Resistance, desistance: bad girls of post-qualitative inquiry

Abstract

Who or what might be the illegitimate offspring of the “bad girl” as a figure for post-qualitative research? I consider the witch as a figure of posthuman efficacy and affective relationality, drawing on recent invocations of witchcraft and divination as theoretic practice. The witch might help post-qualitative methodology fulfil its own aspirations to get beyond language and the closures of coding by infusing method with divinatory practices. Examples of such practices in recent qualitative research studies are discussed. Divination does not seek to understand, but to transform from within, by sensing and redirecting the flows and intensities of that which is coming into existence. I also consider, more briefly, the witch’s near relation, the crone—a figure that feels more befitting to my own age and status. As an anomaly in the networks that sustain human conviviality, the crone’s uselessness might also have some disruptive force. I suggest that post-qualitative method might learn from the witch the arts of transformation and resistance, and from the crone the power of desistance and the passion of disinterest.

Keywords:

• Post-qualitative inquiry
• post-humanism
• Deleuze
• affect theory

Acknowledgment

I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers of the first draft of this article, and to the editors of the Special Issue in which it appears, for their helpful and thought-provoking comments.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 “Bad Girl Theory and Practice: Qualitative Research in Post-Truth Times.” Symposium held at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Toronto, April 2019. Organised by Patti Lather. Presenters: Patti Lather, Deborah Britzman, Janet Miller, Lisa Weems, Maggie MacLure.

2 On the figures of the cyborg, trickster, mestiza and madwoman, see respectively Haraway (1991), Johnson (1987), Anzaldúa (1999), Behar (1995).

3 Current examples include Pam Grossman’s podcast, The Witch Wave (https://witchwavepodcast.com); Starhawk’s blogg (https://starhawk.org/blog/); Alice Tuck’s ‘Toil and Trouble’ workshops (https://alicetarbuck.net).

4 Not all contemporary crones favour disconnection and desistance: see for instance collectives such as Crones Counsel (https://www.cronescounsel.org).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maggie MacLure

Maggie MacLure is Professor Emerita in the Education in the Education and Social Research Institute (ESRI), Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. She was Co-Founder (with Elizabeth de Freitas) of the Manifold Laboratory for Biosocial, Eco-Sensory, & Digital Studies of Learning and Behaviour. She is Founder-Director of the international Summer Institute in Qualitative Research, where researchers engage with the latest issues in theory and methodology in dialogue with leading theorists.