ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the participatory, literary arts-based methodology of collective poetic inquiry can facilitate awareness of, and insight into polyvocality in educational research [in South Africa]. Using found poetry and haiku poetry, it presents a poetic performance that engages with diverse voices that manifest in multiple data sources: a student participant's photographic collage and unstructured interview transcript; audio-recorded discussions with research team members and a conference audience, and research team members' written reflections. The chapter aims to contribute to methodological conversations about poetry as research, with a particular focus on understanding more about the potential of collective poetic inquiry for evoking polyvocality in educational research. Drawing on notions of ‘un-knowing’, ‘not-knowing’, and ‘productive ambiguity’, it conceptualises the authors' participatory research process as polyvocal and invites readers to join in considering how cultivating polyvocality in educational research might bring about change in ways of knowing as members of research communities.
