Minor gestures: slow writing and everyday photography

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Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Susan Naomi Nordstrom, Karamjeet K. Dhillon, and the reviewers for their thoughtful, insightful, and generative comments.

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Photo Credits

Images 1–5: J. Ulmer, 2016, Detroit, Michigan, United States.

Image 6: R. Ulmer, 2016, Detroit, Michigan, United States.

Notes

^1. In following the objectives of this special issue, this piece incorporates multiple forms of creative, arts-based research. Photographs are placed alongside a series of poetic statements: together they illustrate and build upon Erin Manning’s theoretical concept of the “minor gesture.” For Manning, minor gestures are subtle movements that occur around us as the world constantly continues to unfold. As such, the photographs included here depict evolving street art from several neighborhoods in Detroit; they are from an ongoing research project that involves how local residents communicate through everyday images, folk art, and graffiti. I offer these images not as evidence to analyze or interpret, but as visual experiences that have provoked and stayed with me. They have made me think differently about what research is, when and where it happens, and how it might be written. The first three pairings of images and text work within a 55-word limit (to keep within the boundaries of flash fiction). In tandem with the next two pairings, they examine how minor gestures encourage us to slow down, wake up, read more, and listen and respond to everyday environments. These practices have the potential to increase researchers’ awareness of images that surround, such as the object-based assemblages, graffiti, and unexpected texts pictured above. Through slow approaches to research and writing, therefore, images potentially offer insights into how people communicate through everyday visual interventions.

^2. Hashtags such as #SlowWriting and #MinorGesture point to the ways in which people already are slowing down temporarily via photography in daily life. By sharing images with hashtags on digital platforms (e.g., Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook), many people are pausing ever so briefly to post images with hashtag descriptions. Moreover, arts-based scholars increasingly are integrating hashtags into their research (see, for instance, the works of Sara Scott Shields, Gloria Wilson, Kelly Guyotte, and Brooke Hofsess). In the piece featured here, I hope to similarly create an opening for readers who are interested in how photographic practices in everyday life might inform creative inquiries in research.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jasmine Brooke Ulmer

Jasmine Brooke Ulmer, PhD, is an assistant professor of education evaluation and research at Wayne State University in Detroit. Her work explores approaches to writing, visual methodologies, and critical qualitative inquiry.