59: Poetic Inquiry

In the physical world, the convergence of a number of events can produce dramatic and fascinating moments such as a total eclipse of the sun, and the world pauses to take stock of the magnitude of the universe and the infinitesimal role we as humans play in all of this. On a lesser scale, but with some extremely interesting results, the world of qualitative inquiry experienced a convergence of forces that has changed the face of inquiry, and opened up new and exciting avenues for thinking about and conducting research. The early 1990s marked the time when this change began to occur. Postmodern thought, feminist research, and the importance of narrative as a way of thinking and understanding had opened up the possibilities of multiple truths and realities, re-oriented inquiry to ethical issues of voice, reflexivity, and bias, and demonstrated the need for understanding the particular, the personal, and the contextual. Qualitative inquiry had acquired a legitimacy that had never existed before. New possibilities grew exponentially, and the research community was poised for an interesting turn.