Evocative Qualitative Inquiry: Writing and Research Through Embodiment and the Poetic (Developing Traditions in Qualitative Inquiry)

Evocative Qualitative Inquiry explores academic research that evokes vitality and life. It provides a road map into integrating the personal with professional to engage in intrinsically meaningful forms of inquiry.

The book centers on the key considerations of engaging in evocative forms of writing in the academy. It depicts academic inquiry as an embodied process that is captured and understood through rhythm and resonance. It relays how pleasurable, sensory, and rhythmic forms of inquiry can engender a sense of timelessness, expansiveness, growth, and generativity. Evocative Qualitative Inquiry relates the challenges that may arise from following this less trodden academic inquiry path. It conveys the importance of faith and courage in forging one’s own unique and authentic writing voice. The book concludes with an analogy of a poker game to illustrate how all academic writers possess the embodied capacity to write vibrant words that evoke. Finally, each chapter ends with reflection questions and activities to help readers practice the skills of writing evocatively.

This book will be a valuable guide for those seeking evocative writing techniques to engage in vibrant forms of academic research. It is primarily written for academics who desire to learn more about creative, poetic, and embodied writing methodologies.

Joanne Yoo is Senior Lecturer at the School of International Studies and Education at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). She currently teaches in UTS’s secondary teacher education programs. Joanne’s main research interests include writing as inquiry methodologies that involve the embodied, poetic, and evocative.