Practical Theology and qualitative research methodologies presents a rich terrain for exploration and discovery. We invite scholars, researchers, and practitioners to participate in a dynamic session focused on creative qualitative research methodologies, including in contexts of teaching and learning, and creative ways of combining/integrating/interpreting theological perspectives with social scientific research methods in Practical Theology. This session includes eight 10-minute interactive presentations and discussion that include digital media, qualitative and quantitative research methods, cooperative narrative approaches, participatory action research, artistic production, decolonial practices, community displacement, womanist theology, trauma-sensitive theology, theological education, and homiletics.
This paper presentation explores Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology in a creative undergraduate course titled *Abuelita Theology* (Grandma Theology). This course integrates sources from U.S. Latina/x and Mujerista theologies and uses *Abuelita Theology* as a metaphor for understanding grassroots wisdom and everyday practices (lo cotidiano) as a theological source. In this course, students are active participants who learn and create new knowledge. In addition, students are encouraged to correlate the class sources with their own lived experiences, social locations, and faith identities as a liberatory practice. This presentation will provide examples of a creative participatory and reflective action practice (praxis) of storytelling used within the course. By Engaging the people as active participants, as they articulate and reflect theologically on their practices, we can reimagine and bring new insights and action to practical theology, the church, and the larger community in the twenty-first century.
Member checking, also known as respondent validation, is a common qualitative research practice that involves presenting written data to participants in order to receive feedback and check for inaccuracies. While often cited within longer lists of techniques for validating research, member checking holds the potential for bringing researcher and participant together toward the co-creation of knowledge. This not only adds new insights to the research itself, but also cultivates a methodology that is decolonial in praxis, not seeking to extract from but to partner with in the analyses and interpretations of experience beyond researcher re-presentation. Drawing upon a current research project to understand practices of decoloniality among pastors of color, I apply the practice of in-depth member checking in the analysis and writing phase, thereby opening up my own interpretations to possibilities and realities that further center the lived experiences, practices, and knowledges of participants.
There are currently forty-two Fijian villages slated for relocation because of environmental catastrophes and rising tides. The majority of these villages are iTaukei Fijian communities that are part of the Fijian Methodist church. The sermons of these Indigenous communities describe rich and complex relationships with place (i.e. vanua) as a theological, biblical, and ontological category – often in response to place’s loss. They also resist reductive, colonial understandings of place that continue to haunt Western practical theological methods. In attending to the theological and ethical questions raised in iTaukei sermons, this paper interrogates approaches to place in practical theology that continue to marginalize displaced communities and argues for the environmental significance of the ecclesial practices of communities displaced by the climate crisis.
This presentation introduces abductive analysis as a qualitative research methodology that ought to be adopted as a means for theological reflection. Abductive analysis orients the researcher to surprises in data that might provide explanatory potential outside the study’s initial parameters. It helps generate new theories based on unexpected findings that abduct or lead the researcher away from their preconceived notions and generally accepted norms toward possible new insights. Using abductive analysis as a theological method provides researchers in theology and qualitative research a way to create space for the work of the Holy Spirit amidst supposedly predictable empirical realities. Assuming God’s presence is real and active in human experience, orienting one’s analytical attention toward unexpected surprises creates space for the Holy Spirit to disrupt and realign our research and our faith.
A womanist practical theological approach sets the departure point at the lived experiences of Black women and other marginalized groups and speaks to the love of all persons and the commitment to the survival and wholeness of all people. A womanist practical theological methodology explores a praxis-reflection-analysis-theory-praxis circular model approach. Through this model, research begins with the lived experiences of Black women and other marginalized groups' praxis or practice with the researcher, then uses theological reflection, which incorporates hermeneutics, scripture, and practices of the world, to reflect and analyze the practice. The analysis is then discussed with theory to describe, articulate, and call to the forefront the observed liberatory practices that can inform faith leaders and academics in their practices and engagement with the world.
This paper will consider creative methodologies as a means for theological inquiry, identifying how a/r/tograhphy and creative research methods might be used to deepen researcher understanding and dissemination of work. Highlighting the approach as cognitively demanding, holistically integrated and accessible to a wide variety of people, the presenter will explore practical examples and broad theological traditions. This paper emphasizes the importance of multimodal methodologies as a way to highlight voices that are traditionally marginalized using modes that are academically neglected. Sharing performance poetry, textiles, and academic scenarios where room is given for creative expression will mean this paper is offered as a living exemplar of ways in which creativity and intellectual rigor are in harmony with one another and enrich theological inquiry as a discipline. Theological work is a work of heart, hands and head, and the paper seeks to make this explicit as a research practice.
This paper outlines a collaborative ethnographic story project conducted at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, MN, focusing on the experiences of leaders, members, neighbors, and volunteers during the aftermath of George Floyd's murder in 2020. The project examines how the church, situated in the heart of the uprising, transformed into a vital community resource hub amid the sudden goods, services, and resources desert that befell the Longfellow neighborhood of Minneapolis. The paper details the innovative research methodologies employed, including a paper and digital workbook, small story-sharing groups, one-on-one interviews, an audio recording booth, and photo exhibit. Digital resources, such as social media posts and virtual worship recordings, were compiled to enrich the historical archive. The project aims to illuminate how the lived theology of Holy Trinity continues to shape the church's ongoing narrative and foster a broader understanding of community resilience and faith in times of crisis.
As a survivor of sexualized abuse, I do research on the topic of sexualized abuse in Christian contexts. I take my body, with her stories and experiences, into the field to meet other bodies with their stories and experiences. For this presentation, I am inspired by the work of Adriaan van Klinken, who has interlaced his description of fieldwork with personal interludes in which he reflects on personal experiences of researching and writing (Van Klinken 2019). Taking examples from the work of Nina Hoel and Adriaan van Klinken, in this presentation I explore both reasons and ways to bring the ‘I’ in (embodied) research to the fore. Interlacing this methodological discussion, there will be several interludes in which I dive deeper into my own lived experience which I bring to the field. With words and visual artwork, I convey my own positionality and my embodied involvement in creative ways.