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Writing Slow Ontology

Qualitative Inquiry

Published online on

Abstract

What if—in light of the escalating pace of academic production—scholars adopted a Slow Ontology? Because this question moves beyond slowing the pace or volume of productivity to address underlying issues of ontology, it asks not how we can find a slower way of doing scholarship, but how we can find a slower way of scholarly being. A philosophy of Slowness has sparked movements around the globe regarding Slow Food and Slow Cities; these and similar movements disrupt daily practices that prioritize speed, efficiency, and output at the expense of quality. In response, a Slow Ontology approaches writing as a site of creative intervention. This article offers methodological possibilities for writing a Slow Ontology in qualitative inquiry: each attends to how we might write the materiality of our local environments. In writing a Slow Ontology, researchers might create writing that is not unproductive, but is differently productive.