Extending the Metaphor: Notions of Jazz in Portraiture

Abstract

Portraiture, as a qualitative research methodology, challenges how we define objectivity and rigor in the social science research tradition. More recently, and in this “seventh moment” of qualitative research, scholars have begun to explore the impact of “racialized discourses” and “ethnic epistemologies” on both the process and content of qualitative research, particularly within communities of color. In this article, the author offers jazz as a heuristic for thinking about research that is informed by and a reflection of “racialized discourses” and “ethnic epistemologies.”