Abstract
As a group of multidisciplinary postgraduate research students and teachers emerging as a “we,” we read, discussed, and then, without planning to do so, responded in writing to the textual provocations of three post qualitative texts. We picture ourselves as a “classing,” a “becoming class” (Meirieu, 2020, para. 1.). We are a study-group-thinking-writing experimentation; vulnerable, wobbling and joyously grappling to (re)shape (our) post qualitative inquiries. The experiment offered a scholarly place to critically, creatively, and softly curate post qualitative questions and wonderings. The writings below offer a lure into our nascent post-qualitative vulnerabilities. The purpose of this paper is to offer an exploration of what it means “to do” post qualitative research. This includes both feeling-out what post qualitative research “is” and understanding that there is no extant single powerful definition and that post qualitative writing is likewise without set generic rules. In this paper we experiment with both the definitional boundaries of post qualitative research and the conventions of how to understand and come to write it. This paper is an incipient materialisation from a pedagogical event.
Author Bio(s)
Catherine Thiele is a lecturer and researcher at the University of the Sunshine Coast. Her research interests include the affective experiences of datafication in schools, transformative and socially responsible practices driving teacher professional development, preservice teacher preparation (particularly for rural and remote education) and mathematics education. Please direct correspondence to cthiele@usc.edu.au.
Stephen Heimans writes and teaches about education policy/ leadership enactment, education research methodology and schooling in underserved communities. He is interested in the post-critical possibilities of Jacques Rancière’s thinking and the philosophy of science of Isabelle Stengers- especially experimental constructivism. Stephen contributes to the International Teacher Education Research Collective (ITERC), a recently established group collaborating around research on teacher education in several countries including Australia, the UK, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Japan, Hong Kong and Sweden. The Collective is currently exploring three interrelated research themes: how professionalism is “claimed”; the ethics and politics of teachers’ knowledge; and the knowledge base of teacher education. https://twitter.com/_ITERC. Please direct correspondence to s.heimans@uq.edu.au.
Professor Catherine Manathunga (PhD) is a Professor of Education Research in the School of Education and Tertiary Access at The University of the Sunshine Coast (USC), Australia. She is the Co-Director of the Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre at USC. She is a historian who draws together expertise in historical, sociological, and cultural studies research to bring an innovative perspective to higher education research. Please direct correspondence to cmanathu@usc.edu.au.
Suzanne Barry is an education researcher, writer, and facilitator — working in schools, university, and as the Research Manager for a girls’ education organisation. With qualifications in linguistics, and education research, she is a PhD candidate funded by ARC grant project, “Starting Young, Starting Strong ...,” contributing new knowledge on teacher education, specifically, the forming of language teacher (intercultural) identity. Please direct correspondence to sbarry1@usc.edu.au.
Benjamin Cherry-Smith is a PhD candidate at the University of Adelaide researching the US-Australia alliance. He also holds a Master of Arts from the University of the Sunshine Coast and a Master of International Relations and Bachelor of Government and International Relations from Griffith University. Please direct correspondence to benjamin.cherry-smith@adelaide.edu.au.
Kristy Farrelly is a PhD student in the schools of Law and Education at The University of the Sunshine Coast (USC), Australia. She draws on her legal background to examine the effects of neoliberalism on academic freedom in Australian universities. Please direct correspondence to kfarrelly@usc.edu.au.
Terence Grogan is a PhD candidate in the School of Education at The University of the Sunshine Coast (USC), Australia. He draws on his 37-year background in classroom and administrative roles in primary schools, to study the Foucauldian Power/knowledge effects of wellbeing discourses in Primary Schools in Queensland, Australia. Please direct correspondence to tgrogan@usc.edu.au.
Robyn Kemble is a Social Work Field Education Academic Lead at CQU School of Nursing, Midwifery & Social Sciences. Robyn is a PhD candidate with the University of the Sunshine Coast in the field of child protection and Infants in out of home care. Please direct correspondence to r.kemble@cqu.edu.au.
Lisa McIlwain is a PhD student in Human Geography at The University of the Sunshine Coast (USC), Australia. She draws on her background in environmental policy and planning to study collaboration, social learning and the role of power dynamics in catchment management. Please direct correspondence to lisa.mcilwain@research.usc.edu.au.
Recommended APA Citation
Thiele, C.,
Heimans, S.,
Manathunga, C.,
Barry, S.,
Cherry-Smith, B.,
Farrelly, K.,
Grogan, T.,
Kemble, R.,
&
McIlwain, L.
(2022).
Collective, Vulnerable, Nascent (Post) Qualitative Inquiry-Writing.
The Qualitative Report,
27(5), 1196-1205.
https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2022.5623
