Setting the Agenda: Poetic Inquiry as Critical Family Communication Methodology

ABSTRACT

I use the erasure poems in the poetry chapbook, “Bringing Up Baby,” as Critical Interpersonal and Family Communication (CIFC) research to critique white middle-class notions of mothering and motherhood. Poetic inquiry is a form of Arts-Based Research (ABR) methodology that offers Critical Family Communication (CFC) researchers a way to highlight the aesthetics of personal experience, focus on embodiment and participatory measures, and use artistic forms to meld scientific and humanistic understandings of relationships. I argue that poetic inquiry as CFC methodology adds to family communication studies and offers a research and practice agenda using poetic inquiry as (a) everyday theorizing, (b) critique of traditional understandings of family relating and relationships, and (c) an evocative, embodied form that positions author reflexivity and engages dialectics. I provide suggestions for incorporating poetic inquiry into CFC research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. “Feeding”; “Food Thought”; “Bringing Up Baby” first appeared in MotherWork collage (A queer scrapbook). QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, 4(1), 166-179. doi:10.14321/qed.4.1.0166 “Birth Day” first appeared in The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts. “Battle of the B-F Girls” first appeared in Rat’s Ass Review, 2. Working Mom appeared as “Making Soup” in Ithaca Lit. Spring 2017. 10 ARE YOU PREGNANT? first appeared in Slippery Elm.