ABSTRACT
While I share common research goals with many qualitative researchers, such as attempting to better understand subjectivities, social conflicts, and cultural contradictions, arts-based educational research using queer theory and fiction writing is highly imaginative, reflective, and singularly provocative. Jackytar (Gosse, 2005b), the first educational novel published in Canada originally written as part of a doctoral dissertation (Gosse, 2005a), responds to a desire in education to inquire into diversity in new ways that more effectively provoke empathy and deeper learning (Parsons & Brown, 2001). The imaginative data for this research derives from my own implicit and explicit experiences and knowledge as an educator, researcher, and bilingual, working-class, disabled gay man who grew up in rural Newfoundland, where a steady exodus of Newfoundlanders continues, people leaving the struggling island in droves to explore better opportunities elsewhere.1 In Newfoundland, “jackytar” refers to a person of mixed Mi’kmaq and French origins and carries pejorative connotations, such as laziness and moral decrepitude (Charbonneau & Barrette, 1992, p. 48). In the novel, the protagonist, Alex Murphy, is both gay and a “jackytar.” While teaching in Toronto, he receives a phone call informing him that his mother is dying. Upon returning to rural Newfoundland, situations and people from his past incite him to a gradual re-examination of societal beliefs, customs, and practices. Through the lens of sexuality, I creatively investigate the intertwining identity markers of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, geographical location, ablebodiness, geographical location, and language and culture, in the lives of the fictional characters. Since Jackytar’s publication by Jesperson Press, and distribution in bookstores and libraries
across Canada, we have contributed to a needed bridge between the academy and the public, a core goal of much arts-based (Barone, 1995) and arts-informed educational research (Cole & Knowles, 2001). Rather than invest in the ubiquitous uncertainty reduction of positivists and limit the sharing of my research to an academic elite, I seek to poststructurally challenge status quo assumptions, provoke further questionings, and shed light on intricacies of the human condition to as expansive a readership as possible.
