A Conversation About Spectral Data

Spectral data emerge from a relationship formed between a living researcher and a deceased person in a qualitative study. That relationship generates a variety of data (e.g., St. Pierre’s [1997] emotional and dream data, embodied moments, and writing) and creates a territorial assemblage, or place of passage into other assemblages, or other spaces of thought and being. To illustrate and explain spectral data, I use a photo-text—a continuous narrative of alternating pages of texts and photographs developed by Morris (1946, 1948, 1968). The text is a conversation about spectral data that I had with my deceased grandmother while I wrote this article. The photographs are those of my grandmother’s objects (e.g., photographs, documents, and artifacts) and are from my personal collection. This photo-text highlights my haunted scholarship of speaking, writing, and acting with my grandmother. Moreover, the article seeks to open a passageway to think about how the living and dead generate data in qualitative inquiry.