The meaning and value of poetic thinking in qualitative sport research

ABSTRACT

To do their job, qualitative sport researchers need to think. There are multiple modes of thinking and each one offers unique possibilities. In this article, we put the spotlight on poetic thinking, an overlooked yet important thinking mode for qualitative sport research. The article explains what poetic thinking is or can be, why think poetically, and how to create the conditions for poetic thoughts to emerge. In addition, it discusses how poetic thinking might look like in action, and posits three provocations: How does poetic thinking relate to other modes of thinking? Is it ethical to think poetically? Can poetic thinking contribute to social justice? Throughout the article, it’s highlighted that poetic thinking doesn’t serve the utilitarian logic of the research market and can’t be articulated or contained within the linguistic systems that attempt to represent it. It’s also emphasised that poetic thinkers adopt a receptive rather than active mode of relating to the world. Instead of reaching after meaning and interpretation, they patiently wait for something to happen and, when it does, they dwell in a state of openness to uncertainty, or negative reflection. Poetic thinking has the capacity to spawn intervals of ‘blue skies research’ that save us from becoming functionaries of the method and keep us focused on intellectual craftpersonship. It’s hoped the article makes room for more poetic qualitative sport research without minimising other thinking modes as a result.

KEYWORDS:

• Qualitative inquiry
• method
• non-representational thinking
• art
• imagination
• poetic inquiry
• blue skies research

Acknowledgements

We thank Kerry McGannon and the two anonymous reviewers who offered supportive but challenging feedback on this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The International Conference on Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise (QRSE) is a biennial event devoted to promoting, advancing and connecting qualitative research in the sport and exercise sciences. It’s aligned with the QRSE society (Twitter @QRSEsoc) and this journal, QRSEH. In my story, I refer to QRSE2022, hosted by the Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences at Durham University, UK.

2. This is not a new argument. Mills (1959) -the scholar we always quote when we allude to our intellectual craft- suggested that research can’t be developed through purposeful, systematic thinking only; it also requires going along with ‘fringe thoughts’ (i.e. ideas that stem from our every-day life and dreams) as well as being ‘passively receptive’ to the realities of life we encounter. In the same way we ‘fall into conversations’ with participants (Monforte, Netherway, and Smith 2023), we experience thoughts that often seem to have a life on their own. We let them unfold inside us and contemplate where they lead us.

3. We subscribe to Shahjahan’s (2015) approach to the term laziness. He wrote: ‘By “being lazy” I am referring to being at peace with “not doing” or “not being productive”, living in the present, and deprivileging the need for a result with the passage of time. I use the term “lazy” to provoke my readers, and to prompt interrogation of the negative colonial connotations attached to this term. I reclaim “being lazy” as a transformational heuristic device in the neoliberal academy’. (p. 489)

4. Grounded on our own experience, and inspired by Shahjahan (2015), Ball (2016), and Hartung et al. (2017), here are a few raw ideas as to how established academics could lend a hand and help their students and less privileged colleagues to embody ‘laziness’: 1) Speak fearlessly against notions of time that colonise academic careers in contexts such as performance management meetings; 2) Don’t perpetuate the idea that tenure is decadent because it makes people lazy. The market-driven logic seeks to eliminate tenure to keep researchers in a state of fear over losing their jobs. In that state, it’s difficult to let your mind wander. 3) Say ‘yes’ to tasks that doesn’t require poetic thinking (e.g. bureaucratic tasks) so that others can say ‘no’ and spend more time thinking deeply and slowly. Your bureaucratic sadness will be counterbalanced by the joy of creating poetic opportunities for others; 4) Facilitate spaces where young researchers don’t compete with each other, where they can share lazy practices such as ‘parar a esmorzar’, a Valencian ‘slow-food’ ritual that means interrupting work to sit in a bar and eat a big sandwich. Having conversations over ‘esmorzar’ may not make us better qualitative researchers, but it may contribute to uncontrollable, autotelic thinking, thinking that powers the qualitative imagination.

5. The Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) was a system used in the UK to assess the quality of research conducted by universities. The overarching purpose of the RAE was to provide accountability for public investment in research and to inform the allocation of research funding.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Javier Monforte

Javier Monforte is an associate professor in the Department of Physical Education and Sport at the University of València, Spain. His research focuses on the promotion of physical activity among disabled people. He is also interested in the philosophies, practices, and politics of qualitative inquiry. Although he is a nomadic thinker, he has a soft spot for narrative thinking. Currently, Javier teaches basketball pedagogy at undergraduate level.

Wenceslao Garcia-Puchades

Wenceslao Garcia-Puchades is an Associate Professor in the Department of Musical, Artistic and Physical Expression Education at the University of Valencia, Spain. He graduated in both sport sciences and philosophy, and he completed a PhD in arts. His current research focuses on the relationship between aesthetic and political education. He is also interested in speculative thinking, an approach that he applies to physical education teaching.