Entangled Ekphrastics: Proliferating Modes of (Post) Qualitative Inquiry Through Liminality and Research-Creation

Kathryn Riley; Gretchen Goode; Bretton A. Varga; Paul William Eaton; Celina Salvador-García; Christie C.  Byers

doi:10.7577/rerm.6097

Authors

Kathryn Riley University of Manitoba https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7555-9237
Gretchen Goode The University of Southern Mississippi https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8916-0195
Bretton A. Varga California State University https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6367-4123
Paul William Eaton Sam Houston State University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4739-2676
Celina Salvador-García Universitat Jaume I https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0776-8760
Christie C. Byers George Mason University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3689-3686

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7577/rerm.6097

Keywords:

act/artivism, co-created poetry, posthumanism, past~present~future entanglements, mid-wifing the new

Abstract

In this article, we articulate a research-creation process called entangled ekphrastics as an emergent response to -isms: racism, capitalism, colonialism, heteropatriarchalism, speciesism, and nationalism. Our collective gathered virtually, engaged with artwork, and co-created (entangled) poems. This research-creation process generated profound appreciation for disrupting conventions of traditional qualitative inquiry, pushing the boundaries of activism and artivism in the present moment. We wonder about how responding to the present through entangled ekphrastics moves us toward theoretical liminality, hospicing the crises of the present, and midwifing a future together.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

References

Ahmed, S. (2021). Complaint. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478022336

Ahmed, S. (2023). The feminist killjoy handbook. Random House.

Akómoláfé, B. (2023, November 14). Closing keynote by Báyò Akómoláfé: Reflections on

democracy and belonging [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuScRIYENJc&t=1974s

Aladro-Vico, E., Jivkova-Semova, D., & Bailey, O. (2018). Artivism: A new educative

language for transformative social action. Comunicar: Media Education Research Journal, 26(57), 9-18.

Alimen, M. C. D., Alimen, R. A., & Isidro, R. V. (2023). Artivism: Art for social transformation

and critical ability development. Philippine Social Science Journal, 6(2), 39-45.

Baldwin, J. (1971/1998). No name in the street. In J. Baldwin, Collected essays (pp. 349-475).

The Library of America.

Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of

matter and meaning. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv12101zq

Barad, K. (2011). Nature's queer performativity. Qui Parle: Critical Humanities and Social

Sciences, 19(2), 121-158. https://doi.org/10.5250/quiparle.19.2.0121

Barad, K., & Gandorfer, D. (2021). Political desirings: Yearnings for mattering (,) differently.

Theory & Event, 24(1), 14–66. https://doi.org/10.1353/tae.2021.0002

Berlant, L. (2011). Cruel optimism. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822394716

Braidotti, R. (2019). Posthuman knowledge. Polity. https://doi.org/10.5040/9798881811747

Braidotti, R. (2022). Posthuman feminism. Cambridge: Polity.

Bräuchler, B. (2022). Artivism in Maluku. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 23(1),

-58. https://doi.org/10.1080/14442213.2021.2003426

Bronfman, P. (2021). Activism in a time of pandemic: the impact of COVID-19 in Chilean

citizen movement after the uprising of October 2019. Citizenship Teaching & Learning, 16(2), 201-211. https://doi.org/10.1386/ctl_00056_1

Butler, O. E. (2000/2024). A few rules for predicting the future. Chronicle Books.

Cloud, A., & Faulkner, S. L. (Eds.). (2019). Poetic inquiry as social justice and political

response. Vernon Press. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351044233

Daigle, C. (2023). Posthumanist vulnerability: An affirmative ethics. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Davies, B. (2021). Entanglement in the world’s becoming and the doing of new materialist

inquiry. Routledge.

de La Bellacasa, M.P. (2017). Matters of care: Speculative ethics in more than human worlds.

U of Minnesota Press.

Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia

(Massumi, B., Trans.). University of Minnesota Press.

Edgar, S. N., & Morrison, B. (2021). A vision for Social Emotional Learning and arts education

policy. Arts Education Policy Review, 122(3), 145-150.

Faulkner, S. L., & Watson, W. K. (2025). Composing poems: Using poetry as qualitative data

analysis. In J. R. Wolgemuth, K. W. Guyotte, & S. A. Shelton (Eds.), Expanding approaches to thematic analysis: Creative engagements with qualitative data (pp. 171-183). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003389149-12

Flint, M., & Perry, S. A. B. (2025). Exploring relationality, wonder, and resonance: Artmaking

as (thematic) analysis. In J. R. Wolgemuth, K. W. Guyotte, & S. A. Shelton (Eds.), Expanding approaches to thematic analysis: Creative engagements with qualitative data (pp. 219-231). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003389149-15

Guattari, F. (2011). The machinic unconscious. Translated by Taylor Adkins.

Semiotext(e).

Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University

Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11cw25q

hooks, b. (1989). Choosing the margin as a space of radical openness. Framework: The Journal

of Cinema and Media, 36, 15-23.

Kaphar, T. (2017, April). Can art amend history? [Video]. TED Conferences.

https://www.ted.com/talks/titus_kaphar_can_art_amend_history

la paperson. (2017). A third university is possible. University of Minnesota Press. https://doi.org/10.5406/illinois/9780252036606.003.0003

Lather, P. (2016). Top ten+ list: (Re)thinking ontology in (post)qualitative research. Cultural

Studies↔Critical Methodologies,16(2), 125-131. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532708616634734

Leavy, P. (2021). Method meets art: Arts-based research practice. Guilford Press.

Liboiron, M. (2021). Pollution is colonialism. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478021445

Loveless, N. (2019). How to make art at the end of the world: A manifesto for research-creation.

Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478004646

MacLure, M. (2013). The wonder of data. Cultural Studies ← → Critical Methodologies, 13(4),

-232. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532708613487863

Machado de Oliveira, V. (2021). Hospicing modernity: Facing humanity’s wrongs and the

implications for social activism. North Atlantic Books.

Mandolini, N. (2023). Wonder feminisms: comics-based artivism against gender violence in

Italy, intersectionality and transnationalism. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 14(4), 535-555.

Manning, E. (2016). The minor gesture. Duke University Press.

https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822374411

Manning, E. (2019). Me lo dijo un pajarito - Neurodiversity, Black life and the university as we

know it. In V. Bozalek, R. Braidotti, T. Shefer, & M. Zembylas (Eds.), Socially just pedagogies: Posthumanist, feminist, and new materialist perspectives in higher education (pp. 113 - 130). Bloomsbury Academic. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350032910.ch-007

Manning, E. (2023). Out of the clear. Minor Compositions.

Martin, A.D., & Kamberelis, G. (2013). Mapping not tracing: Qualitative educational research

with political teeth. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 26(6), 668–679.

McKittrick, K. (2021). Dear science and other stories. Duke University Press.

https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478012573

Massumi, B., Ferrington, J., Hechler, A. & Parsons, J. (2019) Affect and Immediation: An

Interview with Brian Massumi. disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory, 28(13).

Mol, A. (1999). Ontological politics. A word and some questions. The Sociological Review, 47,

-89. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1999.tb03483.x

Ó Tuama, P. (2025). 44 poems on being with each other. W. W. Norton & Company.

Olsson, J. (2021). Shifting scales, inventive intermediations: posthuman ecologies in

contemporary poetry. Studia Neophilologica, 93(2), 230-241. https://doi.org/10.1080/00393274.2021.1916997

Pépin, C. (2023). Encontrarse, una filosofía. Siruela.

Planella, J. (2017). Pedagogías sensibles. Sabores y saberes del cuerpo y la educación. Edicions

Universitat Barcelona.

Prendergast, M. (2020). Dwelling in the human/posthuman entanglement of poetic inquiry:

Poetic Missives to and from Carl Leggo. Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies, 17(2), 13–33. https://doi.org/10.25071/1916-4467.40442

Richardson, L. (2018) So, why poetry? Qualitative Inquiry, 24(9) 661–663.

https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800417734013

Rose, D. B. (2012). Multispecies knots of ethical time. Environmental Philosophy, 9(1),

-140. https://doi.org/10.5840/envirophil2012918

Singh, J. (2018). Unthinking mastery: Humanism and decolonial entanglements. Duke

University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478091042

Smithers, L. E. (2022). The production of alter-competence: Wonder in graduate preparation

program coursework. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, 60(4), 521-536. https://doi.org/10.1080/19496591.2022.2111520

Stewart, A. (2015). Rhizocurrere: A Deleuzo-Guattarian approach to curriculum autobiography.

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 28(10), 1169–1185. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2014.974719

Taguchi, H. L. (2014). New materialisms and play. In L. Brooker, S. Edwards, & M. Blaise

(Eds.), SAGE handbook of play and learning in early childhood. 9-90.

TallBear, K. (2014). Standing with and speaking as faith: A feminist-indigenous approach to

inquiry. Journal of Research Practice, 10(2). http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/view/405/371

Tippett, K. (2016). Becoming wise: An inquiry into the mystery and art of living. Penguin Press.

Torrent, R. (2024). Arte, poder y política. Inaugural lecture at the opening ceremony of the Universitat Jaume I 2024-2025 academic year. Castellón de la Plana, Spain.

Varga, B. A., & Helmsing, M. E. (2022). Death, loss, and remembrance across cultures: A role

for folklore in education. Journal of Folklore and Education, 9, 1-191.

Wolfe, P. (2006). Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native. Journal of Genocide Research, 8(4), 387–409. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623520601056240

Wolgemuth, J. R., Marn, T. M., & Smirnova, D. (2025). Wondering, seducing … thematic

nonsense. In J. R. Wolgemuth, K. W. Guyotte, & S. A. Shelton (Eds.), Expanding approaches to thematic analysis: Creative engagements with qualitative data (pp. 281-291). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003389149-19

Zapata, A., Kuby, C. R., & Thiel, J. J. (2018). Encounter with writing: Becoming-with

posthumanist ethics. Journal of Literary Research, 50(4), 478-501.