Experiments in Methodology: Sensory and Poetic Threads of Inquiry, Resistance, and Transformation

Abstract

Undertaking a practice-led, qualitative research inquiry, I forged an alternate methodology where narrative inquiry, sensory ethnography, and ethnographically based poetry intersect and open a space “in-between.” I call these intersections between narrative approaches and experiments in ethnography “Sensory Poetic Relationship Mapping” (SPRM). I discovered that metaphorical spaces, places, gateways, sites of inquiry and “counter-factual spaces” can come into being. The process of SPRM enabled “hidden” community-based narratives to be revealed through dialogue, narrative, poetry, metaphor, and handmade relationship maps. As an act of creative resistance, this offered alternate voices to the dominant narratives communicated by interconnected institutions of power. SPRM cracked open the metaphorical landscape in which these marginalized stories had been relegated to the periphery, so they could flow. These narratives rewoven to the center unexpectedly interconnected and revealed new sites for future inquiry.