‘It's too boring now’: restor(y)ing research while rereading resistance with Da’uud

Abstract

Thinking with the stories of a student who won’t let me go, this article rereads “Da’uud’s” participation in an elementary classroom theatre performance alongside my own resistance to conventional qualitative research methods. It is thus about resisting, restorying, and restoring research. In one thread, I trace stories of Da’uud resisting school, school resisting Da’uud, and the brilliance of Da’uud’s word play in resisting oppression locally (how he was positioned in the classroom and theatre performance) and globally (e.g. school norms based in white supremacy). In another, I work through (re-read) my fears about research that is too boring, appropriating, or damage-centered, exploring how contexts, time, and my reading of scholarship and theory (especially that which considers axiology) reframe this narrative, restoring joy in research. With Da’uud as the theorist in this exploration, I argue for relational research ethics lived in contingent collaboration.

Keywords:

• Research ethics
• qualitative research methods
• resistance
• story
• writing as inquiry

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 I hesitated for a long time before using the word “haunting”, knowing of a rich tradition about the concept of haunting, memory, re-membering, and writing (e.g. Dillard, 2008; Morrison, 2019). I use “haunting” here in its colloquial sense, as the word in English that comes closest to this presence. I note that an anonymous reviewer’s suggestion to integrate this literature itself echoes themes of this article: there is always so much more.

2 Note that this article is not about resistance theories. For such work, see examples such as Abowitz (2000), Brushwood Rose (2019), La Paperson (2011), Nasir (2004), Pyscher and Lozenski (2014), and Tuck (2011); and the special issue of IJQSE, 24(5), edited by Tuck and Yang.

3 Intentionally fragmented, what is here is a temporary and temporal way of orienting a telling, which could have been a “thousand thousand thousand and one” (Rushdie, 1990) other ways. Across years and versions, this article could have been about or started to follow many other threads, possible paths that exist in computer files, in scraps of paper, in middle-of-the-night thinking, or in ways yet to be imagined, even as this version obscures them.

4 See also Yoon (2019) for an exploration of complexities of positionality as a researcher “in the field”.

5 In addition to offering the reader a choice in how to interpret these texts, this format echoed the processes of both teaching and researching: Teachers must simultaneously be responding to what is happening and trying to decipher its meanings (put events, words, etc. into contexts) while researchers toggle between methods, theory, and the actual humans and spaces with whom they interact.

6 A note about pedagogy and about time: As teachers – the adults – sometimes we ask a student to take a risk or call out a student in a way that may be counter-productive or even violent. In the moment, I understood why the Teaching Artist asked this question; she was attempting to help Da’uud understand how this line would contribute to the play and how his classmates desired his participation. She was encouraging him. I have done similar things. That does not mean, however, that Da'uud interpreted her comment in this way. Da'uud may have perceived her as criticizing rather than encouraging, yet another negative interaction with a (white, female) teacher. Her attempt backfired. I too did not notice the impact on Da’uud in the moment.

7 The realities of theatre further complicated these negotiations, as theatre requires taking on performance identities. Da’uud may have chosen not to participate when performance identities were too far outside his lived identities, especially as he did not receive help negotiating these practices of theatre.

8 See, for instance, the 2015–2016 Citational Practices Challenge at http://www.criticalethnicstudiesjournal.org/citation-practices.

9 See McManimon, Her, and Adamji (McManimon et al., 2019) for an example of rewriting theory.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shannon K. McManimon

Shannon K. McManimon is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Studies and Leadership at the State University of New York at New Paltz where she teaches courses in educational foundations, antioppressive education, and qualitative research methods. Using narrative, arts-based, and participatory methods, she studies the social and cultural contexts of innovative, equity-focused teaching and learning in content areas that include literacy, STEM, and professional learning for educators. Her teaching and research draw on experiences in formal education, nonprofits, and informal learning environments. Her scholarship has appeared in publications such as Connected Science Learning; Harvard Educational Review; Journal of Curriculum Theorizing; Journal of Research in Science Teaching; Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal; and Teaching Education. She is co-editor (with Zachary A. Casey and Christina Berchini) of the book Whiteness at the table: Antiracism, racism, and identity in education (Lexington Books, 2018) and co-author (with Zachary A. Casey) of Building pedagogues: White practicing teachers and the struggle for antiracist work in schools (SUNY Press, 2020).