“That’s How the Light Gets In”

Abstract

Although still marginal in academic writing generally, poetry has for some time been recognized as a valid form of representation in qualitative research. Poetry can provide a rich, evocative, and aesthetic means of communication, which ultimately enhances ethnographic work. Like narrative, however, the use of poetry to represent research data also raises questions. Drawing on a school-based critical ethnography of marginalized youth in New Zealand, the author describes how poetry became a part of the research. As poetry is deeply personal, she begins with her own doubts about being a poet and an academic. The author then discusses how poetry can be used in research as a method of bringing the personal and political together in ethnographic writing.