged him after a short pursuit. In the altercation the officer fired a total of 12 bullets, including twice during the struggle in the car; the last was the fatal shot. Brown was hit a total of six times from the front. Rampant protests, rioting, and looting resulted on the streets of St. Louis during and after the jury determination. The unrest further sparked vigorous debates across the country  about the relationship between law enforcement officers and African

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Americans—invoking the historic sanctioned White violence against Black bodies.14 After the murder, “Hands up, don’t shoot,” became the slogan, with the gesture of hands up as protests against police violence.15 Later the White police officer was acquitted. Also, there is the June 23, 2018 case of the White Minneapolis police officer who shot an unarmed Black man, Thurman Blevins. Before the White officer began shooting, Thurman was captured on body camera footage yelling “Please don’t shoot me!” “Leave me alone!”16 The White police officer was acquitted. The difference between the singing of “Strange Fruit” a capella and the broadcasting of “Glory” from the soundtrack symbolizes the internal and external state of THE PERFORMER, representing the private/public experiences of African Americans in general. “Strange Fruit” is used to represent a historical trauma and current-day reality that plays in the head/mind/body of Black folks. Recognizing that the 2007 Jena Six Incident in my home state of Louisiana in which the presence of the hangman’s noose—hanging from trees evoked the historical remembrance of White retaliation to the presumption of Black threat and resistance—in which Black boys are still unduly strung up/ and received harsh sentences for the attack of a White agitator.17 Presenting the song, “Strange Fruit” in this manner represents an internal monologue, a psychological trauma in the Black experience in America, hence, the choice to have the audience only hear THE PERFORMER singing a capella. And while THE PERFORMER has the earbuds in his ears, the music is not emanating from the music device, it emanates from his soul/from history, which has a soundtrack of its own that most African Americans can recognize. When the wireless speaker is activated for “Glory,” it serves to bring the audience into the collective experience of Black folks—as commemoration, as complicity, as culpability, and/or as call for companionship in the civil rights movement. The song, as anthem, is presented in the form of broadcast for all to hear as a public service announcement. [On the first verse of “Glory,” which invokes a protest march, THE PERFORMER raises his right arm with a clenched fist. The clenched raised fist, with thumb crossing bent fingers, is facing the audience. It appears as the iconic Black power symbol.]

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Figure 5. Performer, Bryant Keith Alexander “I Can’t Breathe” Hands to the Heavens, no man, no weapon Formed against, yes glory is destined Every day women and men become legends Sins that go against our skin become blessings.

[In his clenched fist, THE PERFORMER clutches the mini wireless speaker to further broadcast the sound and as anthem to the message. THE PERFORMER then moves forward as to march up the aisles of the audience, while mouthing the words to the song. The first verse continues.] The movement is a rhythm to us. Freedom is like religion to us, Justice is juxtapositioning us, Just for all just ain’t specific enough. One son died, his spirit is revisitin’ us Truant livin’ livin’ in us, resistance is us That’s why Rosa sat on the bus That’s why we walk through Ferguson with our hands up When it go down we woman and man up They say, “Stay down,” and we stand up Shots, we on the ground, the camera panned up King pointed to the mountain top and we ran up.

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[THE PERFORMER’s movement becomes more rhythmic and he appears to be dancing as he turns and returns back to center stage. THE PERFORMER is back to center stage when he begins to sing more fully with the chorus. Then, without looking at the wireless speaker, THE PERFORMER uses the thumb of his right finger to gradually decrease the volume. He then lowers his arm and returns the wireless speaker back into the pouch of the hoodie.] This transitional moment, between the notions of marching and dancing, is itself a juxtaposition of the lyrics and rhythms of the song, and the imagery of historical defiance and celebration that the lyrics narrate. Each are linked in the collective activity of the civil rights movement and reside at the core of the African American (Black) experience through slavery as forms of remembrance, resistance, persistence, faith, political activism and as an essence within Black expressive culture: Civil Rights—as in the rights of citizens to political and social equality. Movement—as in a struggle for freedom and liberation, an act of changing physical location or position or of having this changed; as a group of people working together to advance their shared political, social, or artistic ideas. Civil Rights Movement  (also known as the  African-American civil rights movement, American civil rights movement, and other terms)— as a decades-long movement with the goal of securing legal rights for  African Americans that other Americans already held/have.18

Each is an intentionally choreographed activity to enact collective action for a specified purpose: ceremonial public display, synergized communal outrage for a cause, collective force in defense and defiance to a happening—all with a directionality of destination and desired outcome. Political activist marches and strikes are forms of utopian performance “that provide a place where people come together, embodied and passionate, to share experiences of meaning making and imagination” that demand and project the possibilities “of a better world.”19 Not just as aestheticized performance but as strategic deployments of

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performance in sociopolitical terms; performance as contestation with directions of effectivity that are both ideological and resistant, that seek to contest systems of power and literally place bodies on the line for that purpose.20 In the last verse of the song Common raps, We sing, our music is the cuts that we bleed through Somewhere in the dream we had an epiphany Now we right the wrongs in history No one can win the war individually It takes the wisdom of the elders and young people’s energy Welcome to the story we call victory The comin’ of the Lord, my eyes have seen the glory.

In the verse he furthers the argument of protest music as outcry of Black pain and suffering. He invokes the elders, as his previous reverence to Rosa Parks’s performance of resistance as activism and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and its call for collective/communal activism to achieve victory, as he also invokes the resonance of the King speech in relation to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” to which all men and women (and those in between), should stand equal and have the potential to see the glory. The song stands as both freedom anthem and propaganda song, as categories of persuasion that are magnetic and rhetorical with a motivational and invitational zeal.21 Such songs as described by Martin Luther King, Jr., “invigorate the movement in a most significant way . . . these freedom songs serve to give unity to a movement, and there have been those moments when disunity could have occurred if it had not been for the unifying force of freedom songs and the great spirituals.”22 The song “Glory” in the movie Selma serves that purpose within the film that redocuments the King marches from Selma to Montgomery for the current viewing public of history’s legacy. It also seeks to not only memorialize, but to reactivate participation in the civil rights movement relevant to current happenings, which are always and already the same. This builds coalitions of resistance with “community as the locus of political action as both site, object and method in which ideological performance take feet as political intervention and activism.23

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Scene 3: Reprise: “Strange Fruit Hanging” [After lowering his arm and returning the wireless speaker back into the pouch of the hoodie, THE PERFORMER becomes solemn with a slight dead expression on his face. THE PERFORMER raises his right arm into the air. The gesture no longer appears as the iconic raised Black power symbol. This time the raised arm has a bent tension in it. The fist appears in a slightly inverted angle downward. It appears more like an extended grip holding something up. THE PERFORMER then tilts his head to the left leaning towards his left shoulder. The imagery of extended arm, clutched fist, and tilted head simulates a lynching. The first image in performance is suggestive but made real in the minds of the audience as the second image. The image is held for about five seconds.]

Figure 6. Performer, Bryant Keith Alexander “I Can’t Breathe”

[Holding the position, THE PERFORMER begins to sing the last verse of “Strange Fruit.” But unlike the previous time the verse is sung in a slow and methodical manner.] Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck. For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck. For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop. Here is a strange and bitter crop.

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[THE PERFORMER punctuates the assonance at the end of the phrasing.] “Pluck”! “Suck”! “Rot” ! “Drop” !

“Croooooooooooooooooop” !

[At the end of the song THE PERFORMER extends the word “crop” with increasing volume so that it sounds like a wail. After extending the note, THE PERFORMER slowly lowers his arm, slowly lifts and centers his head facing the audience, and then immediately exits stage left and returns to his seat.]

Figure 7. Performer, Bryant Keith Alexander “I Can’t Breathe” Source: Jon Rou, Assistant Director, Photo and Video, Loyola Marymount University

While evident throughout the performance in the choice of songs, delivery, staging, and the purposefulness of embodied performance, the last scene makes more palpable the notion of this as an ideological performance. A performance that seeks to foreground not merely the substantive content of what is said but the social,

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cultural, and political context in which it is said. In the words and worlds created in the text and how that reflects the everyday world in which we live. While also emphasizing the experiencing moment of the performance and beyond. An ideological performance as a structured and embodied act that speaks not only to a system of beliefs or interpretive frames of knowing, but a contentious positionality of being that implicates both performer and audience in a tensive struggle. The ideological performance “is the way one ‘codes’ one’s ideology into behavior and aesthetics [consciously and unconsciously] in a way that can then be read and interpreted by others based on knowledge of the referenced meaning systems.”24 For me, ideological performances ask/demand the audience not to reside in the comforts of entertainment but disrupt those comforts with the challenges of thinking/feeling through complex issues of culture and community—to which they are complicit: a staged conspicuous ideological performance that asks the audience to allow my presumed privileged, educated, academic, administrative, Black male body to serve a proxy for all Black (male) bodies; Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Thurman Blevins, the Jena Six, and all the unnamed brothers and sisters lost to slavery, police, violence, and racism. And thus, also realize that I am not immune to the realities that befall those with both the materiality and historicity of African American Blackness. I deal with the same ideological presumptions of my person every day in the places that I play, work, and live. And the chances of such encroachment on my person is not without possibility—for it happens in the macro and microaggressions of daily living, and in the implicit biases that very quickly become explicit in varying forms of social sanction. “‘Strange Fruit’ and ‘Glory’” (the performance) is an embodied exemplification of performance as making not faking (Turner, 1982, p. 93).25 This ideological performance illuminated and continues to work to make known the cultural experience(s) of African Americans in the United States. The ideological performance as mode and methodology is always centered in/on the ideological body, which references all the social factors that might influence physical modes of experience and expressions of being. Of being seen in one’s daily mobility in the world and in

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situated places of cultural encounter,26 but also the ideological body that most often precedes the physical body as the social imaginary of others—as privileged or pained. Hence, as in the lynching of Black bodies and the White bodies who witness the lynching as pleasure. The ideological body as the (pre)anticipated and socially constructed cultural body, or the race/gendered/dis-abled body, or the intersectionally complex body—which of course is all of our bodies. It is the imagined body that precedes and preps the stage for social encounter. In which case, the ideological body is both particular and plural; its interpretive significance both emanates and animates from/with/upon other bodies. It is the actual “site [or moment] of cultural inscription” that ultimately influences what that body does and knows how to do (fight or flight).27 And what that body is perceived to be and to be about (pernicious and suspicious). Each ideological body—that which is naming and being named—is historically situated in fact and fiction, shaping the realities of being and becoming. My African American (Black) male body is on the line in this performance and in the reporting of the performance.28 And the line itself (as much as it can be), is also an ideological construct with powerful meaning and metaphor. But always—for this body in public spaces—the line is a fixed positionality of both risk and possibility. It is a practiced place of social encounter.29 This ideological performance used embodied strategies (e.g., hoodie, epigram, headphone, singing, music, gesture, gaze, and pose) to suggest and juxtapose the complex issues of these particular songs of protest and resistance, relative to the broader theme of the panel. This article sought to outline the scripting and staging of this conspicuous performance to illuminate the ideological arguments that are created in the juxtaposition of songs and embodied method of performance. It allows me, as actor and agent of the message, and as subject and center of the arguments, to talk about the performance “in terms of the enactment of meaning and identity within meaning systems, rather than in terms of success or failure.”30 But to also suggest that the success or failure of ideological performances in everyday life, unlike the problematic and presumptive consequence in what is reductively thought of as aesthetic performance, has dire consequences on real bodies. For you see, racism is an ideological

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performance, an embodied enactment of prejudice as meaning, belief and action in a system of power with relational effects. And the historical attack on Black (male) bodies as a performed act of racism is really a life-or-death matter—not just ideology, as “a symbolic perspective regarding desired social conditions,”31 but racism as an ideological performance that acts upon making the desired social condition real, sometimes with mortal consequences.32 Such performances also demand counter-performances of resistance as acts of survival and social consciousness. A Post-Performance Reflection When Stacey Holman Jones called for and curated the panel “Bridge Over Troubled Water: Singing and Songs as Qualitative Inquiry in Troubled Times” at ICQI 2018, she was activating the theme of the conference. Maybe she was also signaling the memory of a panel that I curated in 2015 at the same conference entitled, “The Song Book of Our Lives: Lyrical Autoethnographic Performances,” of which she was involved and resulted in a special Issue of the journal Qualitative Inquiry.33 But, she was also drawing from the impulse of her own scholarly research34 (Holman Jones, 1998, 2002, 2007, 2010, 2016) in which she has explored “torch singing and writing women’s music and organizational culture; bodies of work that focus on how performance constitutes socially, culturally, and politically resistive and transformative activity, and how the female torch singer gives expression not only to desire but also to an incipient determination to resist and change.”35 The power and potential of Stacey’s call was realized in different ways from the diverse presenters on the panel. Each of whom brought immense talent and thought to their response both to the call—and the particularity of the politics of their engagement related to LGBTQ+ desire, the relationality of religiosity and gender identity, human rights, feminist performativity in song, patriotism, resistance, and social exclusion. These lyrical performances were indeed acts of intervention in the identified crisis points and political activism of each performer, each shaping the audience’s

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understanding of their struggle and intent.36 And in this sense, presenters used the essence of qualitative inquiry to explore their personal history and felt experiences as an epistemological standpoint, to which they developed a theoretical (under)standing from their dense particularity to interpret, interpolate, and interrupt everyday perceptions of the world—and to better understand the world/phenomenon under analysis.37 Our singing as qualitative inquiry in troubled times used the aesthetics and lyricism of song and singing to push through the mere pleasure of entertainment to invoke the performative power of such modes as protest. In his construction of the conference theme, Norman Denzin stated, “There has never been a greater need for a critical qualitative inquiry that matters, a discourse that pushes back. A discourse committed to a politics of resistance, a politics of possibility, a politics that dares to dream of social justice, to dream of equity, peace and a world without violence.”38 Embodied performance as qualitative inquiry and as argument truly becomes “the defense of a proposition of fact. The performer is always asserting to the audience, ‘My oral experience here and now is an instance, a realization, a concretization’” of that human/social experience that spurs passion to respond. To respond through and with performance to help us heal and dream, to come together in sound and in silence, and to protest and push back, to put our bodies on the line for a cause.39 Ultimately, I believe that each person on the panel built strong arguments of protest and offered critical invitation to address the intersecting social issues of our shared humanity. This through song, singing and music that has both charms to soothe a savage breast,40 and to enrage the complacent spirit into action. And like the imagery invoked in the title and actions of my own ideological performance, using the iconic lyrics of both “Strange Fruit” and “Glory,” African Americans are still hanging—in the literal lynching (and litigation) of our bodies, and in the metaphorical lynching (and lambasting) of our social construction. While our perpetual survival instinct, emboldened by a faith of transcendence and a push for activism, demands that we continue to hang on to the hopeful possibility of a new day.

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And John Legend (and Common) sang, When the war is won, when it’s all said and done We’ll cry glory (Glory, glory) Oh (Glory, glory).

[BLACK OUT].

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Endnotes 1. Here is the full set of panelists for “Bridge Over Troubled Water: Singing and Songs as Qualitative Inquiry in Troubled Times” as the panel appeared in the program: “‘Strange Fruit’ and the ‘Glory’ of Possibility,” Bryant Keith Alexander, Loyola Marymount University; “Vibrant Bodies as Praise Song,” Anne Harris, RMIT University; “Visceral Resonances: Conjuring History and Memory in Traditional/Folk Music, Together,” Deanna Shoemaker, Monmouth University; “Singing in Troubled Times: This Country,” Kitrina Douglas, Leeds Beckett University; “Tightrope Walking: Songs for Healing,” Marcelo Diversi, Washington State University–Vancouver; “Suburban Black Suburban Blue,” David Carless, Leeds Beckett University. 2. This language drawn directly from the invitation distributed by Stacy Holman Jones to participate on the panel. 3. Hopkins, M. F. (1981). From page to stage: The burden of proof. Southern Speech. Communication Journal, 47(1), 1–9; Johnson, E. P. (2012). From page to stage: The making of sweet tea. Text and Performance Quarterly, 32(2), 248–253. 4. See Wikipedia. (n.d.). Trayvon Martin. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Shooting_of_Trayvon_Martin 5. Taibbi, M. (2017). I can’t breathe. New York, NY: Spiegel & Grau. 6. The image is drawn from Meerpol, A. (2016). Analysis of strange fruit. Retrieved from https://mastersofpoems.weebly.com/analysis-of-strange-fruit.html and http://lencrenoir.com /wp-content/uploads/2010/06/strangefruit.jpg 7. Meerpol, 2016. 8. I am reminded that my colleague E. Patrick Johnson traveled with a performance piece entitled, “Strange Fruit” that circulated around issues of race, gender, sexuality and Black masculinity. Patrick and I performed together at a couple of different venues. His performance was entitled, “Strange Fruit” and my own entitled “Brother Scars.” To be revisiting the construct of “strange fruit” nearly 20 years later is humbling, not in the construct itself, but in the fact that not much has changed in the broader social and cultural orientation of the issues to which the construct references: Johnson, E. P. (2003). Strange fruit: A performance about identity politics. The Drama Review, 472(2), 88–116. Between 1998–2000 I traveled performing a one-man show entitled, “Putting Your Body on the Line.” The show, which originated as a part of my doctoral capstone in performance studies at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, explored representations of Black masculinity. That performance inspired aspects of my book Alexander, B. K. (2006). Performing black masculinity: Race, culture, and queer identity. Lanham, MD: AltaMira. 9. Meerpol, 2016. 10. Oluo, I. (2018). So you want to talk about race. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press, p. 26. 11. On August 12, 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia hundreds of White nationalists, alt-righters, and neo-Nazis traveled to Charlottesville, Virginia to participate in the “Unite the Right” rally. By Saturday evening three people were dead—one protester and two police officers—and many more injured. Vice Video. (2017, August 14). Charlottesville: Race and terror. Retrieved from https://video.vice.com/en_us/video /charlottesville-race-and-terror-vice-news-tonight-on-hbo/59921b1d2f8d32d808bddfbc 12. Genius. (n.d.a.). Billie Holiday “Strange Fruit” lyrics. Retrieved from https://genius.com/ Billie-holiday-strange-fruit-lyrics 13. Genius. (n.d.b.) Glory lyrics. Retrieved from https://genius.com/Common-glory-lyrics. 14. Wikipedia. (n.d.b.). Ferguson unrest. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Ferguson_unrest 15. Wikipedia. (n.d.c.). Hands up don’t’ shoot. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Hands_up,_don%27t_shoot 16. Berman, M., & Farzin, A. N. (2018, July 30). Minneapolis police officers won’t be charged for fatally shooting Thurman Blevins. Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www .washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/07/30/thurman-blevins-shooting-graphicbody-cam-footage-shows-fleeing-black-man-killed-by-minneapolis-police-who-say-he-wasarmed/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8dd1596cedb8 17. Democracy Now. (2007, July 10). The case of the Jena Six: Black high school students

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charged with attempted murder after nooses hung from tree. Retrieved from https://www .democracynow.org/2007/7/10/the_case_of_the_jena_six 18. Online dictionary. 19. Dolan, J. (2008). Utopia in performance: Finding hope at the theater. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, p. 2. 20. Fuoss, K. (1997). Striking performances/performing strikes. Jackson, MI: University of Mississippi. 21. Denisoff, R. S. (1968). Protest movements: Class consciousness and the propaganda song. Sociological Quarterly, 9(2), 228–247. 22. Ibid., p. 243. 23. Filewod, A. (2001). Coalitions of resistance: Ground zero’s community mobilization. In S. C. Haedicke & T. Nellhaus (Eds.), Performing democracy: International perspectives on urban community-based performance (pp. 89–103). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. 24. Fuist, T. N. (2014). The dramatization of beliefs, values, and allegiances: Ideological performances among social movement groups and religious organizations. Social Movement Studies, 13(4), 427–442, 430. 25. Turner, V. (1982). From ritual to theatre. New York: PAJ Publications, 93. 26. Pineau, E. L. (2002). Critical performative pedagogy: Fleshing out the politics of liberatory education. In N. Stucky & C. Wimmer (Eds.), Teaching performance studies (pp. 41–54). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. 27. Ibid., 43. 28. Here, I am also making allusion back to my one-man “Putting Your Body on the Line” (1998–2000). 29. Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 30. Fuist (2014). This work, particularly, the portions cited for my own purposes, is synchronous to aspects of my theorizing on ideological performance. Fuist states, “The recent ‘performative turn’ in sociology has meant a renewed interest in the dramaturgical aspects of social life. This has appeared in the literature on social movements as a concern with the performance of opposition, usually within public protest events. This focus on performance as a tactic to be used in public displays of meaning by political actors misses how social performance is woven into our everyday lives. This paper presents a review of relevant literature towards the end of creating a theoretical concept, the ‘ideological performance,’ which presents a more holistic approach to understanding performativity within social movements, both publicly and privately” (p. 427). But while productive, Fuist misses the entire body of literature in/as performance studies—that while having an interest in critiquing performance as tactic, also more critically examines sociocultural performance in everyday life as personal, purposeful, and political. I draw my critical, theoretical, and methodological approach to en/acting, re/enacting and critically analyzing performance on both the stage (theatrical and everyday life) and on the page (dramaturgical and academic) from and through performance studies. 31. Platt, G. M., & Williams, R. H. (2002). Ideological language and social movement mobilization: A sociolinguistic analysis of segregationists’ ideologies. Sociological Theory, 20(3), 328–359, 336; I am intentionally using Fuist’s (2014) definition of ideology (p. 440) (endnote 23) not to be argumentative but to move ideology from thought into action—as most definitions of ideology do not recognize how ideology is made manifest in performative activity and public display. 32. In using the construction of “mortal consequence,” I am also referencing the song by the same title by “Necrodeath” (2001) from the album Black as Pitch, which begins with the lyrics “Just one hundred children you decided to kill/ Assassinated and drowned by your twisted mind/ Catalyst of tragedy show your macabre guiness/ Witness of brutality murderer and rapist.” 33. Alexander, B. K. (2016). A song for you/killing me softly: Lyrical dialects of design, desire and disdain (A performative introduction). Special Issue: The Song Book of Our Lives: Lyrical Autoethnographic Performances. Qualitative Inquiry, 22(10), 771–775. 34. Holman Jones, S. (1998). Kaleidoscope notes: Writing women’s music and organizational culture. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press; Holman Jones, S. (2002). Emotional space: Performing the resistive possibilities of torch singing. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(6), 738–759; Holman Jones, S. (2007). Torch singing: Performing resistance and desire from Billie Holiday to Edith Piaf. Lanham, MD: Roman & Littlefield; Holman Jones, S. (2010). Burnt: Writing torch singers and

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torch singing. Cultural Studies Critical Methodologies, 10(4), 283–294; Holman Jones, S. (2016). One for my baby and One more for the road: Queer affect and Billie Holiday. Qualitative Inquiry, 22(10), 775–778. 35. Alexander (2016), p. 772. 36. Román, D. (1998). Acts of intervention: Performance, gay culture, and AIDS. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. 37. Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2005). Introduction:The Discipline and Practice of Qualitative Research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln. (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp.1-32). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. 38. This is drawn from the welcome to the 11th Congress of Qualitative Inquiry. Eleventh Congress of Qualitative Inquiry. (2018). Program copy. Urbana-Champaign, IL. Retrieved from https://icqi.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/QI2018-Final-Program-1.pdf, pp. 5–6. 39. Hopkins, 1. 40. The phrase, “Music has charms to soothe the savage breast” is most often attributed to William Congreve, in The Mourning Bride, 1697.

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chapter three

Suburban Black Suburban Blue Songwriting and Musical Performance as Qualitative Research DAVID CARLESS

I use songs to reach out, reach back, and reset my moral compass. I do this because music can aid the humanizing move which turns “thick description” into “thick empathy.” It provides a means to express things we don’t know how to articulate in words, and to move toward an imaginative aesthetic that transcends the “problem” of silence. (Douglas, 2016, p. 800)

Introduction

I

n the Beatles song “Julia,” John Lennon sings, “When I cannot sing my heart/I can only speak my mind.” These simple lines resonate deeply with my experience. So often I feel constrained by the dominance of the written and spoken word, particularly in academia but in other domains of life too. I need songs and music to discover, to understand, to express what I feel, what I’ve experienced, what I’m thinking, what it might be that I have to offer. I have needed—and I still need—songs and music to help me connect, to feel a part of, to relate, to interrelate. Songs that help me feel less isolated, less alienated, less alone. And feelings of isolation and alienation loom large in many queer lives. Safety, self-respect, 41

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acceptance, and solidarity can be hard to find. Building connection and community has been—and still is—paramount for our identity, wellbeing, happiness. Songs offer a miraculous means through which these touchstones might be approached. Yet the expression of queer lives in song has tricky history. Years before I entered academia, I was writing songs. And years before I started writing songs I fell in love with music. Since I was a child, many stories—ways to be human—seeped into my being through songs. By my 30s I’d collected around 10,000 songs on LP, cassette, CD and MP3. I’d heard many more on the radio and TV. But none of these songs—not one—featured a first person story of attraction, desire, love, or romance between two men. The kind of story you hear all the time between a man and a woman didn’t seem to exist in song. Lots of men singing “I want her, I love her, I need her” but none singing “I want him, I love him, I need him.” I didn’t hear this kind of story in a song until finally I wrote one for myself in 2008. I called this song “Suburban Black Suburban Blue.”

October 1977 The Tom Robinson Band have a British hit with “2-4-6-8 Motorway.” The song reaches number five in the chart and is played widely on television and radio. I am 7. Despite being young, the song must have seeped into my consciousness as I can still remember and sing the chorus now: “Two, four, six, eight, ain’t never too late/Me and my radio truckin’ on through the night/Three, five, seven, nine on a double white line/Da da da da dahh da da da dum.” Well, most of it! I haven’t heard the song for decades.

February 1978 The band has a follow-up hit with a four-track EP that includes the song “(Sing If You’re) Glad To Be Gay.” The EP reaches number 18. The song is banned by the BBC who do not play it on their top 40

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music show. Perhaps that’s why neither the song, the title, nor the lyrics registered in my consciousness? It is not until many years later that I first hear it. The verses rage against injustice: police brutality toward the queer community; homophobic attacks in the streets; “obscene publication” accusations leveled against Gay News magazine; the unequal age of consent for gay sex. The chorus is out, proud and simple: “Sing if you’re glad to be gay/Sing if you’re happy that way, hey/Sing if you’re glad to be gay/Sing if you’re happy that way.” The song is adopted as an anthem by sections of the gay community. Its power and meaning grows, deepens and extends over the years, still potent four decades later when it figures in 2017 celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalization of homosexuality in the United Kingdom.

November 1983 “This Charming Man” by The Smiths reaches number 25. Musically, it’s jaunty and alive. Morrissey’s vocal melodies are innovative, intriguing, unique in the pop landscape. His singing—the sound of his voice— expresses to me a yearning, a desire for something as yet unattained. But the something is unspecified. The lyrics are oblique and abstract: “Punctured bicycle on a hillside desolate/Will nature make a man of me yet?/When this charming man/This charming man.” Then the story pulls back, stops short of saying what the singer desires. Mainstream society was not yet ready to hear that story. Perhaps the BBC would have banned this record too if Morrissey had been more specific? But the most important truth, the story I now hear so clearly, evaded me completely at 13. The true truth is beneath the words. It is in the subtext. It is in the form.

June 1984 Bronski Beat has a big summer hit with “Smalltown Boy.” The song reaches number three and is all over radio and TV. Jimmy Sommerville

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sings in an agonized, glorious, arresting falsetto: “Pushed around and kicked around, always a lonely boy/You were the one that they’d talk about around town as they put you down.” Then the chorus, “Run away, turn away, run away, turn away, run away/Crying to your soul/ Cry boy, cry, cry, cry.” At 14, the record, with its aching sound, melody, atmosphere, and voice entered my consciousness to fuse with some part of me. I can still feel its imprint. Yet I never heard myself in its lyrics. I didn’t see my life in its story. Was it denial? Repression? Perhaps. Or maybe I was just too young? Or was it to do with the song being written and sung in the third person? Not I, me, my … but him, over there, at a distance. The small-town boy was Other, he was always someone else.

October 1998 I’m a student at Southern Illinois University in the United States, when I hear on national news of the vicious and ultimately fatal homophobic attack on 21-year old Matthew Sheppard in Wyoming. I do not know what to do. I do not know what to say. I do nothing. I say nothing.

November 2007 A Friday night and Bradley is due home after working away for the week. I drive into the city centre to meet him off the 7.15 London train. I look up at the arrivals screen; the train is on time, platform seven. Unusually, the ticket barriers are open so I’m able to walk onto the platform. A few minutes later the 10-carriage train chugs in, halting finally and breathing out a tired sigh. The doors open and people begin to alight, hundreds of them. I look up and down the packed platform, waiting, excited to be seeing my boyfriend again. People rush past me on either side, heading for buses, taxis, waiting for family and friends. Then I see him, walking toward me, looking cool, urban, and gorgeous. He’s seen me first. He’s smiling. His pace seems to quicken. I take some steps toward him. We hug—for quite

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a while amidst the river of crowd. Finally, I pull back a little to take a look at him. I kiss him on the mouth. He kisses me back. For a moment, it is heaven. A tender, intimate, loving greeting between two men reunited on a station platform. But as we separate, my stomach suddenly sinks, dropping almost into the ground. I notice once more the people swarming past us. Looking at us? Laughing at us? Threatening us? I don’t know and I can’t bring myself to look to find out. But I feel suddenly vulnerable—as if I have exposed not only myself, but Bradley too. Was our kiss too much? Too revealing in this public setting, even in 2007? Have I put us at risk of a homophobic insult or assault? We walk quickly to the car.

December 2007 A joint date night with Daniel and Paulo—an early meal at Nando’s and a movie. After, we walk homeward down one of the city’s main streets. We reach the busy intersection where we will head in opposite directions. We pause to say our goodbyes. Whenever Bradley and I see Daniel and Paulo at the dance studio or in our homes, we hug and kiss copiously to greet each other and say farewell. But how to say goodbye in this very public place? I feel unsure. Even though it’s 2007, and so much has changed for the better, I still feel unsure. I wait, leaving it to someone else to decide. Daniel does. He steps toward Bradley, places his hand behind Bradley’s head and kisses him warmly on the lips. As the Christmas shoppers flood by weighed down with their purchases, Daniel turns 90 degrees and gifts me too a tender, generous kiss. I feel people looking. Out the corner of my eye I glimpse turned faces. I ignore them. I return Daniel’s smile and kiss Paulo goodnight.

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January 2008 It’s a cold, inky northern night. We’re in town for beer and food in our favourite pub. My collar is turned up and Bradley is wearing hat and gloves. As we walk, we huddle close together for warmth and for fun. A crossroads of city centre streets: left or straight on? Perhaps because it’s so cold, perhaps because we’re hungry and thirsty, we take the quickest route: straight on. But it means walking past a row of pubs I usually avoid. Big, bland, city pubs with huge TV screens showing endless football matches. And lots of cheap beer. Subconsciously perhaps, we drift toward the road—to be as far as possible from their doors. We’re only feet away from the entrance to the second or third pub when a dark-haired man—18 or 19 perhaps—comes flying out, like a cowboy hurled from a saloon in a Western, sprawling on the pavement in front of us. We freeze, pulling closer to each other. His teeth show bright white against the blood coming from his mouth or lips. Some of the blood has dripped down the front of his white England football shirt. What comes next? Vulgar hate-filled words? Violence? We both hold our breath. He looks up at us from the concrete, snarls, and charges back into the pub.

February 2008 These and many other fragments of memory…of experience…of hope… of fear…converge on the single moment in time when I find myself writing the song that becomes “Suburban Black Suburban Blue.” I write with “throughness” (Carless, 2018)—the memories, the emotions, the knowing, the vulnerabilities, the stories all seem to come from some place very deep down. Not from my conscious rational mind, but from my body, my soma, my subconscious, my soul. And they coalesce into a song. It is the day before my birthday. This song is a birthday present to myself.

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April 2010 John Grant releases his debut solo album Queen of Denmark. Grant is open about his sexuality in interviews and several songs on the album explore same-sex relationships. In one song—“Caramel”— Grant uses a first-person voice to sing of his love for another man: “My love is the rarest jewel/And he grounds me with his love/My love, he is rich like caramel/And he moves me from above.” This is the first song I have ever heard to do so. The first and only song. As I listen to it for the first time, I feel able to release a deep, long-held breath. When it has finished, I feel unsure whether or not I actually heard what I thought I heard. I play it again to check. And then I play it again. Each time I play it, I feel a little less alone.

July 2012 Days before releasing Channel Orange, Frank Ocean comes out publicly as bisexual. In the song “Forrest Gump” Ocean sings about his male love interest: “You’re so buff and so strong/I’m nervous Forrest… Forrest Gump, you run my mind boy/Running on my mind boy.” This is now the second song I’ve heard in which a male singer uses a first-person voice to express his attraction to another man. The album is a critical and commercial success and Ocean is later lauded for “singlehandedly ushering in a new era for queer inclusiveness in mainstream music” (Thomas, 2017).

November 2013 I perform “Suburban Black Suburban Blue” as part of an evening of performative research Kitrina Douglas has convened as a public engagement initiative. The banked seating at Yorkshire Dance in the centre of Leeds is almost full—a hundred adventurous members of the public and students have gathered to see and hear social research as they never have before. Tonight, for this song, I

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am supported by six backing singers—five male drama students and Kitrina—who stand in a semicircle around a single mic. They mostly leave the words to me but come in—together, so together—on the sung parts that have no words, the “Yeahhh, Yeahhh, Yeahhheheh” sections. Those bits that are meaningless when reproduced as text on a page, but elevate, enliven, and empower when sung ensemble, with passion. At these moments, the meaning and power of wordless sound is spectacularly revealed. It is felt. Midway through the song, “my” singers spontaneously link arms, pulling each other tightly together as their harmonies intensify and the sound grows larger still. As I sing and as they sing, I feel it: I am not alone anymore. I am not alone on this stage…in this story…in this song…in this life.

March 2014 My boyfriend, James, had been in the audience that night in Novem­ ber. He asks me to play the song now, at two in the morning, cloudy with wine, as we sit around my kitchen table with two musician friends. As I begin to sing the “Yeahhh, Yeahhh, Yeahhheheh” intro, James joins in. Cautiously at first. He wouldn’t claim to be a singer. Corinne and Steve join in too, feeling their way into a song they’ve never heard before. It is so intimate, so special, to share a song that I have written in such close proximity to others—others who love music, respect songwriters, and are excited to hear a song they couldn’t hear anywhere else. By the time we reach the closing sections of the song, James’s singing has become as impassioned as mine. The kitchen is bursting with sound. We offer no words … just the noise of pure emotion. As we approach the song’s end, I look across the table at him. And I don’t only hear it now, I see it too. I am not the only one who needed this story in song.

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September 2017 LGBT charity Stonewall publish their study LGBT in Britain: Hate Crime and Discrimination (Bachmann & Gooch, 2017). It is not a pleasant read: 21% of LGBT people have experienced a hate crime or incident due to their sexual orientation or gender identity in the last 12 months; the number of lesbian, gay, or bisexual people who have experienced a hate crime or incident in the last year because of their sexual orientation rose by 78% between 2013 and 2017; 81% of LGBT people who experienced a hate crime or incident didn’t report it to the police; 29% of LGBT people avoid certain streets because they don’t feel safe there as an LGBT person; 58% of gay men say they don’t feel comfortable walking down the street while holding their partner’s hand.

May 2018 We gather for a panel titled “Bridge Over Troubled Water: Singing and Songs as Qualitative Inquiry in Troubled Times” at the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI) in Illinois. Although Kitrina and I have been writing and performing songs as research across two decades (e.g., Carless, 2007, 2017; Carless & Douglas, 2009, 2011; Douglas, 2012, 2016; Douglas & Carless, 2005, 2008), this is the first time I have been part of a panel in which everyone does so. I am thrilled at the prospect of—for once—not having to speak! To have the freedom to sing and only sing. As the tiered seating begins to fill, I feel anticipation build in the room. I see familiar faces—colleagues and friends spanning back over 13 years of ICQI. I see faces I do not know. With each performance, each singer and each song, I feel an emotional wallop. Cumulatively, the depth and richness grow and keep growing. What a joy…to give talk a back seat for a moment, yet still so much be said. I am second to last to perform. I begin by quoting John Lennon, before singing my heart through “Stumble”—a song that musically, tonally, and lyrically takes me to a place where I am able to perform:

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vulnerable yet grounded, seeking yet secure, open yet protected. I love how the guitar sounds on this song. My voice feels true, authentic, and held within the space created by the picked chord progressions. Next, I speak my mind: I say a few words about isolation and alienation. I suggest songs can help us connect, to express and share our identities in empowering ways. I tell how a simple first-person declaration of love (or desire or attraction or romance) between two men was absent from my record collection until I wrote this song. Until then, this was a story—one part of my heart—that I could not and did not sing. And neither, it seemed, did anybody else. Standing in the centre of the performance space, I use my thumb and forefinger to pick out the bassline, getting the upbeat rhythm going. Then the higher notes, picked out from the descending chord progression. The music is happening. My body wants to move, expand, try to fill the space; I let it. I start to sing the opening melody—no words at all, just heartful sound: “Yeahhh, Yeahhh, Yeahhheheh.” Seamlessly Kitrina joins me with her harmonies, fleshing out and enriching the sound. Then, with the scene set, the emotional soil tilled, the story in words can begin: I’ll meet you off the train tonight And on the platform take your hand in mine But maybe that’s a kiss too far We’re just two guys forgetting where we are Suburban black, suburban blue Avoid the bloody football fans Falling out of bars with angry souls Is it a loss that turned them sour? I don’t know

[A chord change into the chorus, the music lightens and lifts, as the urgency of the vocal intensifies Kitrina’s voice soars, extending the emotional punch.] I’ve felt some rain falling in my heart

I know there’s a cold breeze that blows us apart

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But I have dreams I’m gonna see come true And I have a life … I want to share with you

[No words now, just music: one guitar and two heartful voices into the second verse.] First he stops and kisses you On the cheek, the corner of the street Then he turns and kisses me, all so naturally The lookers look, they’ve looked before We are different, they are sure We are alone, we are alone We are together here alone I’ve felt some rain falling in my heart I know there’s a cold breeze that blows us apart But I have dreams I’m gonna see come true And I have a life … I want to share with you I feel it more when I’m with you Suburban black, suburban blue But I’m loving you, I’m loving you You know I do, you know I do

[No words needed now, we sing our hearts with abandon, the sound swells, until the guitar stops abruptly and we sing the final 8 bars a capella.] There is silence after the final performance of the panel. Some moments to absorb the experience, the emotions, before the time is right for response. After a little while, from an aisle seat midway back, Johnny raises his hand. I’ve known Johnny since participating in his ethnodrama workshop at ICQI a decade ago, a kinship ignited and sustained by the Congress. Just the previous evening we had talked, catching up on news, on partners, on life. He’d pulled out his phone and showed me a picture of him and his husband on their wedding day. In their suits, they looked handsome together, happy together, they looked…well,

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they looked together. I felt myself nodding, smiling as I savored the image. What a treat to see a photograph like this. How good it feels to see a picture like this. “We’ve been together since 1983,” Johnny told me, “but of course were only recently allowed to get married— when the law changed.” I found myself trying to imagine what it could feel like to be with another man for 35 years, to experience that kind of continuity. I couldn’t begin to imagine. “What’s it like Johnny?” I asked. “I’ve just never known that long a relationship. It seems so … What’s the best thing about it?” Johnny replied, quick as a flash. “Dependability,” he said. He paused and looked me in the eye. “We know we can depend on each other.” The panel chair invites Johnny to share his response to the performances and I swivel round in my seat so I can see him. He starts to speak: “I just want to say, to David, that …” But no more words come. In their place, in the space left by silence, I see instead a huge wave rearing up. The kind of wave that is too big to be surfed. Formed from powerful groundswell, created by some distant storm in the North Atlantic, which then travels tirelessly for hundreds of miles, to break spectacularly, unburdening itself, releasing everything, on a remote Cornish beach. And so it is now. Tears. An outpouring. Such meaning, such pain, so deeply held, for so long. I go to him. We embrace. I’m scarred too, you know … I thought, maybe, a life-partner could make it alright, might be enough … I know now, for sure, that a song of what our hearts contain is air to breathe … Its absence almost intolerable … I needed this song. I so needed to hear this song. I so needed to sing this song. I still do.

September 2018 I contact Johnny to ask his permission to include part of his story here, within my story. In his generous response, Johnny reminds me of what he did say, when the emotions subsided:

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When I was a teenager in the late 1960s and early 1970s, there were no songs whatsoever that addressed man and man romance/love. Being gay at that time in the US (particularly in Texas)  was still fraught with stigma and secrecy. Hearing your song in 2018, at age 63, made me realize what I missed in my adolescence, and made me wish I could have had songs like yours to hear when I was growing up. It would have made my coming out and awareness of my gay identity a lot easier. (Saldaña, 29th September 2018, personal communication)

Coda In his classic Telling Sexual Stories, Ken Plummer (1995) wrote, “As gay persons create a gay culture cluttered with stories of gay life, gay history and gay politics, so that very culture helps to define a reality that makes gay personhood tighter and ever more plausible” (p. 87). Arthur Frank (2010), in Letting Stories Breathe, wrote, “Stories project possible futures, and those projections affect what comes to be…Stories work to emplot lives: they offer a plot that makes some particular future not only plausible but also compelling” (pp. 9–10). I want to replace the word “stories” with the word “songs” in both these excerpts. We create—we need to create—a culture bursting with songs of queer life, queer history, and queer politics. We must do this for each other’s sake because songs project possible futures, affecting what comes to be. Because songs, too, can make a multitude of futures, plausible and compelling. In some important way we are lost without music to open up communal queer horizons, through singing our diverse stories of triumph and loss, suffering and joy.

Acknowledgments Thank you to Johnny Saldaña for allowing me to include moments from his story within this piece and to Stacy Holman Jones for inviting me to be part of the singing panel at ICQI 2018. As always, thank you to Kitrina Douglas for her visionary suggestions, support and en-

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cour­aging feedback. Lyrics to “Suburban Black Suburban Blue” used with permission (Copyright D. Carless, 2012).

References Bachmann, C. L. & Gooch, B. (2017). LGBT in Britain: Hate crime and discrimination. London, UK: Stonewall. Carless, D. (2007). “Hope”: A musical performance autoethnography. Performance at International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, University of Illinois, 4-5 May. Champaign, IL: USA. Carless, D. (2017). It’s a leap of faith, writing a song. Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, 6(2), 99–106. Carless, D. (2018). “Throughness”: A story about songwriting as auto/ethnography. Qualitative Inquiry, 24(3), 227–232. Carless, D., & Douglas, K. (2009). Songwriting and the creation of knowledge. In B. Bartleet, & C. Ellis (Eds.), Musical autoethnography: Creative explorations of the self through music (pp. 23–38). Queensland, Australia: Australian Academic Press. Carless, D. & Douglas, K. (2011). What’s in a song? How songs contribute to the communication of social science research. British Journal of Guidance and Counselling, 39(5), 439–454. Douglas, K. (2012). Signals and signs. Qualitative Inquiry, 18(6), 525–532. Douglas, K. (2016). Song writing as reflexive practice: “Breathing Too Loud” to “Signals and Signs.” Qualitative Inquiry, 22(10), 798–802. Douglas, K., & Carless, D. (2005). Across the Tamar: Stories from women in Cornwall. Independently produced audio CD: Bristol, UK. Douglas, K., & Carless, D. (2008). Nurturing a performative self. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 9(2). Retrieved from http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/2-08/08-2-23-e.htm Frank, A.W. (2010). Letting stories breathe: A socio-narratology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Plummer, K. (1995). Telling sexual stories: Power, change and social worlds. London, UK: Routledge. Thomas, C. (2017). Five years later, Frank Ocean’s queer legacy on Channel Orange endures. Retrieved from https://www.out.com/music/2017 /7/10/five-years-later-frank-oceans-queer-legacy-channel -orange-endures

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chapter four

Singing in Troubled Times “This Country”: Reflections on Songwriting and Singing Qualitative Research KITRINA DOUGLAS

T

he first song I ever heard sung during a session at the Interna­ tional Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI) was in 2006 when David Carless sang “We Crossed the Tamar” (Carless, 2005), a song he’d written as part of a commissioned research project. The following year he returned to sing two songs, “Cold Soul” and “Stumble,” (Carless, 2007), through which he tried to incorporate his “singing self” within the straitjacket of evidence-based medicine, a culture that expects a researcher to be neutral and unaffected and is hostile toward those who use their selves in their work. In the years since, an increasing number of songwriters and songs have been performed at the conference. Among them, Bill Rawlings, “Performing Songs for Cindy: A Musical Autoethnography,” in 2014, and “Recovering Notes on Aging” in 2016. In 2016 Bryant Alexander invited Devika Chawla, Stacy Holman Jones, Durell Callier, Tami Spry, Anne Harris, Robin M. Boylorn, Norman K. Denzin, and myself to contribute to “The Songbook of our Lives” panel, creating a space where those of us with interest in singing and songs could come together to voice our interests. That same year Stacy Holman Jones invited participants at the “Day in Autoethnography” to explore 55

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rhythm, music, and songwriting in one of the afternoon workshops. This year (2018) the circle has been extended, as songwriters and singers were given an opportunity to sing as a response to troubled times and to reflect together on some of the powerful ways songs support our scholarship and lives more broadly. Alongside these formal sessions there has also been a “congress fringe” where a small number of us have met informally to make music, share songs, and in the folk tradition, pass the guitar around. These sessions have been hugely important to me as a singer-songwriter as it has given me a safe and public space to share songs. It was during one of these fringe events, sitting in the shade, on a low wall outside the Illini, that in 2017 I first shared a song that led Marcel Diversi to ask me to send him the chords and lyrics. There was something about this song that moved him to want to play and sing it. One of the most powerful aspects of a song is evidenced in his request. You see, songs need to be sung and shared, and given life by others. In what follows, I share a little more of this journey. Singing and Research Singing, according to a variety of research across the health and social sciences sectors/disciplines, can bring physical, cognitive, and emotional benefits (Art Health Network Canada, 2009). These include improving mood, reducing stress, increasing immune function, elevating levels of neurotransmitters associated with wellbeing, enhancing the body’s ability to overcome diseases, and aiding recovery from physical and mental illnesses. Added to these are the social benefits and spiritual dimensions of singing, which are said to contribute to health and happiness (Clift & Hancox, 2001; Kreutz, 2014). Recent studies have shown singing to an unborn baby during pregnancy or to a newborn baby during infancy can create a unique bond between mother and child, generating enhanced feelings of love, affection, connection, and relaxation, even during a stressful delivery. A few years ago, when I was doing research for the Department of Health and exploring the health benefits of dance, I remember asking two 9-year old girls taking part in the research, “Why do you

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dance?” In response, they described a variety of health benefits as if reciting from a script—much like the list of health benefits for singing described above. “I see,” I said, and then asked, “And would you still dance if it wasn’t healthy?” In unison, without pause to think and with huge smiles on their faces, the two girls replied “Yes! Of course.” I feel the same about singing. There may be a huge wealth of evidence in health research prescribing reasons for singing, but that is not why I sing. Nor do these reasons motivate me to write a song or record it, or to sit with friends singing and listening to each other’s songs. Neither do these above insights into the health benefits of singing shed light on how some songs trouble me and provoke me to think about my behaviour, actions, or inaction. Nor does this comprehensive list allude to the way that songs sometimes cause distress, or remind us of injustice, prejudice and silencing, and even inequality and/or of wrongdoing and violation of human rights abuses. Often in our research we use stories to communicate. Arthur Frank (2004) reminds us that “[s]tories do not merely narrate events”: they also focus our attention on what issues are worth noticing and the people whose lives are worth reporting (p. 62). The same can be said for song. Across the centuries, songs have made it possible to keep in focus and in public view the lives of people and communities the authorities would rather we forget. In Frank’s (2004) terms, songs make it possible to show some events and lives that may have otherwise been rendered absent. Such motives lie behind some of the songs I write and sing, recognizing the multidimensionality of songs to allow us to sing softly, but carry a big stick. The Songwriting Process Over the past two decades, in long and thoughtful conversations with David Carless regarding our research practices, I have learned that what often compels one of us to write a song is not a conscious decision but rather an embodied response to what is going on around us: both the milieu of life as well as the research we are

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involved with (for example, see Douglas & Carless, 2018) Writing songs, it seems, provides a way to amplify the lives of marginalized people within our communities and attempt to ensure they are not lost and forgotten, even when we don’t set out to specifically do so. Often, when I cannot communicate what I am experiencing or learning in words alone, or when I am feeling conflicted and have contrasting, oppositional, and ambiguous positions on an issue, there is a chance I can access and share some of this through writing a song and singing it, and I am not alone. Paul Zollo (2003), author of “Song-writers on Song Writing” interviewed 52 of the world’s most well-known and regarded songwriters including Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, John Hiatt, and Jackson Browne. The conversations reveal that many songwriters don’t go out with the aim of writing a song with a particular message in mind. Rather, it is the process of playing and singing, which creates in the artist the type of environment that allows songs to be birthed. Many of the artists Zollo interviews suggest it is “the song” that catches the songwriter and his or her role is to be a willing recipient. This makes sense to the social researcher in me. When we invest time “in the field” talking with people and observing day-to-day life, meaning is often hidden. At some other moment, perhaps doing the gardening, as Elizabeth St. Pierre notes, a truth emerges. Other songwriters Zollo interviewed suggest songs are hidden in musical instruments and waiting to be discovered. This also makes sense to me. For over 20 years I played international and professional golf, spending hours on the practice ground teaching myself to play shots and honing and perfecting this craft. I would lose myself with just one club and a ball and become aware of rhythm and movement and the joy of discovery, attuned, you might say, to my body. Often, when one of these shots emerged during a tournament, and perhaps allowed me to get out of trouble or to win an event, I would be asked by other professionals “How did you play that shot?” as if it was magic. I would say, “Well, just go out to the practice ground and you’ll find out.” Of course, I could have told them technically how to play the shot, but this alone wouldn’t “work”: the individual needs to develop feel, balance, and

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kinaesthetic awareness before the shot is likely to be played. It has been the same for me with writing songs and playing the guitar. It is vital to spend time singing and playing without the aim of writing before it becomes possible to find what is hidden. When playing and learning songs that move me or provoke me there is an opportunity to find—what is, for me—a new chord or different picking pattern, and these, in turn, at some later stage, help dislodge hidden truths. Sometimes it’s the failing to attain a chord that I’ve tried to learn or not quite getting a picking pattern that opens a door to something else magical, and that is the alchemy of songwriting and playing. Common among many of the songwriters Zollo interviewed was an awareness that through the songwriting process, they found things they didn’t know they were looking for, or knew. This is what makes songwriting so alluring and challenging; you don’t know what you will find. Such a process is something I have witnessed while working with David Carless. Like many of Zollo’s interviewees David has described the process of songwriting as a “leap of faith” (Carless, 2017), where he is neither totally in control, nor a bystander. In 2009, while we were away doing field research, I received news that a close relative had died. David didn’t know what to say, or how to bring any comfort to me. I didn’t know either. While I was upset, I didn’t want to go home, but neither did I want to do “nothing.” I took my pastels and began to paint, and David picked up the guitar and started to play, or should I say, fiddled with some chords. In the next hour or so that passed I watched and listened as David crafted a song while I painted sunflowers. Writing some time later about how the song “A Little Rain” emerged from this fiddling, he described being in an “in-between place” that required him to relinquish control as he began to write this song. Words were coming from my mouth along with a melody, a rhythm, and a sequence of chords and notes from the guitar. Yes, it was me who was playing the instrument. Yes, I knew the chord shapes: a variant on a G major, some kind of D major, then a C major on the chorus. The dropped-D tuning is an acoustic guitarist’s technique

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which I also knew and had used before. But somehow what was coming out of the guitar—through, perhaps, a combination of the instrument, what I knew about technique, and the energies in the moment—seemed to provide a platform which facilitated access to things I didn’t know I knew, thoughts I didn’t know I thought. The words came—not through deliberate thought. (Carless & Douglas, 2009, p. 27)

Exploring what makes songwriting possible, David suggests alongside this sense of uncertainty and unknowing, he needs to be vulnerable to what the song asks of him as an artist. A lesson the songwriter learns is songs don’t always take us in directions we would like to go. David possibly didn’t want to confront death and grieving, at least in a song, but this is what the moment and the song demanded. Equally important it seems, in the process of songwriting, is recognizing that the process is an “embodied action” that draws on the empathic capacities of the songwriter (Pelias, 2008, p.188) and allows us to contemplate issues like death and grieving, loss, love, and hope. However, even when all the right things are in place, it doesn’t necessarily lead to a song that will sing. Sometimes, it feels like I have no music in me. I may not play the guitar for days on end, I may not write a song for months on end. When I do pick up a guitar, the music that comes seems to hold little in the way of new things, it leads nowhere. . . . Occasionally, I’ve tried to force a song to come—by making myself sit with a guitar, play and sing. But whatever comes never seems to work as a song. (Carless, 2010, p. 134)

These accounts chime with how Jonny Saldaña teaches script and story writing and encourages the novice writer to avoid giving too much attention to things he or she wants to say as if on a mission. “Write with a message, moral or lesson in mind” Saldaña (2011) warns and it will most often result in “a heavy-handed, theme-driven fable rather than a character-inspired and story-driven drama” (p. 121). Likewise with a song, too much concern with a message or moral can produce a song that, in David’s terms, will not sing. And “the point” of writing a song is that it is sung. Songs (like stories) seek

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a life beyond the songwriter, songs need to performed and shared and found in public spaces. Songs seek bodies and voices and once turned loose take on a life of their own as songs can be shaped by the way they are sung, how they are performed and played, and who joins in. Singing I can’t ever remember not singing. Nor is there a time when I felt I “learned” to sing. I grew up watching my father’s band practice in our front room, and him singing with his brother or playing the saxophone and trumpet. Singing was just something that we did, as a family in the car, at church, at school in formal singing lessons, and in the playground. I spent hours and hours playing my parents’ records: Albums like Oklahoma, and A Hard Day’s Night, come to mind. I would just place on the turntable whatever was available and sang along. Sometimes I would write the lyrics down to learn them and sometimes I would make them up. Fast forward 30 years to David writing “A Little Rain” or performing/sharing other songs he had written during gigs in local music venues or to his fellow students in more private gatherings in each other’s homes. These informal occasions provided the impetuous, on the one hand, to experience the emotional wallop of a song while, on the other hand, because we were grappling with how to communicate our research more effectively, to explore songwriting and singing in our research. One aspect of this learning was how, unlike a research report, story, film, or play, a song leaves space for others to join in. In the case of “A little Rain,” there was room for me to harmonize, hum, or to tap a rhythm on the table before I learned the lyrics. Whether it is just additional voices singing the melody or voices bringing har­ monies, a song’s musicality can be expanded and enhanced by others. But, so too can those additional voices remind the singer that he’s not alone. So, while poets and storytellers might at times leave spaces for members of the public to make a contribution, songs invite and expect them.

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Added to this, unlike research reports and texts, songs get re­c­ orded, and during the recording process, as the singer lays down a lead vocal and lead guitar, there is an opportunity for other musicians to contribute additional sounds, rhythms, and pulses. These additions enhance and amplify the mood, message, and spirit of the song, as well as provide an opportunity for further collaboration and solidarity. Recording a song also makes it possible to embrace the potential of digital technology to provide access globally. A few years ago, after recording “Gwithian Sands,” (Douglas, 2013) David and I made the song accessible on YouTube. Sometime later, a Frenchman named Richard Robert, who I had never met, left a message (in French) asking for me to give him the song ly­rics and music so that he could perform the song within his community. His actions illustrate another of the powerful uses of a song over other forms of social science communication. Monsieur Robert could, by learning the lyrics and music, take the song, make it his own, and share the truth that was made manifest to him with people unknown to me. In doing so we have a possibility of sharing something that connects us across borders and languages. I have briefly shared some of the motives and uses of songwriting and singing for me. This was not intended to be a comprehensive account of the benefits of singing and songwriting. Rather, I hope it provides a backdrop to the circumstances surrounding my writing of the song “This Country.” Dividing the Kingdom In 2015, there were nightly news reports on BBC News showing beaches in Italy and Greece. What was unusual about these reports was, unlike the usual tourist setting, the beaches were engulfed by waves of small crafts as refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers fled from North Africa. In the following months, these stories were followed by reports about those who died making the journey. Typically, news reports showed shocking images of distraught surviving family members who had been plucked from the sea but who had witnessed the death of loved ones as boats sank or were

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submerged in rough seas. “Tell us what happened,” the reporters asked. And they did. I watched these stories unfold. I listened to the survivors, and I took the images into my memory, into my body. News reports over the coming months began to change as airtime was devoted to different questions. Who was responsible for these people now? What should “we” do? How best is it, to help? Where and who should make provision? Then came the stories about how some countries were closing their borders and refusing to host asylum seekers. Physical walls began to be erected to keep them out. Arguments surfaced over whether refugees “really” were refugees and if asylum seekers “really” were in danger of persecution “back home.” Might they just be coming to take our jobs, our homes, and to exploit our welfare system? What about our children? As the European Union (EU) and member states debated these questions in parliaments across Europe, and in the EU parliament in Strasbourg and Brussels, and as progress was made toward some provision, so too were the waves of discontent beginning to rise and gain velocity. Alongside all the debates and arguments, 20,000 or so refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers made a 2,000 kilometre trip to a small French town 33 kilometres from the British mainland, fuelled perhaps by a vision of hope that if they could just get over the channel to the UK, they might find refuge. The French town is Calais and sits on one side of the English Channel, or in France, pas de Calais. It’s a bustling town with a population of around 74,000. In its back garden is one of the busiest shipping routes and a hub for both cargo and passenger ferries. Around 40 times every day, ferries make this one-hour 30-minute crossing back and forth from France to England. Tantalizingly, for anyone trying to get to Britain, the coast is visible from the French shores and only 20 miles away. Arriving at Calais, migrants erected tents. Later they created make­ shift restaurants and built temporary libraries and places of worship. Over time their camp grew, sprawled, and became known as “the jungle.”

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In 2016 around 6,400 residents of the camp were evacuated by French police with the intention of resettling them across France. Human Rights Watch (2017) has since issued a report documenting the disruption of humanitarian aid, harassment of aid workers, and human rights abuses by French police. As the months rolled by, so did the people, and I noticed a greater unease in the UK as stories began to surface about refugees being given homes while citizens of the UK had to remain on waiting lists for housing. I read about our National Health Service’s (NHS) burgeoning waiting lists and listened to news reporters interviewing frustrated nationals who thought their illnesses and problems were being pushed down the NHS waiting list in favour of the refugees and immigrants. I heard stories about school provision being overburdened and the finger was again pointed at refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers. Then came stories about “British” jobs being lost, and who was to blame? Once again it was those running from persecution who became the scapegoats. Often too in the UK, the news reports carried stories suggesting EU policy was the problem, and some of my people began to distance “us” (those of us who have British nationality and are citizens of the European Union) from “them” (other European citizens ‘us’ who live in outside of the UK). Even our own British government was criticized for not being tough enough on asylum seekers, migrants, and refugees. On the 23rd June 2016, when a referendum was held to decide whether to leave the European Union, there was a huge amount of anger, frustration, and unrest in the UK. So much so that when the votes were counted 51.9% of those who signed the ballot paper had voted to leave (this number reflects that it was 71.8% of the population who voted, more than 30 million) with 48.1% wanting to remain (Hunt & Wheeler, 2016). Drink From the Well I began writing “This Country” in 2015 with the images, provocations, and questions about refugees and asylum seekers at loose in both my conscious and subconscious being.

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And I am ashamed I did nothing, other than feel it was all so wrong. I didn’t think about the crisis all the time, but deep within, at the bottom of my well, there was a dark sense of injustice, and an awareness of a black and fracturing division. I didn’t aim to write a song when I sat down on a nondescript morning in October in 2015. Like many mornings, I had begun by picking up my guitar and playing a few chords and attending, in the process of playing, to how the instrument sounded. I began with a couple of my own songs, followed by a song or two written by my favourite songwriters, songs like “Breathing Too Loud” (Carless, 2000) that fed my spirit but also created a mood where I could raise my voice. In this way, singing creates the type of space where I can notice and vent my emotions. Sometimes I am provoked to just make sounds that may appear to have no meaning but that connect to something within that needs to find expression. The human voice can be so fragile and expressive, and I am often moved by sounds I make, a long-held hum or note while I pick or strum communicates something that needs to be drawn from the well. My guitar can feel and sound quite different depending on the time of year, the type of house it’s living or staying in, the type of strings that I’ve put on and/or how long those strings have been on the guitar. When it’s feeling “good” my guitar seems to be more resonant and more woody compared to other times. Though, of course, it is a handmade acoustic guitar that is all wood, so it should sound woody. What I am aware of is it responds differently and offers a slightly warmer tone. On these occasions I can more easily find myself drawn to experiment with riffs and chord progressions that fit my mood. It’s as if I allow the instrument to speak with me and to me and perhaps for me and is reminiscent perhaps of how some of the songwriters in Zollo’s book say songs are hidden in the instrument waiting to be discovered. On this morning, I was hooked by a riff that triggered me to think about my country and its responses to the refugees. It brought back some of those images and conversations, but not the actual words, just a residue, dark and sad. I’d placed the capo high up the neck, raising the pitch and key while placing my fingers in an A minor chord shape. Minor chords are said to bring flavour, emotion

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and musical depth; they are also said to be darker moody chords. I seem to be drawn to the minor chords, as they pop up in a lot of my songs. Minor chords are the archaeologist to my songwriting, dusting the relic gently to expose what is there without breaking it. Perhaps in doing so these darker chords touch my fragility and expose the type of vulnerability David suggests is critical for writing a song that sings. As I picked one bass and three high strings, one after each other, a rhythm took shape, and as it did a flood of emotional connections to countries whose borders I am allowed to cross. As an EU citizen when I drive from France to Germany, and Germany to Portugal or France, I don’t need a passport, and I don’t change currency. I continued picking notes and I experienced doors shutting, standing in the rain and knocking. As words fell into the spaces so too a space emerged for me to strum and make a more discordant noise in the middle of the song, and then I returned to a mellow, reflective space to consider the things I take for granted. As I look now at my notebook, I see numerous crossings out and changing of words. The lyrics “numbing pain inside my head, heart on fire and feet of lead” seem to reveal a dilemma I felt. Perhaps the song is damning of myself, of my inaction and that of my country. But it also spoke to a political moment and a fracture brought clearly into focus through Brexit. This Country Copyright: Kitrina Douglas (2016) It’s my country, right or wrong Right now I feel as if I don’t belong ‘Cause there’s no pride it left me long before your call Are you listening to any of us all? The neurons of the brain collide against the soul A rotten apple never to be whole The selfish gene they tell us in our DNA My country full of people bent on making hay

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Step out in the rain with me Naive to think men are born free The numbing pain inside my head Heart on fire and feet of lead My history is written on your land Where kin before me took a bloody stand

A border crossing where some men they drew a line Shame you didn’t come here at some other time Step out in the rain with me Naive to think we are born free The numbing pain inside my head Doesn’t mean I’m really dead I want to breath I want to feel some cleaner air I want to run somewhere barefoot without a care But your vision face entombed within my mind I cannot claim that I am really blind Step out in the rain with me Make believe we are born free The numbing pain inside my head Heart on fire and feet of lead

A New Coat for the Rain The ping of an incoming message interrupted my thoughts at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, 5th June, 2018. In a previous message Marcelo had told me how much he loved that I had invited audience members to sing “This Country” with me during the “Singing in Troubled Times” panel. This time his message was a video. As I watched the film of Marcelo singing my song I was caught off guard by the power it. Marcelo had done a beautiful job making it his own. By removing the capo and playing that same A minor chord at the base of the neck he’d opened up a lower register to sing in a key that suited his voice. His guitar is a Spanish classical guitar,

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which also brought a different tonality and mood to the song. His playing style too is all Brazilian, and his picking and strumming influenced more by Bossa Nova, Samba, or perhaps Forro, compared with my very English picking style. To these he’d added slides and bass notes that I’d never thought of, but beautifully enhanced and coloured the song and its musicality. And then there was his pronunciation, Latin and slow, “It is my country” he sang, as opposed to “It’s my country” that I sing. Somehow a “truth” embedded in this song migrated those borders and languages that our politics and policies prohibit and in doing so it provided a powerful connection of harmony and fellowship, a type of magical coat that we can all wear, without withdrawing from the content and troubling themes in the song. He went on to tell me, I played it at a small gathering last night, little more practice now, and folks loved it. I introduced it with a little story about Brexit and people stopped to listen. And then talked about how they think it tells their own stories of how the USA has been highjacked by white nationalism and Trumpian times (personal communication from Marcelo Diversi, June 7, 2018).

I am humbled at the thought of someone wanting to play a song I have written. I am moved and humbled even further when I think of anyone stopping to listen to it when played thousands of miles away. It gives me a sense of hope. Billy Bragg once said music will not change the world but it can remind us that we are not alone. And perhaps, Bragg continued, we can be inspired to go out and at least try to make a difference (as cited in Fink, 2016). If a song I have penned plays any part in helping others feel less alone, or more connected or inspired to make a difference in the world, or to raise their voice against injustice, then perhaps my feet aren’t just lead.

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Acknowledgments My thanks go to the editors Norman and James, for inviting me to be part of this beautiful collection and creating space for songs at ICQI. David (Carless), thank you, again and again, for inspiring me to write songs, for sharing your songs with me and others in public spaces, and helping me understand more about the power of songs. And thank you Marcelo (Diversi), Claudio (Moreiera) and Elyse (Pineau) for singing with me so often at ICQI.

References Arts Health Network Canada. (2009). Advanced interdisciplinary research in singing. Retrieved from https://artshealthnetwork.ca/content /airs-advancing-interdisciplinary-research-singing Carless, D. (2005). We crossed the Tamar [Album]. Produced by David Carless, Green Room Studio. Bristol, UK. Carless, D. (2007). “Hope”: A musical performance autoethnography. Performance at International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, University of Illinois, 4-5 May. Champaign, IL: USA. Carless, D. (2010). The autoethnographic process: Starting a new story. In T. Muncey (Ed.), Creating autoethnographies (pp. 132–146). London, UK: SAGE. Thousand Oaks, CA Carless, D. (2017). It’s a leap of faith, writing a song. Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, 6(2), 99–106.  Carless, D., & Douglas, K. (2009). Songwriting and the creation of knowledge. In B. Bartleet & C. Ellis (Eds.), Music autoethnographies (pp. 1–16). Queensland, Australia: Australian Academic Press. Clift, S. M., & Hancox, G. (2001). The perceived benefits of singing.  Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health, 121(4), 248–256. doi:10.1177/146642400112100409  Douglas, K. (2013, October 8). Gwithian sands [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuUFDMLGfiE Douglas, K. (2017a, August 1). We crossed the Tamar [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4EGRN_bIw8&t=74s Douglas, K. (2017, February 9). “This country” a film by Kitrina Douglas and David Carless [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnaq-_YzVYA&feature=youtu.be

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Douglas, K., & Carless, C. (2018). Douglas, K., & Carless, C. (2018). The Long Run: A Story About Filmmaking as Qualitative Research. Qualitative Inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800418808549 online first Fink, M. (2016, November 7). Billy Bragg on Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Brexit, and the unifying power of music on a fast train. Under the Radar. Retrieved from http://www.undertheradarmag.com/interviews/billy_bragg_on_donald_trump_hillary_clinton_brexit_and_the_ unifying_power_o/ Frank, A. W. (2004). The renewal of generosity: Illness, medicine, and how to live. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Human Rights Watch. (2017, July 2017). “Like living in hell”: Police abuses against child and adult migrants in Calais. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/07/26/living-hell/ police-abuses-against-child-and-adult-migrants-calais Hunt, A., & Wheeler, B. (2016, October 16). Brexit: All you need to know about the UK leaving the EU. BBC News. Retrieved from https://www. bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32810887 Pelias, R. (2008). Performative inquiry: Embodiment and its challenges. In J. Knowles & A. Cole (Eds.) Handbook of the arts in qualitative research, (pp. 185–193). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Kreutz, G. (2014). Does singing facilitate social bonding? Music Med. 6, 51–60. Zollo, P. (2003). Song-writers on song-writing. Cincinnati, OH: Da Capo Press.

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chapter five

Tightrope Walking: Songs for Healing MARCELO DIVERSI

“O

Bebado e o Equilibrista” is a song by Joao Bosco, a beloved Brazilian musician, a master of the guitar, one of those sin­gers who sings with and through smiles. He means a lot to Brazilians of my generation, for he found ways to tell histories and stories of Brazil and its peoples that were not taught in school during the repressive military regime between the 1960s and 1980s. The first time I heard Joao Bosco playing this song I was 12 years old. It was 1979, and state-sponsored censorship was in full bloom across all sectors of Brazilian society, from the press to science to arts and education. Not surprisingly, music became a major site of resistance. As a result, several musicians of national expression were imprisoned, some exiled, and a few tortured. Joao Bosco escaped the harsher treatment of censorship and governmental repression, perhaps by some measure of luck, but certainly by writing lyrics criticizing the repressive regime in nuanced and allegorical ways. Like all artists of that era, he had to submit all compositions to the Ministry of Justice before songs could be performed in public venues, played on the radio, or recorded for commercial purposes. But I want to talk a bit more about the song, “O Bebado e o Equilibrista,” which roughly translates as something like “The Drunk and the Tightrope Walker,” before I examine the role of music in social resistance and protest against repression. 71

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I fell in love with the song right away. I fell in love with the rhythm; I fell in love with the lyrics, with images of sunsets, bridges falling, drunks dressed in black suits and top hats that looked like Charles Chaplin, with a verse that talks about the moon being like a brothel owner who asks each cold star to pay rent with a sparkle, with clouds so dark and heavy with brewing storms that they looked like they had tortured stains, images of happy people in costumes dancing on the streets with irreverence in the Brazilian night. Even at 12 years of age I knew Joao Bosco was not talking about the cosmological night, but about the sociological night. When he talked about longing for the return of brothers and people who left on a rocket’s tail, I knew he was talking about the artists, intellectuals, and activists who had been exiled for resisting oppression and state violence. When he sang, now with his eyes closed, about the gentle mother land crying, about Marias and Clarisses crying on Brazilian soil, I knew it was about the wives and daughters of those imprisoned, of those taken from their beds and homes in the dark of night, some never to return. And my heart filled with hope when he followed that verse with the certainty that a pain so poignant would not be useless or in vain. I loved the image of hope, the sentiment, dancing. Joao Bosco sang, “the” hope dances. It made me think of Charles Chaplin as “the” hope dancing, smiling, finding a way to subvert hate and machine guns with a drunken dance toward a happier horizon at the end of his movies. Joao Bosco said that “hope” would be dancing on a tightrope with an umbrella, even though “hope” was aware that it, she, he, us could get hurt at every step of the way. He called “hope” a tightrope walker who knows that the show must go on. I loved the images, the longing, the irreverence, the sadness that was not going to be useless or in vain. I have loved, ever since, the image of hope as a tightrope walker taking drunken steps toward something more gentle, umbrella in hand, dancing, balancing. The song was composed in December of 1977, right after Joao Bosco heard that Charles Chaplin had died. Joao Bosco admired Chaplin and his ability to bring smiles to some of the most horrific human stories, so with a friend, Aldir Blanc, he decided to compose a tribute song. At the time, however, every song had to go through the

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office of censorship before it could be recorded and publicly released. In a 2017 interview, Joao Bosco said, “They had no criteria for censorship—just some abstract rules, so we had to keep rewriting and resubmitting, driven by “that very strong will to put your idea into words. Sometimes it took you to an even higher level of creativity. And often, the censors lost and the song won” (Gavin, 2017). In early December of 2017, the Brazilian Federal Police carried a repressive operation against a public university that has stood as a powerful site of resistance and dissent against the return of the right in Brazil since the political coup of 2016. The police baptized the operation “Esperanca Equilibrista” (“tightrope walking hope” in Portuguese), the iconic line in Joao Bosco’s song. On the very next day after Operation Esperanca Equilibrista, Joao Bosco posted a statement on Facebook protesting the Brazilian federal police’s co-optation of his song’s iconic line and called us to return to songs of protest against authoritarian regimes as a way of resisting, hoping, and healing through music and its power to bring people together in harmony. Joao Bosco, I hear you! I hope you can hear him too.

Caía A tarde feito um viaduto E um bêbado trajando luto Me lembrou Carlitos A lua Tal qual a dona dum bordel Pedia a cada estrela fria Um brilho de aluguel E nuvens Lá no mata-borrão do céu Chupavam manchas torturadas Que sufoco! Louco, O bêbado com chapéu coco Fazia irreverências mil Pra noite do Brasil

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New Directions: The Arts Meu Brasil Que sonha Com a volta do irmão do Henfil Com tanta gente que partiu Num rabo de foguete Chora A nossa pátria mãe gentil Choram Marias e Clarices No solo do Brasil Mas sei Que uma dor assim pungente Não há de ser inutilmente A esperança Dança Na corda bamba de sombrinha E em cada passo dessa linha Pode se machucar Azar A esperança equilibrista Sabe que o show de todo artista Tem que continuar

Here is my approximate translation to English, with some annotations for context: The afternoon fell as an overpass [a bridge had just fallen and killed several people that year] And a drunk in mourning It reminded me of Carlitos [this is how Brazilians call Charles Chaplin with a tone of affection] The moon Just like the owner of a brothel Asked every cold star For a rental payment in form of brightness And clouds There in the sky blotter

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Tightrope Walking They painted tortured stains What a nightmare Crazy, The drunk with a coconut hat It made a thousand irreverences To the night of Brazil My Brazil A Brazil that dreams With the return of Henfil’s brother With so many people leaving In a rocket tail Cry Our gentle motherland Cry Marias and Clarices On Brazilian soil But I know That a pain so poignant Will not be useless The hope Dances On the tightrope with an umbrella And at every step of that line Can get hurt Bad luck The Balancing Hope Knows that the show of every artist Must go on

References Gavin, J. (2017, April 30). Passion and politics in João Bosco’s Brazilian rhythms. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com /2017/04/30/arts/music/joao-bosco-birdland-interview.html

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chapter six

Our Ethical Responsibility to Refine Art-Based Research Definitions DAFNA MORIYA , PH.D.

Introduction

T

he integration of art and research is becoming increasingly common in various academic disciplines. This growth mandates raising awareness among researchers as to the unique ethical considerations related to the use of art. However, the current discussion of the subject involves an inherent problem: various sources are referring to different kinds of research when they use the term ArtBased Research (ABR). The definition of “real” ABR is a source of heated debate in the literature and at professional conferences. In order for our discussions to potentially contribute to the accumulation of meaningful knowledge that will in turn inform ethical practice, we must define what kind of ABR we are discussing each time. The rising popularity of practicing ABR and the expansion of the related literature necessitate a new perspective. Since the current definitions overlap and sometimes contradict each other, it is time to standardize—as far as possible—a method for identifying and differentiating between the various kinds of ABR. 77

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In this paper I suggest a pragmatic classification which may overcome differences in philosophies and cross disciplinary boundaries, so that we can systematically accumulate knowledge and experience, in order to better collaborate and advance the ethical practice of ABR.

Special Ethical Considerations When Art Is Integrated in Research Diverse academic disciplines are increasingly integrating art in their research practices. This welcome development makes it necessary to keep researchers apprised of various aspects that need to be taken into consideration. While the incorporation of art in research deepens and enhances it in special ways, it also raises many unique ethi­ cal issues. Therefore, when artwork is used as part of research, distinct ethical issues should be thought out and approached differently from the standard code of ethics. This begins with the participant’s informed consent and issues of confidentiality (Leavy, 2017; Moriya, 2020; Viega, 2016) includes the choices of if, when, and how to discuss the artwork (Moriya, 2018), and continues through presentation of the research results. For example, when research participants are asked to create artwork, a concrete object is formed in addition to the usual data. The questions raised include Who owns the artwork? How long should the researcher save it? Is it appropriate to present it to an audience? And if so, what is the appropriate procedure for receiving the participants’ informed consent? (Hammond & Gantt, 1998; Malchiodi, 1995; Moriya, 2020; Spaniol, 1994). Furthermore, the researcher must ensure that participants understand that the artwork is not merely a recreational activity and will be used as research data. Since the artwork may stir up strong emotional reactions, the researcher must also evaluate the possible emotional effects and be prepared to provide care for the participants if needed (Kapitan, 2010; Moriya, 2006). Each of these issues is discussed in the literature and deserves further examination. However, the inherent problem in many of the

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discussions must be resolved in order for future discussions to bear professional significance. The problem is that notions of what constitutes ABR greatly vary in professional journals, books, and even conversations among colleagues. Since ethical considerations may differ for different kinds of ABR, each kind warrants a separate discussion.

The Various Names and Definitions of Art-Based Research In order to address the various ethical issues related to ABR, we must refine our definitions of the specific kind of ABR. The conundrum first became evident to me in the following anecdote: I attended a meeting with a new colleague. The ice was broken very quickly as soon as I mentioned art-based research. “I do ABR, too,” she said. However, upon further discussion, we discovered we were engaging in essentially different practices and each calling it ABR. My colleague was studying the evolvement of how Israeli soldiers have been represented in the theater throughout the years and its connection to historical events. Her data was based on other people’s artwork (plays), and she used qualitative research methods to analyze it (Barkai, 2012). My study, on the other hand, involved an introspective process of using painting for problem solving. My data generation and data analysis relied on my own paintings (Moriya, 2015). Both our studies involved art and research, but in vastly different ways. Not only were we both convinced that we were doing “real” ABR, but each of us also shared this conviction with others in our own professional community and was able to back it up with professional literature. In fact, no single definition exists for art-based research. ABR is evolving simultaneously in various countries and in different disciplines. Consequently, the same term is often used for a wide range of methodologies that sometimes fundamentally differ; and, conversely, some similar methodologies have been assigned different names. Art-based research, arts-based inquiry, practice-led research, practice-based research, arts-informed research, artistic inquiry, image-based research, visual sociology, and a/r/tography are just a

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partial list. Most of these names have different definitions in different sources (Knowles & Promislow, 2008; McNiff, 2011; Rolling, 2010; Sullivan, 2010).

The Current Discussion of Ethical Issues in Art-Based Research The dictionary definition of ethics, according to the Oxford Dictionary (2018), is “[m]oral principles that govern a person’s behavior or the conducting of an activity.” In order to develop, study, and discuss these “moral principles,” it is no less than our ethical responsibility to be clear about the nature of the activity in question. Two main ethical domains are usually referred to in relation to ABR: The first domain is safeguarding the welfare of the research participants, people related to them, and the audience (e.g., protecting their confidentiality and privacy). The second domain is guarding the reliability and integrity of the research (e.g., aspiring to authenticity and transparency) (Moriya, 2020). However, the ethical code cannot be “one size fits all.” It has to be carefully tailored for different kinds of ABR. Specific ethical considerations are required for studies like my colleague’s research on theater, my own introspective research, and research in which participants create art. This may be demonstrated by the ethical conduct regarding the controversial issue of who owns the artwork or questions concerning exhibition of the artwork. In my colleague’s study, the artworks—theater plays—had already been published, so the playwrights clearly owned their artwork. In this case, the researcher may need to be mindful of copyrights, but no ethical issue exists around making the artwork public. In my kind of study, the researcher owns the artwork and therefore has the freedom to use and publish it. In studies in which participants create art, much thought should be devoted to the question of who owns the artwork, how to receive informed consent from participants, and if it is even ethical to publish the artwork at all.

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Refining Art-Based Research Definitions The definition of “real” ABR is a source of heated debate in the literature and at professional conferences. I think that the scale to which ABR has expanded requires that we outgrow that controversy. I do not propose that all ABR is the same. On the contrary, I suggest that since the current definitions overlap and sometimes contradict each other, it is time to use a new method for identifying and differentiating between the various kinds of ABR. I recommend that we use the broad term “ABR” for any kind of research that is at least partially based on art. In this broad definition I would include studies in which art is used as a method as well as studies in which art is used as a methodology. In order to differentiate between the many kinds of ABR, I propose classifying the various studies pragmatically, based on the role that art plays in the study, regardless of theory, the discipline, or any other perspective. A distinct, targeted discussion is required for each of the following types of research: when art is integrated in the data collection stage, in the data analysis stage, as part of the presentation of findings or, of course, in more than one stage.

Art in the Data Collection Stage Art can be integrated in the data collection stage in a number of ways: as the research subject, as a source of information about the research subject, and/or as a tool for evoking information related to the research subject. Researchers in disciplines like art history focus on studying aspects of the artwork, as a subject unto itself. Other researchers are not interested in the qualities of the artwork as a focal point, but rather study the artwork as a means of learning about historical processes or individual biographies. My colleague’s study, as discussed earlier in this paper, used theater plays to learn about a psychological-sociological phenomenon. Artwork can also be used as a trigger to elicit a participant’s response.

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In all of these cases, preexisting artwork informs the research. However, in other studies the artwork is created for the research, either by the researcher, like in my study that I mentioned earlier, or by the participants (Moriya, 2020). For the purpose of discussing ethical issues related to ABR, I suggest dividing ABR with art in the data collection stage into three categories: 1. ABR that uses pre-existing artwork (as data or for data generation) 2. ABR that uses artwork created by the researcher (as data or for data generation) 3. ABR that uses artwork created by participants (as data or for data generation) If participants create art, the ethical conduct should address possible publication of the artwork in addition to issues regarding their participation in the study, such as informed consent, safety, and so on.

Creating Art for Data Analysis Once the data has been collected, either in a manner involving art or not, the data analysis can be quantitative, qualitative, artistic, or mixed. If artwork is used by the researcher to help make sense of the data, ethical issues regarding the reliability/integrity of the research and aspiring to authenticity and transparency should be addressed.

Creating Art for Results Presentation In many studies, art is incorporated into presentation of the research results. The use of art allows researchers to demonstrate and present the research findings in a more accessible form to a wide audience than formal academic writing. This raises specific considerations regarding the confidentiality of the participants and people related to

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them, as well as precautions regarding the possible effect of the artwork on the audience. To summarize: I suggest that the term ABR may be applied to any research study that involves art, in one or more of the following categories: 1.  Preexisting art in the data collection stage 2. Art created by research participants in the data collection stage 3. Art created by the researcher in the data collection stage 4. Art created by the researcher in the data analysis stage 5. Art created by the researcher for results presentation

Conclusion The current definitions of art-based research overlap and sometimes contradict each other. In order to develop, study, and discuss this accumulated knowledge regarding various aspects of ABR, including ethical issues, we must clarify what kind of ABR are we referring to each time. Refining the definitions is no less than our ethical responsibility. On one hand I propose that we use the term “ABR” to refer to any research that involves art and put aside the old rivalry as to which is the “real” ABR. At the same time, I suggest we differentiate between diverse kinds of ABR according to the ways in which the art is used in research, in order to be more precise in our discussion of ethical issues. Art often plays more than one role, and the effects of this combination should also be taken into consideration. In this paper I have proposed a pragmatic classification system, which may overcome differences in philosophies and cross disciplinary boundaries, so that we can collaborate and systematically accumulate knowledge and experience in order to advance the ethical practice of art-based research.1 1. As I realize that many of us are passionate about our view of art-based research, I invite you to join me in this discussion. Comments and responses will be appreciated. Please write to [email protected].

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References Barkai, S. (2012). A stage for masculinities: Representations of Israeli soldiers in the theater (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel. Hammond, L. C., & Gantt, L. (1998). Using art in counseling: Ethical considerations. Journal of Counseling and Development, 76(3), 271–276. doi:10.1002/j.1556-6676.1998.tb02542.x Kapitan, L. (2010). An Introduction to Art Therapy Research. New York, NY: Routledge. Knowles, J. G., & Promislow, S. (2008). Using an arts methodology to create a thesis or dissertation. In J.G. Knowles & A.L. Cole (Eds.), Handbook of the arts in qualitative research (pp. 511–526). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Leavy, P. (Ed.). (2017). Handbook of arts-based research. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Malchiodi, C. A. (1995). Who owns the art? An ethical question for art therapists and clinicians. ED 388 916. Retrieved from https://files.eric. ed.gov/fulltext/ED388916.pdf McNiff, S. (2011). Artistic expressions as primary modes of inquiry. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 39(5), 385–396. doi:10.1080/0306 9885.2011.621526 Moriya, D. (2006). Ethical issues in school art therapy. Art Therapy, 23(2), 59–65. Moriya, D. (2015). Diving into the process of creating a painting: An exploratory study of problem solving for leaders (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. (UMI No. 1710050133) Moriya, D. (2018). Navigating visual imagery and verbalization in the­ rapy, ABR and problem solving. Ramat Hasharon, Israel: Center for Art-Based Research and Change. Moriya, D. (2020). New lenses for art-based research (temporary name; manuscript in preparation). Ramat Hasharon, Israel: Center for ArtBased Research and Change. Oxford Living Dictionaries. (2018). Ethics. Retrieved from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/ethics Rolling, J. H. (2010). A paradigm analysis of arts-based research and implications for education. Studies in Art Education, 51(2), 102–114.

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Spaniol, S. E. (1994). Confidentiality reexamined: Negotiating use of art by clients. American Journal of Art Therapy, 32(3), 69–74. Sullivan, G. (2010). Art practice as research: Inquiry in the visual arts (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Viega, M. (2016). Science as art: Axiology as a central component in metho­dology and evaluation of arts-based research (ABR). Music Therapy Perspectives, 34(1), 4–13.

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chapter seven

Disinterestedness as a Post-Qualitative Criterion for the Ethical Practice of Arts-Based Research RICHARD SIEGESMUND

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o the modern mind, the aesthetic concept of disinterestedness is a comic, ironic trope. It was famously popularized in the American television series Seinfeld, a comedy that sought to find humor in nothingness. Here, the perpetual disinterestedness of the main characters rendered them ethically rudderless and savagely ironic, much to the audience’s delight. In this chapter, I wish to return to the 18th-century aesthetic and ethical origins of the concept of disinterestedness, when it was considered a serious analytic stance. I do so because anthropologist Clifford Geertz (2000) reintroduced the term as a solution to morally insensitive quantitative research and overly narcissistic qualitative methods. For Geertz, disinterestedness is not an ironic stance. He reconfigures disinterestedness as a move that holds the potential to move beyond the dichotomy of objectivity and subjectivity. Although Geertz’s analysis of disinterestedness was originally published in 1968 and then republished in an anthology of his essays in 2000, his insights resonate in post-qualitative methods (Lather & 87

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St. Pierre, 2013), such as arts-based research (ABR), that, arguably, also seek new pathways beyond the hackneyed binary of objectivity and subjectivity. As new materialisms frame social engagements as authentic embodied entanglements of reciprocal agency (Barad, 2007; Rosiek 2018)), it is possible to see Geertz’s earlier reconceptualization of disinterestedness as a criterion for the assessment of the quality of ethical engagement in works of ABR. It provides a method that contributes to the researcher’s engagement with different apparatuses that bring post-qualitative work into appearance. This holds the promise of an ethical approach to what Patti Lather (2016) calls a “post-epistemological science in the quest for the science possible after the critiques of science” (p. 125).

Modern Arts and Ethics ABR both reaffirms and challenges conceptions of ethics as they have come to be reified in the social sciences, particularly through the practice of the institutional review board (IRB). The IRB came into existence in part because of what was perceived to be ethical abuses in the practice of social science. Famous cases like the Stanford Prison Experiment (Zimbardo, 2007) that resulted in mental and physical anguish of participants, are cited as benchmark examples of the unreflective infliction of harm. IRB review was instituted to ward off such abuses. Social science research now mandates participant consent, the maintenance of confidentiality or anonymity, and description of potential risks to participants that include ethical, physical, psychological, and emotional risks. A study exposing participants to ridicule is unacceptable. A study in which participants are intentionally harmed is unacceptable. However, all of this is fair play in the arts. Therefore, the rapidly expanding field of ABR has the potential of introducing troubling ethical issues into the social sciences. In this chapter, I draw on examples from postmodern art as validated within our contemporary art world (Becker, 1982), the amorphous network of apparently culturally significant exhibition venues, commercial galleries, and collectors who ascribe value to

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cultural production. As a first example, in 2000 the Spanish ar­tist Santiago Sierra performed his work 160 cm Line Tattooed on 4 People in Salamanca, Spain. For this piece, Sierra hired, for a wage equivalent to the street value of a shot of heroin, four addicted prostitutes. For the prostitutes, Sierra’s wage was roughly equivalent to an evening’s revenue. The Tate Modern in London, which holds a video tape of this performance art work, offers this curatorial description of the work: The single-channel black and white video constitutes an informal record of the event in which the four participating women allow their backs to be used for the tattoo. It shows the women—two fair haired and two dark haired—arrive in the space and take up positions, naked from the waist up and with their backs towards the camera, straddling black bentwood chairs. During the action they move constantly, chatting, laughing, smoking, turning to look behind them, curiously watching the female tattoo artist and commenting on her processes until, finally, she cleans their wounds and covers them with bandages. During the film, two men in dark clothes pass in and out of the frame, holding a tape measure over the bared backs for the initial measurement and taking photographs of the process as it develops. . . . By turning the process of exploitation into a spectacle, viewed in a gallery or museum, Sierra causes the institution to collaborate in relations of power and economics, thus highlighting the ubiquity and inevitability of such relations and raising a number of related ethical questions. By enabling heroin addicts to have more heroin, as in 160 cm Line Tattooed on 4 People ... and a work made a few months previously 10 inch line shaved on the heads of two junkies who received a shot of heroin as payment, Sierra himself enters an ethically ambiguous situation in which the artworld participates by purchasing his art product. Focusing on the extremely poor and disadvantaged, Sierra’s works emphasise the tension between the choice of the participants to undertake the tasks for a wage, and their lack of choice owing to their economic situation and neglected medical conditions. The actions he instigates are metaphors—or poetic equivalents—for all the poorly paid jobs backing the structure of the global market economy. (Manchester, 2006)

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In this example, multiple violations of IRB protocol occur. The participants are subjected to a body scarring experience in order to be objectified in the artist’s research. The sole benefit to the participants is a lump sum payment that the artist intends to help them facilitate their life-threatening addiction—further placing their safety at risk. There is no attempt to disguise identity. All of this is excused because this work of fine art is intended for a fine arts audience, even though the artist claims that the art work is an attempt to bring social science issues into discussion. There is no ethical concern for the participants. This demonstrates a potential challenge for social science researchers who wish to claim ABR as a methodology by replicating acceptable research practices from the fine arts. A second problematic example can be seen in the noteworthy 1974 work by acclaimed performance artist Marina Abramovic entitled Rhythm 0. In this piece, Abramovic stood, unmoving, in the gallery for six hours. On the table in the gallery she had displayed 72 objects that audience members could use on her however they wished. These items formed collections that could inflict harm (a gun, bullet, whip, pocket knife, axe, hammer, nails, needle, safety pin, razor blades, scissors, scalpel, and a kitchen knife), beautify (comb, perfume, lipstick, hairpin, and mirror), decorate (blue paint, red paint, white paint feather, brush, white paper, flowers, polaroid camera), and nourish (bread, cake, grapes, lamb bone, wine, honey, salt, and sugar). Of these items, objects that could evoke injury predominated. In anticipation of the direction of this performance, Abramovic also included medical bandages, alcohol, and Band-Aids. During the course of this six-hour performance, the audience stripped Abramovic naked. One person cut her neck and sucked her blood. Men lifted her up, placed her horizontally on the table, and drove the axe between her legs. One member of the audience loaded the pistol, placed the gun in Abramovic’s hand and as he was beginning to wrap her finger around the trigger; another member of the audience pushed him away and threw away the gun. Abramovic later said she was convinced the audience would kill her, but her art—her aesthetic ideal—demanded she complete the performance even though it might lead to her own death. This is a far cry from

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the Stanford Prison Experiment that was terminated because of the psychological harm it was causing its participants. With Abramovic, her work was intended to ethically provoke. If in so doing, her art work resulted in physical harm or even her death, it is what her aesthetic vision demanded. Abramovic’s example again demonstrates an artist’s claim to unrestrained aesthetic independence. This should be cause for reflection on how we conceptualize the practice of ABR. Such positions are not aesthetic aberrations. Chris Burden also celebrated the willingness to self-inflict bodily harm in pursuit of an aesthetic experience in his iconic 1971 performance piece Shoot. Unlike Abramovic, Burden did not intend to risk personal death. In a stark minimalist performance within an exhibition gallery, he had a friend (a trained marksperson) shoot him in the arm. The video of this performance is a benchmark of postmodernism and Burden would go on to achieve recognition as one of the most important conceptual artists of the latter half of the 20th century. These three examples demonstrate that modernism is based on the disruption of ethics. Through the modernist lens, convention and morality constrain the ability to think the new. Therefore, the intentional disturbing of ethics—breaking the rules, crossing the line—is often considered a necessity for the advancement of art. This has been going on for a long time. In 1862, the French painter Edouard Manet shocked Paris with his painting Luncheon on the Grass that depicted two fully clothed young men picnicking in the park, while their companion—a naked young woman—stares out of the canvas at the viewer. Luncheon on the Grass now hangs in a central gallery of the Musée D’Orsay in Paris. Fully aware of this long history, in 1991 the American artist Jeff Koons reprised Manet’s painting with a photograph of himself, fully naked, performing cunnilingus on his wife (the Italian porn star La Cicciolina) in a pastoral setting. Koons’s revisionist Luncheon shocked the New York art scene when it debuted in a private gallery. It would take Koons nearly 20 years for his work to finally win acceptance by being exhibited in one of city’s museums despite the local “progressive” cultural climate. However, Koons’s desire to push the ethical boundaries of fine art were tame compared to other late 20th-century artists who

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sought to shock for the purpose of forcing society to confront new political and social realities. This was particularly evident at the time of the AIDs pandemic in the 1980s. Representative for the art from this period is the work of the San Francisco Bay Area painter Jerome Caja that was meant to provoke in its subject matter and the materials. Caja deliberately insisted that his work could not be reconciled and subsumed by artistic norms. As an example, the transgressive quality of his figurative painting Bozo Fucks Death is not just in the image depicted, but in the very materiality of the piece itself. All of the materials that compose the piece accentuate the abject quality of the work that is meant to violate all social norms. This includes challenging the materials considered allowable for making art. In this particular work, the foundation for the painting is a black plastic tip tray that one finds in inexpensive restaurants where servers struggle to make a living wage. The image is created with nail polish and white-out typing correction fluid: impoverished, brute, materials. These are used to produce an image of a leering Bozo having anal sex with a giggling skeletal figure of death grasping a crucifix. Everything about the work is meant to shock us from our sense out of our normal comfort zone and render us uncertain and ethically unsettled.

The Concept That Art is Autonomous This increasingly transgressive quality of modern art has its roots in the 18th century that held that art had its own autonomy: art existed outside of the boundaries of conventional rationality and logic. The call for the autonomy of art—to insist that it can break rules, that it shocks us, confronts us, and perhaps frightens us with the unpleasant truths of who we are and who we might be—continues to the present day. This point of view is frequently associated with the philosophical position put forward by Immanuel Kant (1790/1987) in his Third Critique of 1790 in which he maintained the following: Fine art . . . is a way of presenting that is purposive on its own and that furthers, even though without a purpose, the culture of our mental

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powers to [facilitate] social communication. (Kant, 1790/1987, p. 173, emphasis added)

The contemporary philosopher Casey Haskins (1989) has summarized Kant’s argument in the Third Critique as follows: Works of art are objects which occasion an aesthetic response in spectators. This response, whose subject source is the free play or harmony of the cognitive faculties of imagination and understanding, is characterized, according to Kant, by a feeling of pleasure when one reflects on an object without thinking of it as a means to an end external to the object itself. (p. 44, emphasis added)

By proposing that art was a realm of free play with no responsibility to objective ends (such as antecedent research questions), art was free to color outside of the lines. Any constraint was antithetical to the idea of art. This Kantian declaration remains an impor­ tant underpinning to many new directions in ABR as there are now over 200 years of aesthetic theory that have elevated Kant’s original arguments as fine arts doctrine. For example, following a Kantian interpretation, Koons maintained that he is a liberator by making museums safe places to exhibit pornography—he is just helping us drop our pretenses and allows us to see the purposeless images of free play that we really wanted to see all along. Artificial ethical constraints did not allow this work to be formally recognized. Focusing on the free play of the imagination divorced from purposive constraints has entered the discourse around ABR. In an important contribution to the theory of ABR, Donal O’Donoghue (2009) asked Are We Asking the Wrong Questions in ArtsBased Research? He questioned the conceptual limitations that we place on ABR when we approach it—as early ABR theorists like Tom Barone and Elliot Eisner (2012) did—as pushing the limits of the envelope but nevertheless residing in social science. O’Donoghue posed the question of why do we not conceptualize ABR as belonging to artistic traditions that reject the constraints of social science as limiting our ability to think and imagine anew? Why, when the arts are autonomous, should we worry—as Eisner and

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Barone have—about maintaining a method that social scientists would find credible? As an example of the potential of a new path, O’Donoghue cited the 1999 work by the Chinese artist Huang Yong Ping, Theater of the World. Presented at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 2007, the work consists of a contained chamber where insects, serpents, and lizards follow a natural pattern of predatory behaviors. Living creatures die while under observation of a museum audience. The display offers an entomological spectacle. O’Donoghue noted that the exhibition was cut short as the British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals issued legally binding orders constraining the way the Theater of the World could be displayed. The artist considered these restrictions as altering the aesthetic content of the work and removed it from exhibition. This scenario was repeated in 2017 when the Guggenheim Museum in New York City sought to exhibit the work, only this time, the Guggenheim removed the work from public view after receiving what it considered to be credible bomb threats from animal rights activists. O’Donoghue (2009) argued that the 2007 Vancouver exhibition— and no doubt the 2017 Guggenheim Museum exhibition—“raises important questions about artistic freedom and about the right and role of a major visual arts institution to show work of a contemporary artist” (p. 363). Continuing, O’Donoghue (2009) went on to state that the problem related to the potential of limiting an artist’s research by expecting an artist to conform research to societal expectations: “For me, it raises the question, who is the producer of this work? (p. 363)” In this case, the purposed constraints of animal welfare organizations and activities—the ethical constraints—inhibited the artist’s free play and thus undermined the potential of these aesthetic works to strive for new forms of Kantian social communication. Those ethical constraints forced limitations on the work that altered how it could be visually experienced. In this case, our social rules for ethical dialogue potentially inhibited a deeper dialogue into ethics. The traditional Kantian defense of Theater of the World would be, as an aesthetic work, that the rules and regulations of conventional rationality cannot bind it. To properly encounter Theater of the

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World, conventional sets of ethics should be set aside as the aesthetic privilege of the artist should be unquestionably accepted. Ideally, Theater of the World might trigger a deeper discussion of ethics, but then there is no guarantee that audiences would see past the visceral pleasures of spectacle and rise to a higher level of consciousness to engage in a deeper discussion. Grounded in the fine arts, ABR seeks its methodological foundations by using such works as exemplars and is not operating within the conventional methodological parameters of social science qualitative inquiry. Instead, it is a conscious interloper and a deliberate provocateur of norms that works against the established rules of conduct (Jagodzinski & Wallin, 2013). Similar issues are associated with Jim Goldberg’s landmark photographic study Raised by Wolves (Goldberg, 1995), in which Goldberg collaborated with homeless runaway minors in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Although employing what we would now refer to as a photovoice methodology of allowing his participants to photograph themselves and their social interactions, Goldberg maintained that his work was fictional. He claimed that his participants fully understood the documentary power of a camera. Therefore, they were not exposing their authentic selves. His young participants were aware that —working with Goldberg—the photographs they produced would then come under the gaze of viewers who they would never know: viewers who would never know—or care—about them. Therefore, the children did not see the task as recording something truthful about themselves. Instead they perceived this as an opportunity to pose and posture in roles that they thought would conform to what these future hypothetical viewers would imagine to be the scandalous activities of runaway minors. Consequently, the pictures these children produced emphasized drug use and sex. Furthermore, as Goldberg saw his project as aesthetic, he was not bound by any obligation to report his activities with these homeless minor children to Child Protective Services. He projected his role as weaving the reality of these children’s lives into the aesthetic fantasy they portrayed. Therefore, Raised by Wolves was a work of fine art; it was not to be interpreted through the lens of social science.

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These issues become increasingly complex as artists move into more social forms of practice. The British artist Jeremy Deller restaged, as an aesthetic work of art, a labor struggle, entitled the Battle of Orgreave, between miners and police in Yorkshire, England. The actual Battle of Orgreave occurred on June 18, 1984 and in the ensuing riots, 123 individuals were injured. Afterward, 71 individuals were charged with violent disorder. Eventually all were acquitted, and the South Yorkshire Police paid fines in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for wrongful arrest and malicious prosecution. In 2001 Deller created a reenactment of the battle, employing many of the original participants. Here the artist dismissed any possible responsibility on inflicting trauma on participants or nonparticipants of Orgreave for reopening this open wound in the community. The artist reverted to the claim of aesthetic autonomy that rose above any possible ethical concerns in the staged reenactment. The art critic Claire Bishop (2006) called the work “politically legible and utterly pointless,” and its only aesthetic dimension “a twisted therapeutic element” (p. 184). However, as Deller claimed artistic autonomy, he felt he had no obligations to address the social disruptions his work caused.

From Artistry to ABR In the not too distant past, these fine art works, all validated at the highest levels of artworld—would be classified as artistry and not research. Indeed, artists like Goldberg distanced themselves from the concept of research. But recent social factors have reconceptualized art practice as research—something quite different from Eisner and Barone’s initial project of weaving the arts into social science. Academically, fine arts is currently migrating to the Ph.D. in studio practice as its terminal degree. This change is already well established in Europe and Australia, although it is being resisted in the United States, which wants to hold on to the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) as the terminal degree in the arts. Therefore, fine arts studio interests wish to claim ABR as stemming from its own practices and

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establish it as a research methodology that elevates the Ph.D. in studio practice course work above the traditional requirements associated with the Master in Fine Arts (which can be more technically focused). As a result, ABR as it is evolving through the Ph.D. studio practice intentionally and insistently remains outside of the ethical concerns that bind the Ph.D.in social science and ABR practices that attempt to work within the social science paradigm. Consequently, an ABR research practice through the PhD studio practice is not bound by IRB regulations; an ABR research project through a social science Ph.D. is. As a result, there are now two tracks of ABR, and the traditional norms for ethical conduct in research no longer apply to one of the two tracks. However, ABR studio practice researchers who engage in socially responsible art may choose voluntarily to follow ethical practice guidelines.

Rethinking Ethical Approaches in Artistry Historically, as the field of aesthetics emerged in the 18th century, philosophers noticed that the interest of divesting the arts from external ethical control raised a possible problem. There needed to be a way to address the responsibility of art. Interestingly enough, Immanuel Kant (1790/1987) in proposing the purposelessness of art, anticipated this problem, and his original solution perhaps offers a direction for our post-qualitative judgments about the autonomy of art. In the Third Critique, Kant proposed the concept of disinterestedness as a necessary detachment from subjective feeling that permits an accurate appraisal of beauty. Just as with the case with purposelessness of art, disinterestedness has spawned a 200-year literature. For example, the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (Bourdieu, 1984) attributed negative social effects to the concept of disinterestedness as, in his opinion, it produced the deleterious attitudes of regarding the arts as merely forms of cultural capital—an objectification of the arts for crass displays of social advancement. Furthermore, deconstruction challenged the concept of disinterestedness, arguing that its suggestion that

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there was inherent value in the artwork that transcends personal subjectivity facilitated totalizing and colonizing theories of culture (Spivak, 2012). However, the dominant 20th-century interpretation of disinterestedness has associated it with leading to an ironic stance toward life and the construction of meaning. The American neo-pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty (1989) acknowledged the ironic stance as a postmodern condition. He argued that the only logical stance one could assume in the wake of deconstruction—that challenged any fixed meaning—was irony. In Rorty’s view, a contingent reality demanded an ironic response. However, he acknowledged the disastrous potential for irony to destroy communities of dialogue. Thus, the struggle after deconstruction was to find a way back to an authentic form of what Rorty termed solidarity. This struggle to find a new kind of solidarity is evident in the evolution of the work of Mariana Abramovic and Jim Goldberg. Abramovic’s early performance work, as cited earlier, presented her body as a passive object for exploitation. However, in 2010 she received international art world and popular acclaim for the work The Artist is Present. The Museum of Modern Art in New York describes the work as follows: The work was inspired by her belief that stretching the length of a performance beyond expectations serves to alter our perception of time and foster a deeper engagement in the experience. Seated silently at a wooden table across from an empty chair, she waited as people took turns sitting in the chair and locking eyes with her. Over the course of nearly three months, for eight hours a day, she met the gaze of 1,000 strangers, many of whom were moved to tears. (MOMA Learning, 2010)

Independent photographer Marco Anelli anticipated that individuals who participated in this artistic performance would be emotionally moved and documented the time lapse between the moment he took the picture and when each participant first sat down facing Abramovic. Frequently, the moment of Anelli’s photographs are when participants shed their first tear (Anelli, 2012). Anelli’s photographs

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capture the goal of Abramovic’s work: an intense, nonthreatening, personal experience that while utterly purposeless, brings an individual into a moment of intense human relationship. A rising concern with the experience of human relationship also characterizes the recent work of Jim Goldberg. In his series entitled Open See (Goldberg, 2009), he continued to use his adaptive photovoice method in order to bring attention to the international refugee crisis. He no longer justified his practice in an aesthetically distanced argument. Instead, he has moved to a more social science concern for bringing issues of human injustice and suffering into a broader dialogue. In an example from one of the works from the Open See series that typifies his creative method, he photographed a 17-year-old Moldavian girl in a women’s shelter in Athens, Greece. At the time of the photograph, she had just escaped from three years of being a victim of sex trafficking. In the image, she holds a Barbie-style doll over her face so that only one of her eyes is visible. Over the doll that disguises her, she peers out at the camera. After Goldberg shot and developed the initial picture, he allowed her to use markers and paint to decorate the photographic print as she desired. She inscribed her arms with symbols, framed the picture in a decorative arrangement of red dots, and wrote a message around her figure. For the writing, she alternated between green, blue, and yellow markers. On a separate page, she translated her writing into broken English: I left Moldavia for Turkey. I 14 yrs. With promise work I stayed 3 days and beaten up and drugged and they give me Hep C. They sold me to Greece man for sex for money. Now I am in Greece and I free thanks to good people. I no for sale any more.

While Goldberg continues to exhibit his work in elite art galleries, the work is no longer about casting an ironic eye on social reality, but an effort to connect to human suffering and resilience. These two examples from Abramovic and Goldberg demonstrate how contemporary studio practices have begun to problematize the classic position of insisting on the autonomy of art. As socially engaged artists pursue more ethically driven methods—methods that take into account human and nonhuman relationships—the

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traditional argument that art remains autonomous from traditional social science ethical constraints becomes more problematic. Therefore, ABR that takes its cue from fine arts practice needs to find a language through which it can accommodate ethical concerns without raising the specter of undermining the methodology of ABR.

A Post-Qualitative Approach to Disinterestedness In a collection of writings, published shortly before his death, the anthropologist Clifford Geertz (Geertz, 2000) returned to the concept of disinterestedness as a tool in qualitative research that could allow reflective and reflexive analysis of felt response. Reflection is a process of thinking again about previous action. Reflexivity is a process of attempting to step out of one’s present conceptual framework and impose a new theoretical lens for analysis in the expectation that new perspectives into reality will emerge. Such a process can identify previously masked or obscured paradoxes. Reflexivity can bring these paradoxes into focus where they can be considered and possibly critiqued. Feminist philosopher Sandra Harding’s conception of reflexivity (1993) can be summarized as follows: Reflexivity demands that inquirers place themselves on the same causal plane as the object of knowledge. They must make explicit the social positions, interests, background assumptions, biases, and other contingent, perspectival features of themselves that shaped the questions, methods, interpretations, and modes of presentation of the claims the knower accepts as knowledge. Reflexivity affirms the partiality of representations without denying their possible claim to truth. A representation can be true without being the whole truth about the object represented. It enhances objectivity by avoiding a narcissistic confusion of one’s own partial perspective with a comprehensive view, and by highlighting contingencies of representation that could be questioned. (Anderson, 2015, p. 31)

One value of reflexivity is that it provides an approach for addressing secondary ignorance (Sieber & Lanzetta, 1969): not knowing what

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it is that you do not know. Secondary ignorance can lead into cognitive complacency in which it is easy to assume that one knows all there is to know. Such a stance blocks any possibility of intellectual curiosity and potential for conceptual growth. A reflexive stance can challenge secondary ignorance. Philosophical theory often serves as an effective tool for achieving reflexivity. For new theory to take hold, one has to separate and distance oneself from one’s present conceptual framework that has initially guided analysis. The difficulty of contemporary philosophy—the obscure language and the deliberate attempts to turn a stable world upside down—comes from an intentional effort to force the reader to challenge all that is taken for granted. It creates an intellectual, and possibly an emotional, separation from the world as it has been known and experienced to date. In these cases, intellectual separation and distancing are not an emotional neutering meant to lead to ironic disengagement. On the contrary, one pursues a reflexive analysis out of the desire to understand the object of attention more deeply. One is drawn closer through reflexive analysis. As one’s viewpoint is always partial, to see something more replete pulls one into a more intense intellectually empathetic position and emotional solidarity (Rorty, 1989). For Geertz, such a process of philosophical reflexive disengagement was one promise of disinterestedness, which he saw as method for what we would today call reflexive separation. In his essay “Thinking as a Moral Act: Ethical Dimensions of Anthropological Fieldwork in the New States” (originally published in 1968) Geertz (2000) delicately danced around the aesthetic concept of disinterestedness, as its popular association with the ironic still appeared to be too potent to allow him to address the historical concept head-on (the word does not appear in the book’s index). He began the essay with a meditation on the legacy of John Dewey’s pragmatism. Geertz called Dewey a “revolutionary moralist,” some­ one who rejected the autonomy of reason and rationality and insisted that thinking itself had to be held accountable to a public good. In this sense, Dewey fundamentally changed the social sciences. In his aftermath, the question of how we are in relationship to others—the

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goodness of our relationships—could no longer be credibly denied by social scientists. This, Geertz observed, has also come at a practical cost to the social sciences. Scholarly funding generously flowed into the social sciences when it promised to be an engineer of meaningful change in the lives of others, and it claimed the ability to clearly identify clean independent variables that could efficiently increase desired outcomes. Social science would solve the technocratic problem of inputs and outputs where the purpose was to achieve a greater amount of the stated objective (higher test scores, increased employment). Quantity was the goal; quality was not a consideration. Grant money follows technocratic solutions. Issues of goodness tend to belong to the humanities and thus can drift to the periphery of a technocratic social science. As Deweyian concerns for goodness permeated the social sciences, the social sciences drifted toward alignment to the humanities. With that drift, the funding (and academic power that follows money) dissipated. A second, more insidious, outcome in Geertz’s view was for humanistic social science to begin to mimic the technical efficiency outcomes of technocratic social sciences. In technocratic mo­dels, self-appointed experts in industry, health sciences, and education make top-down decisions for “improvement.” In a technocratic model, social sciences were all too ready to point the way to how social engineering could be best implemented. Geertz felt that there was a danger that qualitative researchers who pursued Dewey’s goal of goodness could be seduced by techno-rationality. They could repeat the same mistake of forcing top-down solutions on participants. The desired, well-intentioned outcomes would be predetermined by the researcher and success would be for the participants to achieve these preordained behaviors. Speaking as an anthropologist, Geertz claimed that what matters in any culture is the quality of shared moral experience. That meant that the researcher had to listen and adapt to the social dynamic. In Geertz’s view, the researcher should not step into a network as an agent of change. The researcher is a participant in networks that are core to the social life of a community. Therefore, research needs a check to avoid top-down solutions in qualitative research motivated by a desire to deliver goodness.

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To illustrate this problem, Geertz referenced his own work in helping “modernize” traditional cultures in Indonesia and Morocco. In this regard, he came to see his work as more successfully directed to questioning this scientific imperative, rather than boasting of his success at meeting his original objectives. Geertz (2000) wrote, “The central question to ask is, what does [social science] tell us about the values by which we—all of us—in fact live?” (p. 38.) Ethics is an expression of values. Ethics define the parameters of what a social network deems important. Geertz was particularly concerned about an objective science (both quantitative and qualitative) that would obscure the importance of embodied sensory experience. To trivialize this “knowing in the bones” by referring to it as subjectivity diminished our concept of epistemology. Failing to recognize the importance of somatic experience ran the risk of skewing our ethical concept of research. Here, Geertz flipped the conventional approach to disinterestedness, claiming that it is a concept that can reclaim the importance of the somatic by creating a means for the personally embodied to belong to the socially shared. Disinterestedness is a method for transforming deeply felt experience into a common language. For Geertz, this is the crux of social science. Disinterestedness is not removing oneself, but instead is an effort “to combine two fundamental orientations toward reality—the engaged and the analytic— into a single attitude. It is this attitude, not moral blankness, which we call detachment or disinterestedness” (Geertz, 2000, p. 40). It is a process of separating oneself from individual experience in order to better see the significance of that experience to the collective. Disinterestedness is a third way of attempting to define engagement with the empirical world that slips past the binary of objectivity and subjectivity, a move that has been called for in qualitative inquiry for more than a quarter century (Barone, 1992). Since the time when Geertz wrote, we have broader concepts of what it means to maintain an “engaged” orientation to the world. We now recognize the complexity of entanglements and the agency of the nonhuman (Lather & St. Pierre, 2013). Jerry Rosiek (2018) has claimed that the contemporary ontological turn in social

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inquiry challenges us to view our ethical engagement as being more than being truthful, maintaining fidelity to the narratives of our participants, and avoiding harm. Building on Geertz’s claim that the Deweyian pragmatic tradition has now fully infused itself into social science, Rosiek has stressed that post-qualitative inquiry is not a process of explaining the world as it is, but a process of making something new. The Deweyian legacy of pragmatic inquiry is a projection into the future. In this sense, inquiry has its own ontological presence that inserts itself into a web of ontological relationships so that future reorderings of the world may come into visibility. To support this point, Rosiek cites Dewey’s own description of the project of American pragmatism: Pragmatism thus has a metaphysical implication. The doctrine of the value of consequences leads us to take the future into consideration. And this taking into consideration of the future takes us to the conception of a universe whose evolution is not finished, or a universe which is still, in James’ term “in the making,” “in the process of becoming,” of a universe up to a certain point still plastic. (Dewey, 1931/1981)

Rosiek has further developed Dewey’s concept of an ontologically plastic universe: a scientific universe that is still coming into its own being. He has elaborated on the ethical implications: This understanding of many varieties of entities having purposes also helps us to think about our ethical relation to nonhuman agents. Ethics, in such circumstances, would involve the negotiation of shared purposes. This sounds familiar in the context of human-to-human relations; we negotiate shared purposes with other people all the time. It involves listening, compromise, and imaginative reconstruction of our desires and identity in relation to the needs of others. The most ready image of such negotiation is one that occurs through language and thus would seem limited only to humans. However, even with human agents, this intra-action is far more than linguistic; it is tactile, tacit, enabled and constrained by the material traces of past history, and dependent on a network of relations with others.

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With nonhuman agents, the imaginative work is, perhaps, more demanding. We have to think beyond conscious purposes, our relationship with the ongoing activity of nonhuman phenomena organized in relation to some future possible general state of affairs. We then have to reimagine our own purposes and possibilities in relation to these other agents. This is not simply a voluntary process. In some cases, the materiality of this world coerces, compels, or seduces us into compliance with its ordering activity. (Rosiek, 2018, pp. 42–23)

How one recognizes that the “world coerces, compels, or seduces” in the process of qualitative inquiry becomes critical to fully understanding the ontological ramifications of inquiry. This is a level of complexity beyond the introduction of independent variables into a “controlled” research study. This is more complex than tracing the intended impacts of the researcher’s interventions. It requires a stepping back to embrace the potential unintended consequences that the research has triggered by entering into the social web. That stepping back allows the research to experience the social web as it is and as what it has become. Stepping back is disinterestedness. It allows the researcher to move beyond seeing the social web as he or she hopes and believes the social web to be. This disinterested move represents one of the challenges of prag­ matism: to reinvent constructivism from an epistemological to an ontological project. Constructivism builds knowledge within the context of our understanding. Pragmatism builds new worlds in which new knowledge may appear. These new worlds, with future relations still unknown, hold the promise of a post-epistemological future (Rosiek, 2018). We can project ourselves into these new possibilities by not allowing our present conceptual frameworks to shackle our imagination.

Disinterestedness as a Criterion in ABR Methodology The ontological turn in research is an acknowledgment of how embodied presence, in a physical interactive world, provides a biological

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culture for what we permit ourselves to think. Writing in 1968, Geertz referred to a critical need of recognizing the “sub-cerebral.” However, now we realize that the somatic and emotional processing of perception is not “sub.” It is critical to providing the context in which thought happens (Damasio, 2010). The body is critical to how symbolic thought coalesces and takes form. Recently, Patti Lather (2016) wrote “such thinking through the body is more and other than reflexivity” (p. 127). This is not simply a process of new words forming theories to critically examine old words. This is a process of reimagining a methodology that holds the promise of synthesizing of Geertz’s two paradoxical orientations, the engaged and the analytic, to be forged through a methodology of disinterestedness. In short, to let go of one’s own purpose and intent—open oneself to the coercion and compulsion of the materiality of the world—requires more than reflexivity. Geertz (2000) offered a vision of what a science, “after the critiques of science,” might look like: A professional commitment to view human affairs analytically is not in opposition to a personal commitment to view them in terms of a particular moral perspective. The professional ethic rests on the personal and draws its strength from it; we force ourselves to see out of a conviction that blindness—or illusion—cripples virtue as it cripples people. Detachment comes not from a failure to care, but from a kind of caring reliant enough to withstand an enormous tension between moral reaction and scientific observation, a tension which only grows as moral perception deepens and scientific understanding advances. The flight into scientism, or, on the other side, into subjectivism, is but a sign that the tension cannot any longer be borne, that nerve has failed, and a choice has been made to suppress either one’s humanity or one’s rationality. These are the pathologies of science, not its norm.” (p. 40)

A work of inquiry would need to demonstrate “a kind of caring reliant enough to withstand an enormous tension between moral reaction and scientific observation.” That balance would be achieved through the application of disinterestedness. Therefore, the ability of the researcher to find Geertz’s moral and observational balance

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could serve as a criterion for judgment of the quality of methodo­ logical execution in a work of socially engaged ABR, regardless if the work is positioned with the social sciences or the fine arts. Recal­ling Rosiek’s earlier assertion that ethics is a “negotiation of shared purposes” that involves “imaginative reconstruction of our desires and identity in relation to the needs of others,” it is in letting go of our inner dialogues and demonstrating an ability to listen in order to open ourselves and our research to change that disinterestedness becomes a tool within the methodologies of ABR. Disinterestedness would require the artist/researcher to step back from the autonomy of art that isolates the artists from the entanglements of the world and to seriously reappraise the work of ABR in light of the ethics of entanglement. In such a manner, it would serve as a criterion for the assessment of the quality of different apparatuses and their ability to engage authentic human and nonhuman relationships. We are entangled in our research in ways that exceed our individual will and intention. Works of ABR do not simply investigate the world; they make worlds. Each path of investigation is a path of making. Disinterestedness opens us to the responsibility we assume in these makings. Disinterestedness as a criterion judging the excellence of artsbased research asks to what degree has the researcher stepped out of an auto-centric stance of research and engaged with entanglements with the world, recognizing the full agency of the human and nonhuman. And in doing this—and as a second criterion for assessment of quality—does the work fulfill a pragmatic goal of widening a circle of inclusive and ethical social participation. Through such criteria, it might be possible to take a step closer to a pursuit of a post-epistemological science.

References Anderson, E. (2015). Feminist epistemology and philosophy of science. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Stanford, CA: The Metaphysics Research Lab. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford .edu/archives/spr2017/entries/feminism-epistemology/

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Anelli, M. (2012). Portraits in the presence of Marina Abramovic. Bologna, Italy: Damiani. Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Barone, T. (1992). On the demise of subjectivity in educational inquiry Curriculum Inquiry, 22(1), 25–38. Barone, T., & Eisner, E. W. (2012). Arts based research. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Becker, H. S. (1982). Art worlds. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Bishop, C. (2006). The social turn: Collaboration and its discontents. Artforum International, 44(6), 179–185. Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste (R. Nice, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Damasio, A. R. (2010). Self comes to mind: Constructing the conscious brain. New York, NY: Pantheon. Dewey, J. (1931/1981). The development of American pragmatism. In J. A. Boydston (Ed.), The later works, 1925–1927: Vol. 2. Essays, the public and its problems (pp. 3–21). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Geertz, C. (2000). Available light: Anthropological reflections on philosophical topics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Goldberg, J. (1995). Raised by wolves. Zurich, Switzerland; New York, NY: Scalo. Goldberg, J. (2009). Open see. Göttingen, Germany: Steidl. Haskins, C. (1989). Kant and the autonomy of art. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 47(1), 43–54. Jagodzinski, J., & Wallin, J. (2013). Arts-based research: A critique and a proposal. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense. Kant, I. (1790/1987). Critique of judgment (W. Pluhar, Trans.). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Lather, P. (2016). Top ten+ list. Cultural Studies/Critical Methodologies, 16(2), 125–131. Lather, P., & St. Pierre, E. A. (2013). Post-qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 26(6), 629–633. Manchester, E. (2006). Santiago Sierra: 160 cm line tattooed on 4 people El Gallo Arte Contemporáneo. Salamanca, Spain. December 2000. London, UK: Tate. Retrieved from https://www.tate.org.uk /art/artworks/sierra-160-cm-line-tattooed-on-4-people-el-gallo-artecontemporaneo-salamanca-spain-t11852

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MOMA Learning (2010). The artist is present. New York, NY: Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved from https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning /marina-abramovic-marina-abramovicthe-artist-is-present-2010/ O’Donoghue, D. (2009). Are we asking the wrong questions in arts-based research? Studies in Art Education, 50(4), 352–368. Rorty, R. (1989). Contingency, irony, and solidarity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Rosiek, J. (2018). Art, agency, and inquiry: Making connections between new materialism and contemporary pragmatism in arts-based research. In M. Cahnmann-Taylor & R. Siegesmund (Eds.), Arts-based research in education: Foundations for practice (2nd ed.) (pp. 32–47). New York, NY: Routledge. Sieber, J. E., & Lanzetta, J. T. (1969). Lessons in uncertainty. Elementary School Journal, 69(6), 304–312. Spivak, G. C. (2012). An aesthetic education in the era of globalization. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Zimbardo, P. G. (2007). The Lucifer effect: Understanding how good people turn evil. New York, NY: Random House.

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chapter eight

Relational Whirlpools JOSEPH D. SWEET, EMPPU NURMINEN, AND MIRKA KORO-LJUNGBERG

Setting diverse posts

T

he prefix “post” as in post-qualitative inquiry has potential to imply and activate many things. For example, it can refer to the moment in time after qualitative research or when qualitative research moved outside post-positivist and conventional interpretivist tendencies (Denzin & Lincoln, 2006; Lather, 2017; St. Pierre, 2011, 2017a; St. Pierre & Jackson, 2014; Taguchi & St. Pierre, 2017). However, from our perspective the “post” does not define post-qualitative research as no longer qualitative but it makes connections to practices, epistemologies, ontologies, and ethics associated with contemporary qualitative research which can be radically different from their historical and normative counterparts (see e.g., Cannella & Lincoln, 2018; Koro-Ljungberg, 2016; Springgay & Truman, 2018; St. Pierre, 2011). In addition, it is the thinking with concepts and working through the unthinkable (see also, Koro-Ljunberg et. al, 2015; Lemert, 2007) that enables philosophy and theory to offer context for post-qualitative methodology and its various variants (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012; Koro-Ljungberg, Löytönen, & Tesar, 2017; Lather & St. Pierre, 2013; 111

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St. Pierre, 2018; Taguchi & St. Pierre, 2017; Ulmer, 2017). For many, post-qualitative inquiry has emerged and been elevated, encapsulating conceptual, creative, and wild thinking (Center for Educational Research, Western Sydney University, & Manchester Metropolitan University, 2016) especially being influenced by the work of Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze and Guattari, and Barad, among others. Some scholars in post-qualitative and performative traditions have expressed rather strong critiques against scholarship relying on normative methodology and predetermined and fixed method. For example, post-qualitative research is often critical of conventional humanistic qualitative methodology. St. Pierre (2017b) wrote about the problems of relying on any methodologies to study particular kinds of human beings (e.g., rational, logical, independent) and these methodological problems and dilemmas became especially prevalent after recent ontological, material, and empirical turns influencing qualitative inquiry. Many post-qualitative scholars have been dissatisfied with the normative assumptions about scientific progress, process, and representation. “Following postmodernism, post qualitative inquiry will always be suspicious of and prepared to refuse the entire methodological project” (St. Pierre, 2017b, p. 45). St. Pierre further suggested that scholars and post-qualitative researchers become methodology free. Similarly, Manning (2016) problematized conventional and post-positivist notions and practices of a method because they separate systems of mind and matter and their relations. It is also worrisome for Manning when a method mostly relies on reason and static organization of preformed categories whose groundings will be peer reviewed. Traditional and conventional methodologies begin to break down when one asks not how knowledge can be organized or prioritized, but rather what it does and produces. “Method stops potentially on its way, cutting into the process before it has had a chance to fully engage with the complex relational fields the process itself calls forth,” explained Manning (2016, p. 33–34). However, Manning (2015) acknowledges that methods could be opened to their potential, but she prefers the concept of technique since it emphasizes the self-actualization of the process.

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In addition, postmodern times and more-than-human theories call for movement beyond epistemology and methodology (see e.g., St. Pierre, 2017a; Lenz Taguchi, 2016). The normativity of method­ ology and methodology’s conventional humanist history can be seen as problematic since it might limit the possibilities of alternative ontologies and ways of doing. However, the move beyond methods might not be the best or most viable option for many qualitative scholars across theoretical traditions and perspectives since past methodological discourses and practices are difficult and sometimes impossible to erase and give up. It is also possible that it might be somewhat dangerous and unnecessary to completely erase (past) methodologies as irrelevant or, conversely, guard methodological thought too closely (see Manning & Massumi, 2014). Instead, one could continuously question the roles, functions, and emerging extensions of all inquiry practices including methodologies to stay open to diverse and unseen possibilities as repeatedly revisioned, reconceptualized, and re-practiced (i.e., as post-methods, method­ologies without methodology, anti-methodologies, research-creations. (See Koro-Ljungberg, 2016; Manning, 2016; Nordstrom, 2018). As noted previously, many scholars are suspicious of methodological practices that rely on modernist and/or humanist notions of the subject and these scholars have created examples of different kinds of inquiry practices. For Johansson (2016), post-qualitative scholarship calls for invented and situationally created inquiry approaches that blur boundaries of imaginary and “real”: As a method, the confabulative conversation aims to blur out distinctions between the actual and the virtual, making the virtual as real as the actualized, thus opening for possibilities to regard dreams, fantasies, and speculations as valuable and legitimate data. . . . In the understanding of this confabulative conversation, no distinction is made between what is said and what is. Language is not seen as representations or expressions of something located outside the verbal, instead language is ontological, with abilities to change the subjects through lines of becoming. (p. 460)

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The possibilities for the virtual and for language to provide ontological occasions of the not-yet-thought create understandings of what might be in a process and constant becoming. Johansson argues that engagement in this work is an attempt to reprise the qualities from which qualitative research grew. As she puts it, Most importantly, post-qualitative research can be seen as an urge to restore the values from which the qualitative research came—and except for the criticism of centering of the subject, the post-qualitative approach can be regarded as a quest for bringing back the qualita­tive dimensions in qualitative research. (Johansson, 2016, p. 457)

With this in mind, our project seeks to explore possibilities for ways that engagement with post-qualitative research and researchers may produce becomings pursuant to the values consistent with the basis of qualitative research in the first place. In an attempt to do this, we draw from previous work in arts-based research (ABR) and research-creation (Manning, 2016).

Art as one possible way Scholars engaging with ABR also challenge traditional ways of doing qualitative inquiry. ABR can open new spaces that create new ways of thinking about and thinking with what it means to do social research. Like most social and scientific research, arts seek to advance human understanding and engender movement toward more just and equitable practices. However, unlike some other research in social sciences, in art there exists infinite potential for attempting to express impossibly complex human experiences. Those who engage in ABR bridge the gap among researcher, artist, and audience, which, Leavy (2015) argues, creates knowledge “based on resonance and understanding” (p. 3). She asserts that artsbased research practices challenge the dualistic notion of a fact-versus-fiction dichotomy, which allows research to unsettle the monopoly that many have afforded factual analysis and reporting. ABR positions the researcher as artist and draws from data-generative events.

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ABR produces subjectivities, data, and know­ledge in diverse artistic forms. In this way it is not an analytical process based in logical reasoning in search of “validity” or “truths.” Quite the contrary. ABR and researchers who do ABR often seek inclusive relationships with their audience to generate affective responses founded in resonance and growing possibilities, pursuits aligned with the post-qualitative turn. Further, according to Finley (2018), ABR is a “performative research methodology that is structured on the notion of possibility, the what might be” (p. 561). Thus, ABR insists on affective ways of understanding where researcher/artist and reader/audience embody their negotiated meaning, and ABR is also predicated in possibilities for knowing that extend far beyond the confines of more traditional methods. Lastly, Leavy (2015) further argues that ABR provides the added benefit of moving social research beyond the looming towers of academia and into public spaces where non-academics have access to the work. Though the field of ABR has grown enormously in recent years, we turn specifically to the notion and practices of “research-creation” (Manning, 2016; Manning & Massumi, 2014; Rotas & Springgay, 2014; Springgay & Truman, 2018). Manning (2016) explores researchcreation in such a way that art is understood as a process rather than its more typical focus on product: I propose we work not with the current and most typical definition of art, which tends still to foreground an object, but with an aspect of its medieval definition: art as the way. By focusing on process instead of form, it becomes possible not only to raise the issue of the object—to ask how a focus on the object is similar in many ways to situating the subject as initiator of experience—but to explore how time is engaged in the artistic process. (pp. 13–14)

Additionally, Manning (2016) argues for the process-oriented nature of art creation, which muddies dichotomist notions of object-­ subject where relationship between researcher-artist and artwork is not so simple as the researcher-artist (subject) initiating the creation of the artwork (object). Rather, the relations therein are

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a collective process of research-creation where the initiation of the process and collective movement of research-creation is not so clear cut. Researchers/artists should also re-account for the possibilities that writing brings to the process of thinking-doing and acknowledge the ways that writing falls short in engaging research-creations. In this way “what the conjunction between research and creation does is make apparent how modes of knowledge are always at cross-currents with one another, actively reorienting themselves in transversal operations of difference, emphasizing the deflection at the heart of each conjunction” (Manning, 2016, p. 41). Moreover, Springgay and Truman (2018) highlight the process-oriented nature embedded in conducting research-creation, suggesting that the hyphenation of the term “research-creation” insinuates the process-oriented nature of its production where one is thinking with the creative practice of doing. Thus, research-creation reveals va­rious onto-epistemological stances that reposition as they intersect across its recursive and ongoing process. Further, research-creation calls onto-epistemological presumptions into question. As Manning (2016) puts it, “What is at stake is the very redefinition of knowledge. For what research-creation does is ask us to engage directly with a process which, in many cases, will not or cannot be articulated in language” (p. 41). So, unlike more traditional and conventional qualitative inquiry that relies on coded forms of knowledge requiring language and signification, research-creation is an onto-epistemological move. This move resituates possibilities for knowledge that are sometimes outside the confines of language. Researchcreation, then, presumes that what it means to know cannot be contained within linguistic experiences. Though this is undoubtedly an onto-epistemological development in post-qualitative inquiry, Manning argues that researchers in general are hesitant to fully embrace the infinite possibilities for knowledge that researchcreation offers. Manning (2012) also theorizes that bodies are always in relation, yet challenges the notion that the human is at the center of these relational experiences. That is to say, we are not limited to being in relation with other bodies, but are also in relation with objects,

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architecture, and textures that surround us, and these materialities are likewise in relation with bodies. “A body is not separate from its milieu” (Manning, 2013, p. 26). Rather, bodies are deeply embedded in their contexts, always in relation as they fold into materiality. Embodiment, then, is a relational, collective, and ongoing process that occurs through a continual and never finished becoming. “The body is a verb…Bodying does not happen once and for all on a linear timeline…New processes are continuously underway” (Manning, 2016, pp. 21–23). Thus, bodying is a nonlinear, always occurring active process during which new possibilities for bodies’ potentials are repeatedly beginning and playing out. In touching, bodies challenge dichotomous thinking of self and other as touch extends selves through others and allows for the intertextual fluidity, which are created through the relational interactions of reaching toward (Manning, 2007). In this way, reaching toward becomes an act of resistance because it rejects defining the body within certain parameters and simultaneously opens the potential for infinite possibilities. Additionally, Springgay and Truman (2018) posit that rela­tionality is intrinsic to research-creation. They conceive “research-creation as a more-than-human methodology” (Springgay & Truman, 2018, p. 2). In a similar vein, Manning (2012) wonders, “What if, instead of placing self-self interaction at the center of development, we were to posit relation as key to experience” (p. 2). This moves the process of becoming and/through research-creation away from the individual and into the collective where art, individuals, and all other matter may offer new ways to understand people’s engagement in communal processes of becoming. Given the potential that research-creation brings for deepening and growing understandings, we put it into conversation with shadow philosophy to see how the confluence of research-creation and shadows may compel our interactions and engagements with our participant-events toward thinking the previously unthought and thus grow possibilities of qualitative inquiry. Similarly, in this context, we aim to operationalize process philosophy by engaging in research-creation through events that we orchestrated with three post-qualitative researchers. As we show next,

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research-creation is always already a collective practice, and through a collective process of engagement we think, play, and create through a collectivity of shared events.

Shadows and materiality In this project, each of us worked in the shadows of meetings, encounters, movements, and thinking-doing, re-visioning the materials gathered from Skype and in-person participant events with three well-known post-qualitative scholars. We did not rely on traditional “data” but worked with shadow data, shadow dialogues, and shadow texts. However, before we introduce some of our shadow texts, we connect our thinking with previous work associated with the philosophy of shadows to outline how we understand and opera­ tionalize “shadows.” We want to point out that we do not mean that the notion and practice of shadow function as a Platonic metaphor for post-qualitative inquiry or something along these lines, but we do wonder how thinking-doing shadows might activate different kinds of post-qualitative inquiries. We have written our own shadow versions of our participant-events that are quite different from straightforward linear transcripts (which is also a kind of shadow version, see: Nietzsche, 2005; Watson, 1993). As other scholars have detailed, transcription carries its own methodological challenges, omissions, absences, and blind spots (e.g., Bird, 2005; Bucholz, 2000; Cannon, 2018; Shelton & Flint, 2019). On some level, this paper draws from this literature and takes up artistic practice to explore our relational experiences with data, transcription, and images. Our shadow texts take varying forms, lengths, and shapes according to the surfaces and our perspectives. To frame our shadow texts, we offer an admittedly brief review of scholarly literature regarding shadow. For one to see a shadow there is likely to exist (a) a material object, (b) some light coming from a source, and (c) a surface for the shadow to be cast upon (see Sorensen, 2008). When light is cast upon the object, a shadow forms on the opposite side of the object in relation to the source of light. This

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means that shadows cannot exist independent of the things above— they cannot exist alone and are causally related to material and light (Aranyosi, 2007; Sorensen, 2008). It is not possible to identify a shadow without also taking note of the material casting the shadow (Sorensen, 2008). According to Sorensen (2008), shadows can easily be overlooked, regarded as secondary, irrelevant, or as a poor, distorted version of the matter casting the shadow, the original. Even though shadows are themselves dark—patches of areas that are less lighted—one does not see shadows in complete darkness. In our everyday experience, shadows work with light to add dimension to the material we encounter (Lowe, 2009; Nietzsche, 2005). Aranyosi (2007) wrote that shadows are not themselves material even though they are located in space and have a lifespan, meaning that a shadow comes into existence at one moment and can disappear the next. A shadow comes into being when an object partially blocks the light from an area behind that object. This forms an area remini­ scent of the object’s shape that is darker than the surrounding area. Shadows function as absences of light in a certain location, and this absence of light is essential to their existence (Lowe, 2009; Sorensen 2008). Following this, Sorensen (2008) calls shadows “creatures of omission” (p. 74). As we see it, the shadow does not necessarily always stay static: it can flicker (depending on the light source) and it moves if the object or the light source moves. Important to our work here, a shadow is not a dark replica or a silhouette of the material. Rather, for us, it is something else that is more undefined, dynamic, and in process than the material that casts it. Furthermore, shadows do not replicate the texture or material of the original object because they are cast against another surface. We do not think of this relationship only in terms of seeing material here and shadows over there; material objects can have shadows on them that form, in part, the visual qualities of their surface—the surface of an object can itself create shadows on that same surface. If we think every variation of light cast on a surface as a shadow, shadows could begin appearing everywhere and on everything; we could see our perceptions as a never-ending dance of material objects and shadows. Thoughts along these lines

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inspired us to consider shadows both as influential to our lived lives and as something to experiment with in thinking with theory and doing research. In our (post) qualitative research effort here, we retain the murkiness in and around the processes that took place in our conversations. We aim to focus our inquiry on shadows—on what could easily be omitted from a scientific text in order to add to the text’s linearity, clarity, or certainty. Working with the idea of shadow does not necessarily offer what could be called an alternative ontology because shadows are already there. We reposition and reorient with the shadows. In his book, Human, All Too Human, Nietzsche (2005) begins and ends a chapter entitled “The Wanderer and His Shadow” with a dialogue between the wanderer and the shadow he casts. Here, the shadow is a companion who presents the wanderer a rare opportunity to discuss with itself—and the shadow and his wanderer apparen­tly coproduce the chapter’s aphoristic fragments. In this instance, the character is a literal shadow of a human but instead of merely seeing the shadow as one usually does, the wanderer is in relation and dialogue with his shadow and this relational, collective, and emplaced experience produces new understandings and meanings. Further, Nietzsche (2005) posits that people who recognize the shadows find the “joy of discovery” (pp. 301–302), as he discusses how shadows exist in relation to knowledge. He argues that shadows are intrinsic to knowledge and knowing but are often not heard and overlooked. Nietzsche also outlines some conditions and limitations that the shadow presents to the wanderer, including that the shadow exists intermittently. Also, want for clarity should not hinder conversation; and, the wanderer ought to speak his mind and not stay silent when in uncertainty or for fear of saying something silly (Nietzsche 2005). The wanderer accepts these conditions and acknowledges the shadow as his friend. A conversation about the nature of (personified) shadows ensues where Nietzsche asserts that shadows bring dimension to things and love the light. Nietzsche (2005) also mentions “shadowy terms” (p. 302), which refers to turns of phrase that are somehow murky, difficult, or obscure. So, this shadow portrays

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perhaps the uncertainties, the courage, the nonverbalized and the spaces of not knowing that are involved in knowing. On the surface, our shadow dialogues may appear incoherent, but we propose that they do the work of emergent and experimental qualitative inquiry and unearth new possibilities, bringing to the fore the previously unknown or unthinkable. In the following section we share some examples how shadows might operate, create, and speak in their shadowy discourses. The way shadows are reminiscent of, intimately related to, but different from the material that casts them, inspires us to create these texts, and they include moments of uncertainty and puzzlement both during the participant events and in the data glow. We have taken these and cast them on another surface. Our shadow texts feature, among others, a dialogue at a bar, resampled fragments of our participant events, ensuing discussions, visual images of our data glow, and discussions about it.

Working with shadows In the following shadow texts, working with walking, working with forest, working with either audio or video from the same event or working with background noise—they are featured in the event so they are written in, not written out. They are opaque and murky elements that cast shadows. The following shadow texts are not typological or chronological. In this paper, we welcome shadows. For Nelli, writing when walking in the forest is a radically dif­ ferent process. It is different to work without writing equipment and develop points and ideas in one’s head compared to what academic writing could be in its narrowest sense: sitting down and concentrating on producing and editing a text, consigning oneself mostly to working in front of a text instead of working also in other spaces, in forests or lakes, for example. Listening to an audio-only version is vastly different compared to the video: The visual appearance and the soundscape is different in the audio-only recording. In the video, I see a cozy kitchen atmosphere with Nelli and Mirka casually sitting at a table; on the other

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Figure 1.

hand, Joe is doing weird-looking movements on his own screen, coming in and out of camera. However, on the audio, Joe is absent and the distinctive soundscape of a medium-low quality Skype call is gone; the audio sounds like a scratchy, early 1900s recording, and Joe (or something else) is producing all kinds of little sounds (I thought I heard chirping noises, tapping, etc.). And there is a constant “white noise” in the background reminiscent of old recordings, with the calm tempo of the discussion, its frequent silences and meditative short monologues. Nelli’s voice, against this backdrop, begins to sound ethereal; I feel like I am listening to a recording from beyond the grave, from a previous generation, like a historical document a century ago. It is a haunting experience, like listening to ghosts of an earlier era, especially when Mirka and Nelli invoke Joe: “Fingers, Joe, fingers,” “Toes, Joe.” The quotes made Nelli question their origin a couple of times; their origin remained unknown. At the end of the video, Nelli said she feels like they are part of a Beckett play,

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so maybe even when the conversation took place the atmosphere felt somehow unreal or strange. How did this happen? If there was a sense of waiting for something to happen, what was it that each of participants waited for?

Uneasiness. This is uncomfortable, uncertain What reoccurred was a feeling that doing research is difficult. There was also a feeling of watching over yourself and constraining yourself, watching for missteps and treading carefully with the inquiry.

UNDERLINE THE ERASED SHADOW I feel uncomfortable and at unease. I cannot perform the smart and intellect but I want to dance. I feel incapable to speak and articulate something profound. Ecologies of interviewing placing unbreakable boundaries between bodies. What about us? Post-qualitative space is a not very comfortable space. Not doing inquiry. Look at something closely. Developing post-humanist methodologies. Post-human life. Having different relationships with discourses like sociology. I wanted to do walking methodologies, sit, stand, and walk. Interact with materialities. Interact with buildings, rooms, diverse spaces. I did want to capture (erase that word) something that was going on in different time spaces places.

Shadow talk One person walks into a bar Here, now. Emppu, a bartender, a specter of Nietzsche. Emppu walks into a bar.

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Emppu: I’d like one of your epistemological reflections, please. Bartender: Coming right up. Would you like your epistemolo­ gical reflection with or without helicopter noises? People usually prefer their reflections without helicopter noises. It tends to be more palatable for them. Emppu: So far, I have preferred mine without, but the heck with it, let’s try something else. But, careful not to make them too strong. I don’t wanna get confused or frustrated. [Emppu goes suddenly silent. The whole bar starts to flash in and out of sight and the voices crackle. Helicopter noises become overbearing. A specter of Nietzsche appears from the flashes. As he speaks, Emppu covers his ears from helicopter noises and writhes before falling into a trance-like state of staring blankly the bartender. The bartender casually wipes the countertop like she has seen it all before.] Nietzsche: I am sure, Emppu, that had you written an academic text based on this conversation without the idea of a shadow or your post-qualitative orientation, you would have omitted the helicopter noises from the final product and write as if clarity prevailed the whole time. You would have even forgotten yourself that you could not make out or understand what was being said from time to time. And you would not have contemplated upon their effect too much. You are not taught to embrace the shadows but write them away in order to sound scientific. You see the light in things but you see less than one who also sees the shadows, the uncertainties and effects of your particular knowledge. Besides, what is so bad in getting confused and frustrated when doing research? Emppu: Oh. Oh my… I like the taste, strong but good, it has the effect of … [The taste of the multi-voiced reflection with helicopter noises lingers; it lingered months before and is still there with Emppu. When it has been there long enough, you begin to notice it only sometimes even though it is right in front of Emppu’s eyes.] Bartender: Hmm, gone away for a bit, eh? Emppu: Oh…good evening. Hmm, I cannot not make out the meaning of every word…and even if I could, I think the topics of

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this reflection would go a bit over my head or the helicopter noises remove words and bits of sentences here and there. [Emppu grows irritated and frustrated.] Emppu (cont.): Take this with helicopter noises! That’s stupid! Nietzsche: Remember shadows. There is invention in uncertainty, one does not get to meet shadows if one demands light and clarity only. Do not throw in the towel if there are unintelligible, distracting factors. Bartender: If I might suggest, try to take the noises as an intrinsic part of the epistemological reflection and see whether your brief disconnection and the helicopter noises can be a help as much as a hindrance. Instead of working around them, you could even work with them and see what gets produced. Emppu: I sometimes need words of support and encouragement. Thank you for that. Currently, I cannot get myself to embrace the gaps, but that would be a healthy way to relate to them. Bartender and Nietzsche: Also, you speak sometimes as if you were a passive recipient in this. But you were there. You changed things when you created and encountered this reflection and so did the reflection itself change. Bartender (cont.): Remember: you participated by abruptly dis­ appearing and reappearing during the epistemological reflection process. This changed the direction the encounter was going. Furthermore, the other participants perceived your bodily presence. [Emppu nods cautiously, eyes laid to the countertop.] Bartender: Note that I think you measure your participation with word count only. But there are so much more than words, and again, you were there with your corporeal presence via Skype. It is also noteworthy that you decided to create this interaction here, only in text format. Are you stuck with words? Emppu: Is that so bad? Words are my element; they’re how I produce academic stuff. Bartender: Well, after thinking with Olivia, a well-known postqualitative scholar you may have heard of, I came to understand that it is of utmost importance not to take knowledge as transparent, not to think that knowing X and then describing X with words is an

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unproblematic straightforward process. I think Olivia would say, “Ask yourself what, in this or that way of creating, gathering, and presenting knowledge, has become invisible or self-explanatory?” One also forms, as Olivia has pointed out, habits of academic writing; the institutionalized practice of (for example, social scientific) academic writing also rewards some habits of writing and punishes others. It is worth keeping oneself on one’s toes when it comes to repeating these habits and the assumptions, perspectives, the possibilities and constraints that come with those habits. [Emppu finishes the reflection and walks out of the bar, irritated by the sensation that there is still something, should be something more to “find” in this dialogue, haunted by the thought of “unfinished business” despite what was just discussed. Nietzsche is left somewhere.]

States of doing But working with research is not only uncertain stumbling in the dark, that’s not all there is. People involved stumbled into something: fun, enjoyment, play, immersion, fascination, and inspiration featured in our events.

Shadows: ROLL OUR ELBOWS. GO ROUND AND ROUND There is no original. What about us? I don’t think we are haunted either. Thousand tiny sexes … all possibilities. Energy that flows through. Inhabited is a good work. Finger monologue. Fingers, Joe! Joe, fingers! Toes, Joe! I see fingers. I am inhabiting but not processing post-humanism at the moment. Something comes out. Are we supposed to know?

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Elbows and fingers. Today’s processes. Space—methodological, architectural, intellectual, pedagogical, extraterritorial, closed, open … It got half a method, half a theory, half a subject. Incomplete. Joe is in Arizona. Joe might not talk to us. What about us? Is movement a big part of your process? Physical bodily movement? I don’t know. How teachers walk and inhabit their spaces? Who talks and who does not talk? Hello. You can join us. We can make this into a party. We tried to find a restaurant, but we are cooking here. Chicken maybe. We are here. Hello, Tzau. You miss something.

Figure 2.

WALK BACKWARDS It is just me—just this one body multiple. Walking around buildings, sitting around corridors. Waiting. Living play dead. Sued by the dead. Sued by the dead. Playful things with toilet paper. Invitation for people to touch toilet

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paper and see what that touching produced. Memories, affects, emotions. Enjoyment. Method is having fun. Increased engagement. Mood-created relation. Embodied methodologies. New things become possible through embodiment. When you get there—then you wonder what is going on here. High dive and go somewhere else. That’s my method…my Deleuzian and…thinking yet to come. It is in the body not in the head. Is it possible to find such a cohabitation under one roof ? “Do you want me to speak to that ... oh no … there is no original.” The specter came out of nothing: Do we ignore it, leave it be even though it appeared for us? Did it? Having fun ->(possibly) immersion into research ->(possibly) following this investment of attention, unexpected and interesting things are produced. One could get taken to very unexpected places, even places that seemed impossible. Nelli invites people to come with her, that is kind of her method.

I need to engage but how? Sometimes, the sense of how to proceed can leak into us. It might not be a choice. Suggestions and points of reference might surprise anywhere in your everyday. Research does not feel separate from everything else, but it is emplaced and among us as we and it navigate through the world.

Shadow work What happens when you engage in post-qualitative research? I don’t see an alternative. I never chose post-qual—I’ve never seen it as an option. There was no choice to move toward.

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It’s kind of like the question should go, “What happens when you do research?” This is the only way. The only way I can do it. I never knew a mainframe. Someone is talking about the way I do research. I’m not weird. It’s an observation, not a question. None of this is intentional. Things just like, happen to me, and I let them happen. The observation is a magnet, and things just start coming toward it. All the time. Anywhere. In my dreams. In the morning. At work. Not at work. Wherever I am. I start noticing things that have to do with it. The it keeps growing and changing and mutating. And sometimes these become actual research questions. Sometimes they vanish. Many sights and smells and things floating around and sometimes they come together, and I say, “Oh … I made an observation.” Something begins to grow as if on its own. Intuitive.

Figure 3.

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This is the only way I must go about doing my research. It’s Necessary, not radical. They tell when and where they get their research ideas from, for one, they surround her everyday. Who have discussed publicly how they undertake research, what do they do then? Lisa lets phrases (titles) live their lives; titles live alongside research. For Emppu, a title is like a price tag, printed out and glued to the final product. Can a title work as an enabling constraint for Lisa? Letting the research change and leaving gaps in the plan when beginning. Could consciously restraining oneself from verbalizing certain specific bits of an undergoing research work as a useful tool or exercise when thinking with a different ontology? Lisa wears research. Lisa: familiar enables to notice, inspires.

Figure 4.

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Wandering in the world with research Where does traveling with the research take you? There was a sense of being in movement and re-encountering world. Where does world move and where does anyone of us?

CLOSE OUR EYES. DON’T PEEK. SHADOWS ONLY. Movement keeps the world going around. Fingernails and hair keep growing. Embodied methodologies. This table is little mad. Energy is behind you, through, beside you. I do lot of walking. I write when I walk. I walk and talk in the forest. Walking inside. It felt confining. Walking inside a building. My building knew what I was thinking. It was an intellectual building. We inhabit the world. How long does it take things to fall? Slow time. I wonder if it would not be such a tragedy if the human race would become extinct. Ecological minor gestures. Sure. Being sure. It had to be. Much of post-qualitative work is White. Creating conversations. Questions of politics and ethics. White gendered projects. What is going on? He wanted to touch the body stuff. He wanted to smell it.

SMELL IT. SMELL IT AGAIN. Years ago, I was interested in difference, but it is a word that I don’t use anymore. Social justice and difference function similarly as words in politics. I am not sure what difference does. Diversity might be better. It is really difficult to leave humanism behind. I find the word “overcome” really difficult. What about us? Is overcoming same as arriving? Traveling? If you have overcome, have you arrived? It is an end not.

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No examples. Writing in the forest. Surviving and lovingly living without academic equipment. Nothing narrow. Sitting down and composing wildly. Working back and forth, sideways, and more. Forests, lakes, land, air, and angels’ breath.

What about us? And more. Working through and thinking-doing post-qualitative inquiry in diverse spaces challenges taken-for-granted practice to create possibilities for thinking the unthinkable. Various spaces of uncertainty, movement, affect, and thought-in-the-act challenge people not only to reconsider what constitutes inquiry, but also how to write about one’s encounters and processes. Scholars are often confronted with uncertainty and hesitation about what to think, where to focus, and how to conduct oneself and the others in oneself. What about us? One might want to dance or move her finger across the screen. She might desire to scream in harmony with Munch’s painting. Bodies, texts, questions, events, screens, pens, words and lines, dots, high and low pitches and more. The spaces without rules and rules without spaces are here. Bodies respond in unconscious and unanticipated ways, producing inquiry and affect each time differently. In the shadow texts, we might see how doing research-creation extends outside the process of “just” writing a paper in the tradition of “conventional humanist qualitative methodology” (St. Pierre, 2011, p. 613). As such, these texts explore other aspects of researchers’ experiences, including their bodies and everyday lives. The perspectives of post-qualitative research and arts-based research embrace movements and border crossings of all kinds. Sharing and not sharing movements, liminal and border spaces and thoughts-in-the-act shape the ecologies of inquiry here and to come. We continue to be excited!

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St. Pierre, E. A. (2011). Post qualitative research: The critique and the coming after. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), SAGE handbook of qualitative inquiry (4th ed.) (pp. 611–635). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. St. Pierre, E. A. (2017a). Haecceity: Laying out a plane for post qualitative inquiry. Qualitative Inquiry, 23(9), 686–698. St. Pierre, E. A. (2017b). Post qualitative inquiry: The next generation. In N. K. Denzin & M. D. Giardina (Eds.), Qualitative inquiry in neo-liberal times (pp. 37–47). New York, NY: Routledge. St. Pierre, E. A. (2018). Writing post qualitative inquiry. Qualitative Inquiry, 24(9), 603–608. St. Pierre, E. A. & Jackson, A. Y. (2014). Qualitative data analysis after coding. Qualitative Inquiry, 20(6), 715–719. Ulmer, J. (2017). Posthumanism as research methodology: Inquiry in the anthropocene. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in education, 30(9), 832–848. Watson, R. A. (1993). Shadow history in philosophy. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 31(1), 95–109.

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About the Authors Bryant Keith Alexander, PhD is Professor of Communication, Cul­ ture and Performance Studies. He serves as the Dean, College of Communication and Fine Arts at Loyola Marymount University. He is an active scholar, lecturer and performer with nearly 150 publications in leading journals, books and contributions in such volumes as the Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies (SAGE), Handbook of Performance Studies (SAGE), Handbook of Qualitative Research (SAGE, Third Edition/Fifth Edition), Handbook of Communication and Instruction (SAGE), Handbook of Critical Intercultural Communication (Wiley-Blackwell), and the Handbook of Autoethnography (Left Coast). He is the co-editor of Performance Theories in Education: Power, Pedagogy and the Politics of Identity (2005, Erlbaum), author of Performing Black Masculinity: Race, Culture, and Queer Identity (2006, Alta Mira), The Performative Sustainability of Race: Reflections on Black Culture and the Politics of Identity (2012, Lang), with a series of forthcoming publications. David Carless is a professor of narrative psychology at Leeds Beckett University, UK. His research utilizes a range of arts-based, narrative and performative methods to explore and communicate critical dimensions of human experience such as identity development and mental health. Doing Arts-Based Research, co-authored with Kitrina Douglas, is his latest book and will be published by Routledge in 2020. Marcelo Diversi is Professor of Human Development at Washington State University Vancouver, USA. He teaches and writes with the hope that critical inquiry matters enough to help us expand the circle of Us around the globe Kitrina Douglas is a video/ethnographer/director, storyteller, musician, and narrative scholar whose research spans the arts, humanities and social sciences. Along with David Carless I have carried out research for a variety of organizations including Department of Health, Addiction Recovery Agency, Royal British Legion, Women’s Sports Foundation, UK Sport, local authority and NHS Primary Mental Health Care Trusts. These projects have provoked us to find ways to challenge oppression

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and injustice outside of traditional academic reporting channels therefore we publish our research as films, documentaries, and musical theatre, as well as through written peer reviewed publications, magazine articles, on-line publications and books. I have a fractional contract at Leeds Beckett University and am Director of the Boomerang-Project. org.uk an arts-based network for public engagement and performance of social science research and produce the on-line qualitative research series “Qualitative Conversations”. https://www.youtube.com/channel /UCkWCTy8bNOY6JlvX_yg-Uig Anne Harris is Associate Professor, Principal Research Fellow (RMIT University), Australian Research Council Future Fellow,and Honorary Research Fellow at University of Nottingham (UK), and researches in the areas of gender, creativity, performance, and video. Anne is a native New Yorker who has worked professionally as a playwright, dramaturg, and teaching artist, has authored over 90 articles/chapters and 16 books on creativity, arts, and gender, and has won over $1.5m in competitive research funding. Anne is series editor of Creativity, Education and the Arts (Palgrave), and the Director of Creative Agency, a transdisciplinary research lab at RMIT University, focusing on creativity and creative making practices within a community of artists and scholars for social change (search Creative Agency or go to: www.creativeresearchhub.com) Dafna Moriya, PhD is an art therapist, artist and researcher. Moriya gives lectures and workshops internationally. She teaches and supervises art therapists and doctoral students, exhibits her art work, and is involved in art based activities for social change. She founded “The Center for Art-Based Research and Change.” (http://www.artbasedresearch.org) She authored “Art Therapy in Schools – Effective Integration of Art Therapists in Schools” (http://www.art-therapy. co.il), published an art book, “Transitional Space #1” (http://www.moriya .co.il), and recently published her book: “Navigating visual imagery and verbalization in therapy, art based research and problem solving.” Emppu Nurminen, Nurminen MA in the social sciences, University of Tampere graduated from the University of Tampere in 2017. Emppu’s research interests include the intersections of race, gender and

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nationalism, critical discourse analysis, affects and philosophy, and post-qualitative inquiry. Emppu’s Masters Dissertation Circulating Emotions, Gender and Racialization in Public Demonstrations for Closing the Finnish Borders from Asylum Seekers (2017) investigated, inspired particularly by the work of Sara Ahmed, how emotions circulate around the (gendered, racialized) figure of the asylum seeker in anti-foreigner demonstrations in Finland. In 2016, Emppu worked as an intern in the research project Just the Two of Us? Affective Inequalities in Intimate Relationships, funded by the Academy of Finland. Richard Siegesmund is Professor of Art+Design Education at Northern Illinois University. He holds a PhD in Art Education from Stanford University. He has received Fulbright awards for artsbased research to both Ireland and Belgium and additional fellowship awards from the Getty Education Institute for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. Joseph D. Sweet (PhD, Arizona State University) is an Assistant Professor of English education at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke whose research interests include pedagogies of gender equity in secondary English language arts, qualitative inquiry, arts curriculum, and masculinities. Joe served as a secondary English and theatre teacher for nine years. Mirka Koro-Ljungberg (PhD, University of Helsinki) is a Professor of qualitative research at the Arizona State University. Her scholarship operates in the intersection of methodology, philosophy, and socio-cultural critique and her work aims to contribute to methodological knowledge, experimentation, and theoretical development across various traditions associated with qualitative research. She has published in various qualitative and educational journals and she is the author of Reconceptualizing Qualitative Research: Methodologies Without Metho­dology (2016) published by SAGE and co-editor of Disrupting Data in Qualitative Inquiry: Entanglements With The Post-Critical and Post-Anthropocentric (2017) by Peter Lang.

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Index #MeTooMovement, 22 160 cm Line Tattooed on 4 People, 89 1960s protest cultures, 5 A Abramovic, M., 90, 98, 99 activism affective, 4–7 small acts of, 12–15 activist memes, 2 acts of intervention, 34 aesthetic performance, 33 affect theory, 10 affective activism, 14 African American Blackness, 32 Ager, M., 10 A Hard Day’s Night, 61 Ahmed, S., 13, 14 AIDS, 92 AIDS activism, 3 A Little Rain, 59, 61 Alexander, B., 55 American pragmatism, 104 Analysis of Strange Fruit, 22 Anderson, B., 4, 14 Anelli, M., 98–99 Arab Spring, 3 Aranyosi, I., 119 Are We Asking the Wrong Questions in Arts-Based Research?, 93 Arlen, H., 12 armchair activism, 2 art autonomy of, 92–96 data analysis and, 82 data collection and, 81–82 ethics and, 88–92, 97–100 purposelessness of, 97 results presentation of, 82–83 Art Health Network Canada, 56 arts-based research, 88 artistry and, 96–97 ethical practices and, xi, 78–79 inclusive relationships and, 115 names and definitions of, 79–80 new directions in, 93 pursuit of truth and, viii qualitative inquiry and, 114–18

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refined definitions of, 77–78, 81 Also see disinterestedness, qualitative inquiry art world, 88 Artist is Present, The, 98 asylum seekers, 62–64 B Bachmann, C.L., 49 Badiou, A., vii, ix, x Baex, J., 5 Barad, K., 4, 13, 88, 112 Barkai, S., 79 Barone, T., 93–94, 96, 103 Battle Hymn of the Republic, 29 Battle of Orgreave, 96 Bay of Pigs, 5 bearable life, 13 Beatles, 14 Bennett, J., 4, 15 big data, 13, 14 Bishop, C., 96 Black Lives Matter, 21 black radical tradition, 6 Blanc, A., 72 Blevins, T., 26, 32 bloom spaces, 9, 10 Boler, M., 3 Bosco, J., xi, 71, 72, 73 Bourdieu, P., 97 Boylorn, R.M., 55 Bozo Fucks Death, 92 Bragg, B., 68 Breathing Too Loud, 65 Brexit, 64 Bridge Over Troubled Waters, 19, 34, 49 British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 94 Bronski Beat, 434 Brown, M., 24–26, 32 Browne, J., 58 Burden, C., 91 Butler, J., 8, 12, 13, 14 C Caja, J., 92 Callier, D., 55 Cannella, G., 111 Cannon, S.O., 118 Caramel, 47

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Carless, D., 49, 54, 55, 57, 58, 59, 60, 69 Center for Educational Research, 112 Channel Orange, 47 Chaplin, C., 72 Charlottesville, Virginia, 23 Chasing Rainbows, 1, 4 Chawla, D., 55 Cheah, P., 4 civil rights movement, 24, 28 clickbait, 2 Clift, S.M., 56 coalitions of resistance, 29 Cohen, L., 58 Cold Soul, 55 collectivity, 14 colonizing theory of culture, 98 community art, 7 community cultural development, 7 constructivism, 105 critical autoethnography, xi D Damasio, A.R., 106 Day in Autoethnography, 55 Deleuze, G., ix, 112 Deller, J., 96 Denzin, N., viii, ix, 35, 55, 69, 111 Derrida, J., 112 Dewey, J., 101–2, 104 Difference and Repetition, x digital artifacts, 2 directions of effectivity, 29 disinterestedness, xi, 98 arts-based research and, 87–88 beauty and, 97 as a criterion in arts-based research, 105–7 origins of concept of, 87 post-qualitative approach to, 100–5 distancing, 101 Diversi, M., 56, 67, 68, 69 Douglas, K., 47–48, 49, 50, 53, 58, 60, 62, 66 Dylan, B., 5, 58 E earbuds, 20, 21 Eisner, E., 93, 96 embodied performance, 35 embodies strategies, 33 embodiment, 117

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Esperanca Equilibrista, 73 ethics, 103, 104 F Facebook, 3 Ferguson, Missouri, 24 Fink, M., 68 Finley, S., 115 Flint, 118 Forrest Gump, 47 Foucault, M., 112 Frank, A., xi, 53, 57 free play, 93 futurity, 11 G Gantt, L., 78 Garland, J., 8, 11, 12 Garner, E., 21, 32 Gavin, J., 73 Gay News, 43 Geertz, C., 87, 88, 100, 101, 102, 103, 108 Genius, 24 Glory, 19, 23–29, 32, 35 Goldberg, J., 95, 96, 98, 99 Gooch, B., 49 goodness, 102 Grant, J., 47 Great Depression, 6 Grosz, E., 4 Guattari, F., 112 Guggenheim Museum, 94 Guthrie, W., 5 Gwithian Sands, 62 H Halberstam, J., 10–11, 12 Hammond, L.C., 78 Hancox, G., 56 Handbook of Arts-Based Research, viii Happy Days are Here Again, 1, 4, 6, 10 Harburg, Y., 12 Harding, S., 100 Harris, A., 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 55 Haskins, C., 93 Hiatt, J., 58 Holiday, B., 22 Holman Jones, S., 2, 4, 8, 9, 11 Human, All Too Human, 120 human experience, 1

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Human Rights Watch, 64 humanistic qualitative methodology, 112 hybrid social movements, 3 I I Can’t Breathe, 21 I Have a Dream, 29 ideological body, 32, 33 ideological performance, 19–20, 32 embodied strategies and, 33 sound, silence and, 20 ideology, coded, 32 Imagine, 14 imagined body, 33 Instagram, 3 institutional review board (IRB), 88 intellectual separation, 101 International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, 15, 19, 49, 53, 55 intra-action, 13 J Jackson, A.Y., 111 Jagodzinski, J., 95 Jena Six Incident, 26, 32 Johansson, L., 113, 114 John Legend and Common, 24, 29, 36 Johnson, D., 25 Jones, S.H., 19, 34, 53, 55 Julia, 41 K Kant, E., 92–93, 97 Kapitan, L., 78 King, M.L.K. Jr., 29 Knowles, J.G., 80 Koons, J., 91, 93 Koro-Ljungberg, M., 111, 113 Kreutz, G., 56 L La Cicciolina, 91 Lanzetta, J.T., 100 Leavy, P., 78, 114, 115 Lather, P., 87, 103, 106, 111 Lemert, C., 111 Lennon, J., 14, 41, 49 Lenz Taguchi, H., 113 Letting Stories Breathe, 53

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LGBT in Britain: Crime and Discrimination, 49 Lincoln, Y., 111 Lorimer, H., 2 Lowe, E.J., 119 Loyola Marymount University, 31 Löytönen, T., 111 Luncheon on the Grass, 91 M MacDonald, A. 3 Macleish, A., x Malchiodi, C.A., 78 Manchester, E., 89 Manet, E., 91 Manning, E., 4, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116 Martin, T., 21, 32 Marxism, viii Massumi, B., 113, 115 Master of Fine Arts, 96–97 Mazzei, L.A., 111 McIntyre, L., vii Meerpol, A., 22 memes, 2, 7 MOMA Learning, 98 Moreiera, C., 69 more-than-human solidarity, 3 more-than-human theories, 113, 117 Moriya, D., 78, 79, 80, 82 Morrissey, 43 mortal consequences, 34 Muñoz, J.E., 6, 11 Muppet Movie, 1, 4, 5, 8 Musée D’Orsay, 91 Museum of Modern Art, 98 N NAMES Project AIDS Quilt, 3 National Health Service, New Critics, x Nietzsche, F., 118, 119, 120 Nitsou, C., 3 Nixon, R., 5 nonhuman, 103 nonrepresentation, 2 Nordstrom, S., 113 O O Bebado e o Equilibrista, 71 Ocean, F., 47

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Occupy movement, 3, 8, 9 O’Donoghue, D., 93, 94 Oklahoma, 61 online activism, 2 Open See, 99 Orlie, M.A., 4 Oxford Dictionary, 80 P Parks, R., 29 performance as contestation, 29 ideological, 31 as making not faking, 32 Also see ideological performance Performing Songs for Cindy, 55 photovoice methodology, 95 Pineau, E., 69 Ping, H.Y., 94 Plato, ix Plummer, K., 53 poetic representation, viii, x ethical responsibility of, xi poiesis, viii political/collective affect, 9 positivism, viii postmodernism, 91 crisis and opportunity of, 12 post-qualitative inquiry, 111–14 post-truth, vii, ix pragmatism, 101, 104, 105 Promislow, S., 80 protest art, 7 protest songs, 1 Q Qualitative Inquiry, 34 qualitative inquiry embodied performance and, 35 goodness and, 102–3 epistemological standpoint of, 35 singing and, 35, 41–42, 55–56 qualitative performative scholarship, 20 Queen of Denmark, 47 queer, 11 queer futurity, 10 queer space, 10, 12 queer time, 10, 11 queer utopia, 6

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R radicalization arcs, 9 Rainbow Connection, 1, 4, 5, 8 Raised by Wolves, 95 Rawlings, B., 55 Reagan, R., 9 reciprocal agency, 88 Recovering Notes on Aging, 55 reflection, 100 reflexivity, 100, 101, 106 representation, poststructuralism’s crisis of, 4 research-creation, 114, 115–18 embodiment and, 116–17 process-oriented nature of, 116 relationality and, 117 Revolution, 15 Revolution Will Not be Televised, 15 Robert, R., 62 Rolling, J.H., 80 Rorty, R., 98, 101 Rosiek, J., 88, 103, 104, 105, 107 Rotas, N., 115 Rou, J., 31 Rhythm O, 90 S Saldaña, J., 53, 60 Salvo, J., 69 Schulman, S., 7, 8 scientism, 106 Scott-Heron, G., 15 secondary ignorance, 100 Seinfeld, 87 selfies, 2 Selma, 24, 29 Selma to Montgomery marches, 24, 29 shadow data, 118 shadow dialogues, 118, 121 shadow texts, 118, 121–23, 123–32 shadows, 118–21 Shelton, S.A., 118 Sheppard, M., 44 Shoot, 91 Sieber, J.E., 100 Sierra, S., 89 silence, 2 Simon, P., 58 (Sing If You’re) Glad to Be Gay, 42 Singing in Troubled Times, 67 small story, 3 Smalltown Boy, 43

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Smiths, The, 43 social recognition, 13 socially engaged art, 7 Somewhere Over the Rainbow, 1, 4, 6, 8, 12 Sommerville, J., 43 song/singing, xi, 15, 56–57, 61–62 benefits of, 56 as an embodied action, 60 as a leap of faith, 59 process of, 57–61, 64–66 propaganda, 29 as protest, x, 6, 14, 20 qualitative inquiry and, 35, 41–42, 55–56 research and, xi transformative power of, x utopia and, 7–12 Also see protest songs Song Book of Our Lives, 34, 55 Song-writers on Song Writing, 58 Sorensen, R., 119 Southern Illinois University, 44 Spaniol, S.E., 78 Springgay, S., 111, 115, 116, 117 Spry, T., 55 Stanford Prison Experiment, 88, 91 Stewart, K., 9, 10, 12 Stonewall, 49 story, 3 St. Pierre, E., 58, 88, 103, 111, 112, 113 Strange Fruit, 19, 20–23, 30–34 Stumble, 49, 55 sub-cerebral, 106 subjectivism, 106 Suburban Black Suburban Blue, xi, 42, 46, 47–48, 50–52, 54 Sullivan, G., 80 T Tate Modern, 89 Telling Sexual Stories, 53 terrorist affect, 4 Tesar, M., 111 Theater of the World, 94, 95 thick description, 41 thick empathy, 42 Thinking as a Moral Act, 101 Third Critique, 92, 93, 97 This Charming Man, 43 This Country, 64–65, 66–67 Thrift, N., 2

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thoroughness, 46 Tom Robinson Band, 42 totalizing theory of culture, 98 Truman, S.E., 111, 115, 116, 117 truth procedures, vii Turner, V., 32 U Ulmer, J., 112 Unite the Right, 23 utopian belonging, x utopian moment, 10 utopian other place, 12 utopian other space, x utopian other time, x utopian performativity, 6, 28 V Vancouver Art Gallery, 94 van der Tuin, I., 4 vibrant matter, 15 Viega, M., 78 Villini, P., 2 virtuality, 12 visual culture, 2 Vonnegut, K., vii, viii W Wallin, J., 95 Wanderer and his Shadow, The, 120 Watson, R.A., 118 We Crossed the Tamar, 55 Wilson, D., 25 Wizard of Oz, 1, 4, 8, 12 Y Yellen, J., 10 Z Zimbardo, P.G., 88 Zimmerman, G., 21 Zollo, P., 58, 59

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