Textbooks
Explore our diverse range of digital textbooks designed for course adoption and recommended reading at universities and colleges. We publish over 140 textbooks across the social sciences, and an annual subscription to digital textbooks is possible via BUP Digital.
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This chapter addresses the dual perspectives of assessing the quality of poetic inquiry while considering its broader implications for audience engagement. It is rooted in principles from qualitative and arts-based research, emphasising the need for rigorous and aesthetic evaluations that meet both scientific and artistic standards. A critical aspect of this discussion is the decolonial approach to poetic inquiry, which seeks to include traditionally marginalised voices and ensure that research outputs are accessible and meaningful across diverse communities.
The concluding chapter emphasises the transformative power of poetic inquiry as a decolonising tool, integrating indigenous knowledge systems from the Global South into research practice. It advocates using poetry throughout the research process to challenge traditional methods, promote reflexivity and address power dynamics. The chapter also highlights the need for inclusive, audience-centred engagement, positioning poetic inquiry as a vital approach for both creative expression and decolonial research .
The opening chapter introduces poetic inquiry. It showcases how poetry can transform research by offering fresh insights and by elevating voices traditionally marginalised in academic research. It unpacks the powerful process of decolonisation and how it can radically change the way research is conceptualised and conducted. It describes four key principles for conducting research that is decolonising and demonstrates that integrating poetry into research can be a powerful catalyst for social justice and change.
This chapter addresses the ethical aspects of poetic inquiry, focusing on power, decolonisation and critical reflexivity. It includes exercises to develop reflexivity, thus enhancing the ethical rigour of research. The discussion extends to inclusive representation, visibility of power structures and the use of poetic inquiry for social justice. Traditional mappings of knowledge are challenged and a revaluation of whose experiences are highlighted is encouraged, promoting a deeper exploration of identity through poetry.
Poetic inquiry is an arts-based approach integrating the humanities and sciences to enhance the quality of social science research and its dissemination.
This insightful guide sheds light on the transformative power of poetic inquiry in academic research. Blending poetry with scholarly work, it offers practical advice on crafting research poems, distinguishing them from literary poems and determining when and how to incorporate them into your studies.
The book:
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helps researchers to explore and express their research creatively;
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emphasises diverse and decolonial viewpoints and paths to knowledge;
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features methods, case studies, prompts and exercises from the Global South and North.
Perfect for researchers eager to explore new dimensions of expression, this guide enriches all aspects of the research process.
This chapter explores the concept of poetic inquiry in more detail. It outlines four aspects: (1) a decolonial approach to poetic inquiry; (2) the role of poetry in enriching research; (3) found and generated poems; and (4) guidelines for creating research poems. While the chapter emphasises that poetic inquiry can be used for researcher reflection, to explore texts and literature and to disseminate research findings, the chapter focuses on practical guidance for crafting poems using data within research. The aim is to spark curiosity and encourage tailoring of these approaches to the researcher’s needs.
This chapter explores the practical integration of poetry into research, starting with fundamental questions about what poetry is and how it can enrich research. It provides multiple definitions of poetry from poets of diverse backgrounds, while emphasising its importance within the Southern African context and its role as a decolonial research method. This chapter also reviews different figures of speech and poetic forms, focusing on the craft of poetry. Through a series of thoughtfully constructed writing techniques and tools, you are invited to engage with poetry whether you are a newcomer or seeking to deepen your existing relationship with it.
This chapter reflects on the book’s findings, with an emphasis on assessing France’s strengths and weaknesses in comparative perspective and probing the idea of French exceptionalism. It finds that France has much in common with many countries in Europe and beyond, particularly its exposure to external challenges and forces, and the difficulties of politically satisfying its domestic population. It asks whether the Fifth French Republic is coming to an end, and what a Sixth Republic might bring. The chapter notes that France remains a country of much interest for scholars in and outside France.
This chapter first explores the politics of culture in contemporary France. This revolves around the role of the state in fostering, regulating, promoting and protecting cultural norms at home and abroad. We emphasize the examples of language and cinema to illustrate our arguments. Cultural politics and policy are products of their time, and in today’s France reckonings with the recent past and the near future are relevant to current thinking. Second, the chapter surveys the cultural practices, behaviours and aspirations of the French, and shows that notions of lifestyle are as much part of the image that France projects as its claims to exceptional creativity and heritage. The chapter concludes with an emphasis on the complexity that lies behind the dominant, stereotypical images of French culture. Virtually all aspects of French cultural life have a market and often international dimension, and tales of decline are apocryphal. In France, history has commercial value, as does the heritage business, and culture – its practice, its value, its significance – is closely linked to the evolution of French society at large.
This chapter begins with exploring the idea of a French model of political economy. For many years, France was deemed exceptional for the way it framed its political economy in the terms of its republican ethos, and for the role of the state in piloting economy towards these goals. France is also notorious for conflictual relations between labour and capital. The chapter explores the specifics of these characteristics, from state planning, patronage and regulation to the place of organized labour in the economy, the business environment and the workplace. The chapter shows that, over time, the trend has been towards less not more regulation of market forces and of the labour market itself, with consequences for social cohesion and equality. This trend links to the transformations brought about by the costs, constraints and opportunities of France’s EU membership whereby France’s economy has in particular been tightly bound to that of its neighbour, Germany, and into which President Macron has put his faith when facing the grand challenges of the present and future, from averting climate catastrophe to harnessing advanced technology. The second part of the chapter analyses this uneasy balance between the domestic and European dimensions of France’s economy.
