The Art of Failure

Abstract

Research Article| December 01 2015 The Art of Failure: A Grammar of Possibility in Critical Qualitative Research Stacy Holman Jones Stacy Holman Jones Stacy Holman Jones is Professor in the Centre for Theatre and Performance at Monash University and in the Department of Communication Studies at California State University, Northridge. Email: stacy.holmanjones@monash.edu. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Departures in Critical Qualitative Research (2015) 4 (4): 5–7. https://doi.org/10.1525/dcqr.2015.4.4.5 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Stacy Holman Jones; The Art of Failure: A Grammar of Possibility in Critical Qualitative Research. Departures in Critical Qualitative Research 1 December 2015; 4 (4): 5–7. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/dcqr.2015.4.4.5 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentDepartures in Critical Qualitative Research Search The essays in this issue of Departures in Critical Qualitative Research take the art and possibility of failure seriously, showing us the risk, the pleasure, and the innovative forms of knowledge that can come from encountering and making sense of the unexpected, the difficult, and the devastating in our lives and in our work. As Judith Halberstam points out, “under certain circumstances failing, losing, forgetting, unmaking, undoing, unbecoming, not knowing may in fact offer more creative, more cooperative, more surprising ways of being in the world.”2 The emphasis on success, sensemaking, and certainty in the work of qualitative inquiry leaves out, as the essays in this issue make clear, what we do not readily or easily acknowledge, know, or understand. For example, Stephanie Young's “It's Not Just Black and White” chronicles her conversations with students about the instability of racial categories and identities, taken-for-granted knowledges about race and racism,... You do not currently have access to this content.