Our collaboration emerged from a desire to break boundaries, to reimagine how knowledge is created and shared, to explore, reflect, and connect in ways that honor the fullness of the human experience. We first came together in the qualitative inquiry classroom: Maureen as instructor, and Kiana as a student, though a shared interest in artful and multimodal methods and how they made possible different entry points to research and (qualitative) inquiry.
Kiana Willis, Ph.D.
loves a good book, a new knife set, silent moments outdoors, big laughs, making.
Kiana graduated with her PhD from the University of Georgia and is an Assistant Professor of Elementary Education at Georgia State University. She is a creative arts–based educator, and storyteller. Her research honors the lived experiences of Black women educators through qualitative and participatory arts-based inquiry, centering cultural consciousness, collective healing, and the transformative potential of teacher education.
Selected Publications
Journal Articles
with Maureen Flint, Bri’Ann Price, Laetitia Adelson, Leigh Elliott, Lacey Moore, Eunbi Sim, Jie Zhang, and Sana Ullah (forthcoming): Rest as... Conceptualizing a radical qualitative pedagogy.
with Jaminqe Adams, Laetitia Adelson, Bri’Ann Price, Brittany Kilgore, and Lastasia Ramsey (2025): We are each other’s bond: Critical peer mentorship as healing and sustaining praxis for black women doctoral students.
with Maureen Flint, Jennie Pless, Joy Green, Ashley Williams, Casper Gemar, Lauren Copelan, Venessa Silveira, and Brandon Isome (2025). Collaging awakening and resistance with/in artful inquiry.
Conference Presentations:
Troublemakers: Amplifying archival silences through artful methodology. (2025). Paper presented at the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry [virtual]
Mirrors In a Crooked Room: Visual Inquiry as a Healing Praxis. (2024). Presented at the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, Champaign-Urbana, IL.
Maureen Flint, Ph.D.
dreams of a sprawling vegetable garden and enjoys walks in new and familiar places, cats, and taking on new crafts and hobbies.
Maureen is an Associate Professor of Qualitative Research at the University of Georgia where she teaches courses on qualitative research design and theory. Her work develops the theory, pedagogy, and practice of qualitative inquiry through critical philosophies, while engaging questions of equity and justice in higher education and the generative potential of sonic, visual, and artful methodologies.
Selected Publications
Monographs
edited with Luis Alvarez Hernandez, Janie Copple, Joseph Dr. Sweet, and Whitney Toledo (forthcoming July 2026): Critical qualitative methodologies in gender and sexuality: Key concepts. Routledge.
edited with Kelly Guyotte (under contract) Qualitative Pedagogy as Gift: Creatively Exploring Teaching Commitments and Reciprocations (Routledge)
Book Chapters
with Shannon Perry (2024): Engaging relationality, multiplicity, and wonder: Artmaking as analysis.
with Luis Alvarez Hernandez (2024): Epistemological weaving: Writing and making sense of qualitative research with Gloria Anzaldúa
with Morgan Shiver and Ryanne Whyte (2022): Composing place: Creating participatory sound portraits and compilations.
Journal Articles
with Jaminque Adams, Kasandra Dodd, Michele Johnson, Tonja Simmons Lee, Nia Mitchell, and Deaetta Grinnage (2025): Dear theory and other stories: Healing our relationship to theory through reading.
with Kelly Guyotte and Carlson Coogler (2025): Introduction to special issue: Enacting artful politics. and Introduction to special issue: Inquiring artfully: Provoking possibilities with/through/for qualitative encounters.
More-than-human methodologies in qualitative research: Listening to the leafblower. (2022)