Employing Poetry to Understand the Transformative Experience of Attending a Virtual Conference

• Published in: Qualitative inquiry Vol. 19; no. 2; pp. 127 - 128
• Main Author: Pete, Mari
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01-02-2013; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Authors; Borders; Conferences; Gender differences; Identity; Learning; Liminality; Poetry; Power Structure; Risk; Sex Differences; Technology; Twenty First Century; Virtualization; risk taking; thresholds; virtual conference; poetry; multiple identities
• ISSN: 1077-8004; 1552-7565
• DOI: 10.1177/1077800412462995

In this article the author employs the poetic form to crystallize the transformative event of attending a virtual conference for the first time. The poem revealed a range of themes, among others: embodied and disembodied experiences; interplay and tension between poles such as north–south, local–global, virtual–real, and poetic–technological; the leveling of power dynamics and gender differences; deconstruction of conventions and norms for such etiquette of face-to-face events; experiencing multiple identities, playing many roles simultaneously, satisfying curiosity and desire by having it all, and the compromises involved. A meta-theme running through many of the above is liminality—finding oneself on thresholds (Harrison, 2009), followed by border crossing and conceptual transformation (Meyer & Land, 2005).
The poem illuminates ways of knowing and being academic in the 21st century, risk taking and rehearsing new modes of learning and researching, and the discomfort and liberation of this experience.