Getting in tune through arts-based narrative inquiry

Abstract

This article provides a glimpse into the use of arts-based methods within a narrative inquiry into learning in an early years degree. Drawing on writing as inquiry [Richardson, L., and E. A. St. Pierre. 2005. “Writing: A Method of Inquiry.” In The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, edited by N. K. Denzin, and Y. K. Lincoln, 959–978. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage], arts-based research [Estrella, K., and M. Forinash. 2007. “Narrative Inquiry and Arts-Based Inquiry: Multinarrative Perspectives.” Journal of Humanistic Psychology 47 (3): 376–383; Barone, T., and E. W. Eisner. 2012. Arts Based Research. Los Angeles, CA: Sage; Leavy, P. 2015. Method Meets Art: Second Edition: Arts-Based Research Practice. New York: Guilford Press], narrative inquiry [Kim, Jeong-Hee. 2016. Understanding Narrative Inquiry: The Crafting and Analysis of Stories as Research. Los Angeles, CA: Sage], autoethnography [Ellis, C., T. Adams, and A. Bochner. 2010. Autoethnography: An Overview. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/ Forum Qualitative Social Research 12 (1). http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1589/3095] [Holman Jones, S. 2005. “Autoethnography – Making the Personal Political.” In The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, edited by N. K. Denzin, and Y. S. Lincoln. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; Wyatt, J. 2008. “No Longer Loss: Autoethnographic Stammering.” Qualitative Inquiry 14 (6): 955–967; Trahar, S. 2009. “Beyond the Story Itself: Narrative Inquiry and Autoethnography in Intercultural Research in Higher Education.” Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research 10 (1)] and the philosophical notion of the rhizome [Deleuze, G., and F. Guattari. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by B. Massumi. Vol. 2, Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota. Original edition, Mille Plateaux, volume 2 of Capitlisme et Schizophrenie, 1980, Les Editions de Minuit, Paris; Jackson, A. Y. 2003. “Rhizovocality.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 16 (5): 693–710; Honan, E. 2007. “Writing a Rhizome: an (im)Plausible Methodology.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 20 (5): 531–546; Sermijn, J., P. Devlieger, and G. Loots. 2008. “The Narrative Construction of the Self: Selfhood as a Rhizomatic Story.” Qualitative Inquiry 14 (4): 632–650; Clarke, B., and J. Parsons. 2009. “Becoming Rhizome Researchers.” Reconceptualising Educational Research Methodology 4 (1): 205–215; Sellers, M. 2015. “‘Working with (a) Rhizoanalysis’ and Working (with) a Rhizoanalysis.” Complicity 12 (1)], the author, a timid ‘I’, seeks to disrupt commonly accepted modes of representing knowledge through a performative text that enacts rather than fixates meaning. The purpose is to attempt to shift the ‘discursively established, sedimented strata of educational theory and practice that continue to be highly influential in a great many institutional and policy driven contexts … ’ (Sikes and Gale, 2006, final paragraph). The hope is to effect some change in research methodologies that marginalise and to highlight the political within the three dimensional inquiry space [Clandinin, D. J., and F. M. Connelly. 2000. Narrative Inquiry: Experience and Story in Qualitative Research. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass; Clandinin, D. J. 2006. “Narrative Inquiry: A Methodology for Studying Lived Experience.” Research Studies in Education 27 (1): 44–54] of Early Childhood education and practice.