Critical Qualitative Inquiry: One Attempt to Actualize a Reconceptualization of Research

Critical qualitative scholar-activists’ work toward greater justice is always situated within the neo-liberal structures of the academy and society: even as we strive to reconceptualize research, we exist within its current conceptualizations that instantiate and reify the very oppressions we seek to disrupt. This paper chronicles one researcher’s attempt to reconceptualize research as sacred acts of relationships and relating through challenging the primacy of language, and traditional conceptualizations of disability. Calling on praxis as a complex dynamic of theory and practice—two indivisible parts of being human—I will discuss a research project involving a professional development experience for teacher candidates with disabilities or diagnoses, as a research endeavor that attempted to facilitate research as a sacred act occurring in the relationships formed and relating within, between, and among the people involved and employed methodological tools that do not rely on language as an only source of communication.