Episode 18: Book Award Winner Dr. Aaron Kuntz

In this episode, Aaron Kuntz, recipient of the QR SIG Outstanding Book Award, discusses his work with the QR SIG Book Award Committee Chair Travis Marn.

Travis Speaker  0:24  Hello everyone and welcome to qualitative conversations a podcast hosted by the qualitative research special interest group of the American Educational Research Association. I'm Travis Marn the current chair of the qualitative research special interest groups outstanding Book Award committee. I'm excited to be joined here today by Dr. Aaron Kuntz, who is the recipient of the 2020 outstanding Book Award for his book, qualitative inquiry, cartography and the promise of material change published by Rutledge in 2019. Dr. Aaron Kuntz is professor of research methodology and department chair of counseling, recreation and School Psychology at Florida International University, where he currently holds the frost professorship of Education and Human Development. Dr. Kuntz. His research focuses on developing materialist methodologies, ways of producing knowledge that takes seriously the theoretical deliberations of critical theory, relational materialism, and post structuralism that have emerged in social theory over the past 50 years. He grounds his work in empirical questions about the production of inquiry in the K through 16 Arena, faculty work and activism and post secondary institutions and the impact of the built environment on learning. Dr. Kuntz, his publications appear in a diverse array of research and methodological journals. His co authored book projects include qualitative inquiry for equity in higher education, methodological implications and negotiations and responsibilities, leading dynamic schools implementing ethical educational education policy, and citizenship education, global perspectives, local practices. In 2015, Dr. Kuntz published his first solo authored book, the responsible methodologist inquiry, truth telling and social justice also with ratledge, which was selected as honorable mention for the 2017 ar, a call SIG Book Award, and a book that all the members of the Book Award committee just love. Thank you for joining me today. Dr. Kuntz.

Aaron Speaker  2:18  Great, thanks. Thanks for having me. And thanks for the nice introduction, it's brought back a lot of memories.

Travis Speaker  2:25  huge body of work that you just should be so incredibly pleased with. So in a highly competitive field, your book really stood out to the members of the Book Award committee, the timeliness of your topic really cannot be overstated. Any events that have occurred in the United States subsequent to the publication of the book, really have completely underscored its value. With COVID, the renewed vigor of Black Lives Matter, and the threats to democracy, we currently face it all that in mind, I'd like to read two very present lines from your introduction that have really stuck with me. In some ways, we perhaps need to lose faith in our present moment in order to maintain the hope of a different future. That is, we need to believe that our contemporary times can become something different altogether. So why don't you start off with telling our listeners a bit about your book? So what are the central questions and dilemmas that you really face in this book?

Aaron Speaker  3:17  Sure. Yeah, thanks. So I, you know, I started thinking through the book, because materialism had become such a force in qualitative inquiry. A lot of people I saw just the notion of materialism was popping up, but no ice, CQ AI and the AI era called StG presentations. And people were really sort of starting to work through this idea of new materialism. Which, of course, in the book, I kind of play with that term a little bit, because there's, you know, as they are, you know, there's nothing new about new materials, and we have to recognize, you know, indigenous philosophies and the like, that have bee(continued)