643994

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QIXXXX10.1177/1077800416643994Qualitative InquiryUlmer

Article
Qualitative Inquiry

Writing Slow Ontology

2017, Vol. 23(3) 201­–211
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1077800416643994
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Jasmine B. Ulmer1

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.

Keywords
ontology, writing, qualitative inquiry, slow philosophy

Introduction simply as an obligation or a prohibition on those who ‘do

The escalating pace of academic production across the
globe has been well documented (Apple, 2005; Davies &
Bansel, 2010). As this has occurred, scholars have identi-
fied “a growing sense of ontological insecurity” from “a
loss of a sense of meaning in what we do and of what is
important in what we do” (Ball, 2012, p. 20). In response,
scholars have described the need for a slower pace of pro-
duction across academia, particularly within social science
research. Such descriptions have been framed as slow
research (Banks, 2014; Kuus, 2015), slow scholarship
(Hartman & Darab, 2012), and even slow science (Owens,
2013). These calls have been echoed by researchers con-
cerned about the quality of accelerated scholarship (Cronin,
2013), as well as normative timelines for research that do
not allow for disruption, delay, or dalliance (Garey, Hertz,
& Nelson, 2014). In a parallel argument, Banks (2014)
writes that “[s]ocial science academics today are not encour-
aged to mull things over, or to revisit old ideas or old data,
and in this sense ‘pure’ academic research is increasingly
being replaced by an agenda that resembles commissioned
contract research” (p. 69).
Although the pace of production may be problematic,
Martell (2014) nevertheless cautions researchers to care-
fully consider what it is they are calling for when they call
for slow scholarship. When speed is conflated with volume,
as Martell argues, “[S]low makes the issue pace rather than
power, agency and autonomy” (para. 40). In drawing from
Foucauldian concepts of governance in which “power is
everywhere” (Foucault, 1990, p. 93) and “not exercised
not have it’” (Foucault, 1995, p. 27), this article explores
alternatives to hurried, mechanical, assembly-line writing.
In so doing, this article imagines a Slow Ontology that
offers modes of writing scholarly research that are not
unproductive, but are differently productive.
In exploring the possibilities of Slowness, I draw from
the Slow movement, a significant global phenomenon that
promotes living better, creating balance, and moving at dif-
ferent speeds at different times. Before describing the
movement, however, is important to note that there is a dis-
tinction between “slow” and “Slow.” Movements that are
“slow” involve issues of knowing across time (such as slow
scholarship, slow research, and slow science). In compari-
son, “Slow” movements involve issues of being across time
(and include Slow Food, Slow Cities, and Slow
Photography). To distinguish between terms in this article,
slow (with a lowercase “s”) denotes the rate at which
knowledge is produced; Slow (with a capital “S”) refers to
a state of being in which scholars choose to live writing and
research through locality, materiality, and artisan craft.
Given that the difference between knowing and being is the
difference between epistemology and ontology, it could be
argued that slow movements are epistemological whereas
1
Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA
Corresponding Author:
Jasmine B. Ulmer, Assistant Professor of Educational Evaluation and
Research, Theoretical and Behavioral Foundations, College of Education,
Wayne State University, 5425 Gullen Mall #347, Detroit, MI 48202, USA.
Email: jasmine.ulmer@wayne.edu
202 Qualitative Inquiry 23(3)
Slow movements are ontological.1 Reconceptualizing
Slowness as ontological potentially is significant because,
as Coole and Frost (2010) observe, ontology facilitates the
study of the “existence[s] that shape our everyday relation-
ships to ourselves, to others, and to the world” (p. 5). In
these regards, Slow Ontology offers a lens through which to
reexamine methodological practices.
It is within the frame of ontological Slowness, therefore,
that I contemplate the following question: What if—in
response to a rapidly increasing pace of academic produc-
tion—scholars adopted a Slow Ontology? Because this
question involves more than slowing the pace or volume of
scholarly production to invoke underlying issues of ontol-
ogy, it asks not how we can find a slower way of doing
scholarship, but how we can find a slower way of scholarly
being. I suggest that writing provides a potential beginning.
Writing not only functions as a key metric in accountability
systems that promote speed, but it also is constituted in the
entanglement of being, creating, and producing in qualita-
tive research. Thus, writing provides an initial venue in
which to explore the possibilities of Slow Ontology.
The Slow Movement
A philosophy of slowness has sparked movements around
the globe. Whether related to food, cities, design, travel, or
art, each of these movements disrupts daily practices that
prioritize speed, efficiency, and output at the expense of
quality. In an early writing on slowness in the influential
book, In Praise of Slow: How a Worldwide Movement Is
Challenging the Cult of Speed, Honoré (2004) writes,
The Slow movement is still taking shape. It has no central
headquarters or website, no single leader, no political party to
carry its message. Many people decide to slow down without
ever feeling part of a cultural trend, let alone a global crusade.
What matters, though, is that a growing minority is choosing
slowness over speed. Every act of deceleration gives another
push to the Slow movement. (p. 17)
For Honoré, the movement is not about “doing everything
at a snail’s pace” or “attempt[ing] to drag the whole planet
back to some pre-industrial utopia” (p. 15). It is about
rethinking daily life.
The Slow movement traces its roots to Italy in 1986
when Carlo Petrini and other activists protested against a
planned opening of a McDonald’s fast food restaurant in
Rome near the Spanish Steps. This event led to the Slow
Food Manifesto in 1989, which states, “In the name of pro-
ductivity, the ‘fast life’ has changed our lifestyle and now
threatens our environment and our land (and city) scapes.
Slow Food is the alternative, the avant-garde’s riposte”
(Slow Food, 2015, para. 5). In the years following the mani-
festo, the movement claims to have spread to “thousands of
projects and millions of people in over 160 countries” (Slow
Food, 2015, para. 1). However, this is more than food that is
good, clean, and fair (Petrini, 2013); locally sourced; or pre-
pared along time-honored, but fading, cultural traditions.
Rather, Slow Food at its best allows for the embodiment of
socio-political ideals (Hayes-Conroy & Martin, 2010) while
providing means of countering global industrialization
through local involvement. Although not without critiques
regarding missed opportunities for political action (e.g.,
Donati, 2005; Hartman & Darab, 2012), Slow Food has
become an environmental and social justice movement
(Van Bommel & Spicer, 2011), as well as a global awaken-
ing on the quality of daily life.
The Slow Food movement has expanded beyond cuisine
into other domains, including Slow Cities. Some cities
choose to loosely adopt Slow principles in grassroots fash-
ion, whereas others officially become Slow through appli-
cation and affiliation. In the case of the latter, the
international organization Cittaslow was founded in
Tuscany, Italy, in 1999 to extend the Slow Food movement
into city-spaces. The organization promotes distinctive,
local communities and requires that member cities maintain
policies on a number of fronts: energy and the environment;
infrastructure; quality of life; agriculture; artisanship; tour-
ism, hospitality; international partnerships; and social inclu-
sion. These policies promote the recovery of time through
intentional and joyful living. As of late 2015, Cittaslow
counts 209 member cities in 30 countries worldwide
(Cittaslow, 2015). Taken together, this is a way of life that
resists speed at the expense of everything else. In observing
how the Slow Cities movement is a means of mobilizing
against globalization, Knox (2005) observes that “the faster
their neighbourhoods and towns acquire the same generic
supermarkets, filling stations, shopping malls, industrial
estates, office parks and suburban subdivisions, the more
people feel the need for enclaves of familiarity, centredness
and identity” (p. 5). Just as Slow Cities promote alternative
rhythms of daily life (Knox, 2005), a Slow Ontology pro-
motes alternative rhythms of inquiry through writing.
Alternative rhythms of inquiry run counter to the sys-
tematic beats of the academic metronome, which results in
a constant churn of articles, chapters, books, and mono-
graphs across the academy. This stream of production
responds to the privileged status that writing holds within
research. As the primary means of scholarly expression,
writing functions as a gatekeeper throughout academic
preparation and production, beginning in graduate educa-
tion and continuing throughout the careers of independent
and affiliated scholars alike. In this sense, academic iden-
tity—academic being—can become intertwined with writ-
ing in research. Given that much of the academic life cycle
is predicated on writing, it provides a potential site of inter-
vention for those who desire to produce research differently,
reimagine impact, or write to something other than the
rhythms of the clock. As Lefebvre (2004) observes, “We tend
Ulmer 203
to attribute to rhythms a mechanical overtone, brushing
aside the organic aspect of rhythmed movements” (pp.
15-16, emphasis in original). If writing instead followed
organic rhythms, a Slow Ontology might, as the next sec-
tion illustrates, become a conduit through which we write
the materiality of knowledge (Hekman, 2010). It is within
such contexts that a Slow Ontology potentially offers an
important and necessary space in which to practice Slow.
Writing Slow
Writing used to be a more time-intensive, material process.
It was slow not as an intentional statement on the quality of
life but as a matter of the time needed for production. Early
writers used material surfaces to compose; the natural envi-
ronment was very much a part of the writing process.
Writers used surfaces such as stone, parchment, vellum, and
papyrus to etch writing and inscribe print; surfaces were not
to be wasted, and neither were the rare inks, silver, and gold
that marked illuminated manuscripts. Monastic scribes
transcribed and preserved ancient writings. The later adop-
tion of letterpresses, typewriters, computers, and other digi-
tal technologies rendered writing more accessible and
attainable, thereby enabling authors to produce more and
more. This is not to suggest that contemporary scholars
should return to early methods of writing but to observe that
the concept of slowness changes over time and that the rise
of technology has accelerated the production of both authors
and texts. By way of example, we now live in a world in
which major modes of digital communication limit mes-
sages to 140 characters, and numerous resources purport to
teach aspiring novelists how to write a book in only one
month. In the midst of now instantaneous communications
systems, however, evidence of a competing Slow impulse is
emerging. The renewed interest in letterpresses that is
occurring among specialty printmakers, for example, falls
within the objectives of the Slow movement to reconnect
material processes with craft traditions.
Slow Writing builds on several ongoing aims of the Slow
movement. It prioritizes the role of local places, natural
environmental surroundings, and material landscapes in
daily life (Cittaslow, 2014). It also explores “tranquil mate-
rial pleasure[s]” in “our land (and city) scapes” (Slow Food,
1989, p. 1). Therefore, just as the Slow movement invites
locally sourced artisanship, Slow Writing crafts locally
sourced research. Slow Writing and nature support (though
do not necessitate) the other, as writing within material
environments and with natural materials provide potential
modalities through which to Slow. By reconnecting with
nature through writing—including within urban environ-
ments—writers have opportunities to rethink how and what
they write. Nature, thus, provides a possible, but not singu-
lar, lens through which to write as Slow spreads in the coun-
tenance of speed.
Writing on/with/through/in Nature
On nature. Some systems of writing were designed to be
slow by nature. That is, they were slow precisely because
they were connected to nature. In his memoir, Running in
the Family, author Michael Ondaatje (1982/2011) describes
the material artistry of the Sinhalese alphabet, an ancient
language practiced in modern Sri Lanka:
I still believe the most beautiful alphabet was created by the
Sinhalese. The insect of ink curves into a shape that is almost
sickle, spoon, eyelid. The letters are washed blunt glass which
betray no jaggedness. Sanskrit was governed by verticals, but
its sharp grid features were not possible in Ceylon. Here the
Ola leaves which people wrote on were too brittle. A straight
line would cut apart the leaf and so a curling alphabet was
derived from its Indian cousin. Moon coconut. The bones of a
lover’s spine. (p. 65)
This is a language that was inscribed directly on nature.
Because the Sinhalese alphabet is one in which the lettering
is designed according to the curves of nature, it illustrates
the historical entanglement between nature and writing.
Perhaps this is an example of how concepts such as aloha
‘āina and aloha kai—love of the land and love of the sea in
Hawaiian language—might be expressed through writing.
With nature.  Virginia Woolf has arranged an entire novel in
accordance with the natural cycles of the land and sea. In
The Waves (1931), Woolf writes a novel set over the course
of one day and explicitly describes the progression thereof
through nature. Woolf paints a moving, sound-filled portrait
of the sun and ocean in movement, cycling through their
respective daily rhythms. The natural rhythms of the sun,
wind, and ocean punctuate shifting perspectives among nar-
rators. In one such vignette, Woolf writes, “Now the sun had
sunk. Sky and sea were indistinguishable. The waves break-
ing spread their white fans far out over the shore, sent white
shadows into the recesses of the sonorous caves and then
rolled back sighing” (Woolf, 1931, p. 236, emphasis in orig-
inal). Woolf keeps time without a clock as readers float in
and out of nature along the cycles of the sun, sea, and sky.
Although written in poetic prose, her written images rever-
berate along sonorous waves of light and water. Woolf pro-
vides insight into how writers—whether literary or
scholarly—might frame texts through time and nature.
Through nature.  Scholars also might consider adopting an
embodied, post-humanist approach to writing through
nature. Neimanis, for example, develops methodologies
that relate to weather writing and liminal ecological spaces
such as ecotones. She writes,
Eco: home. Tone: tension. We must learn to be at home in the
quivering tension of the in-between. No other home is available.
204 Qualitative Inquiry 23(3)
In-between nature and culture, in-between biology and
philosophy, in-between the human and everything we ram
ourselves up against . . . (Neimanis, 2012, pp. 93-94, emphasis
in original)
Continuing with this line of inquiry, she subsequently devel-
ops weather writing. In so doing, Neimanis (2014) asks how
“experiencing/writing our bodies as sensitive interfaces with
the weatherworld shift our understanding of human entan-
glements” (p. 145), particularly with regard to how we
understand issues of climate. Through the lens of weather,
then, weather writers consider several (overlapping) forms
of embodiment: perception, mobility/movement, sociality/
sexuality/affect, cognition/analysis, viscerality, and trans-
corporeality. This mode of writing aims “to unsediment or
destabilize dominant, humanist imaginaries of weather and
climate, and complement them with ones less anthropocen-
tric—stretching across times, spaces, and species”
(Neimanis, 2014, p. 145). Because we are intertwined with
elements of the ecosystems in which we live, Neimanis sug-
gests that writing should respond accordingly.
In nature. The inseparability between nature and certain
systems of writing raises the question of how we might
more regularly incorporate aspects of nature into the writ-
ing process. Apart from spectacular writing retreats in sce-
nic locations that seem inspirational (as well as aspirational),
a more accessible, daily option is available to many: go out-
side and write. Bring something to write with and some-
thing to write on; something to write about may present
itself in due time. Write. Record. Try something new and
then try something new again. Write as a swimmer moves
through nature: “Inhaling the atmosphere as it breathes the
air, on the outward breath of exhalation it weaves its lines of
speech, song, story and handwriting into the fabric of the
world” (Ingold, 2015, p. 87). The artistry of everyday nature
provides opportunities to consider natural cycles, timings,
and the rhythms of everyday life (Lefebvre & Régulier,
2004) as different affects create different writing effects.
Hence, a Slow Ontology might be localized and crafted
within our own environments, particularly by writing our
local landscapes.
Writing Local Landscapes
Within a mile and a half radius of where I live, for exam-
ple, I have found several areas for contemplating Slowness:
Belle Isle, Elmwood Cemetery, and the Heidelberg Project.
Each has produced different effects within my own writ-
ing not only with regard to modality, but also the ways in
which the democratic justice is enacted in the city-space
through art and nature. With varying degrees of intention-
ality and awareness, I find myself writing the spaces that I
am in—un/subconsciously writing more-than-human
environmental and urban landscapes. In this approach,
“Humans are not the sole authors of landscape . . . All liv-
ing things share the same space, all make landscape, and
all landscapes, wild or domestic, have coauthors, all are
phenomena of nature and culture” (Spirn, 1998, pp.
17-18). The significance therein is described by Spirn
(1998), who writes, “Losing, or failing to hear and read,
the language of landscape threatens body and spirit, for
the pragmatic and imaginative aspects of landscape lan-
guage have always coexisted. Relearning the language
that holds life in place is an urgent task” (p. 11).
2 Inselruhe Avenue, Detroit, MI 48207.  I often find myself on
Belle Isle, a nearly 1,000-acre state park that sits on the
Detroit River between the United States and Canada. Sum-
mertime on the river welcomes a vibrant mix of interna-
tional shipping vessels, crew teams, sailing regattas, and
weekend speedboats and dinner cruises. Children ride
potato sacks down giant slides for US$1 and dart in and out
of the water. As picnics, barbeques, and reunions wind
down in the late evenings, folding chairs line the banks of
the river watching the sun set over the city. On the opposite
end of the island, clusters of wet bodies in swimsuits carry
coolers through an overgrown walking trail—wading
through brush and wildflowers along the interior river
stream—passing fishermen and dogs walking people—as
they return to their vehicles after a day at the “secret,”
unmarked beach. The fireflies come out to play.
The park gradually empties as the weather begins to turn.
In a break from writing one morning in the late fall, I had
the park to myself as I walked along the riverbank and made
several audio recordings (see Belle Isle Soundscape). I then
returned home, uploaded the recordings, and resumed writ-
ing alongside the rhythms of the waves, winds, and birds, as
well as the occasional interruption of an industrial train, on
route. The modest soundscape that follows is a juxtaposi-
tion of waves and winds and birds—lapping, blowing, fly-
ing, migrating. Slowly.
Belle Isle Soundscape
Slow Ontology: Water
See link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLiFY9tlDew
1200 Elmwood Street, Detroit, MI 48207.  Heading inland, I
soon would meet the rolling hills and streams within the
historic, non-denominational Elmwood Cemetery. Like
Belle Isle, the 86-acre cemetery was designed by landscape
architect Frederick Law Olmsted (see Figure 1). Pedestrian
bridges with stone handrails cross tranquil waterways as an
occasional blue heron quietly moves along the edge of the
large, central pond; wintertime brings a blanket of undis-
turbed snow. In designing the rural cemetery, Olmsted cre-
ated a verdant public park with pathways that wind
throughout “old-world” buildings, gateways, sculptures,
Ulmer 205
Source. [Spring]. Detroit Publishing Co. (ca. 1902). In Elmwood
Cemetery, Detroit, MI, [Dry plate negative]. Washington, DC: Library of
Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Retrieved from http://www.
loc.gov/pictures/item/det1994008044/PP/
Source. [Summer]. Detroit Publishing Co. (between 1910 and 1930).
Beach & river front, Detroit [Dry plate negative]. Washington, DC:
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Retrieved from
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/det1994003099/PP/
Source. [Fall]. Detroit Publishing Co. (between 1880 and 1901). Canoeing
at Belle Isle, Detroit [Dry plate negative]. Washington, DC: Library of
Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Retrieved from http://www.
loc.gov/pictures/item/det1994004554/PP/
Source. [Winter]. Detroit Publishing Co. (between 1895 and 1910).
Skating on Belle Isle Park, Detroit, MI [Dry plate negative]. Washington,
DC: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Retrieved
from http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/det1994013311/PP/
Figure 1.  Image cycle: Olmsted in Detroit—Elmwood
Cemetery and Belle Isle circa 1900.
occasional benches, and what are still elaborate, yet crum-
bling, stone mausoleums. “Graceful bends and sharp turns
in the road were meant to slow the horse and carriage,
encourage contemplation, and provide an artistic composi-
tional view” (Franck, 1996, p. 32) alongside dogwood,
cherry, magnolia, oak, willow, and honey locust trees. The
“democratic vistas” along the pathways promote Slow in
the sense that they allow not only for private meditation in
natural settings, but also thoughtful encounters with mem-
bers of a diverse public; taken together, the ways in which
Olmsted mediates the movement of our walking trajectories
through natural zones points toward “the full democratic
promise of urban life” (Kosnoski, 2011, p. 63).
3600 Heidelberg Street, Detroit, MI 48207.  Continuing along
the outskirts of the cemetery, I would eventually find the Hei-
delberg Project, an outdoor folk art installation and social jus-
tice project that Tyree Guyton has landscaped across several
distressed neighborhood blocks. The installation creates
awareness and Slowness through protest art. Within the Hei-
delberg Project are a number of provocative installations,
among them a series of clocks and the remnants of the “Clock
House.” As a full-sized house that partially stands after having
been burned several years ago, painted clocks still adorn what
remains of the exterior walls. Nearby, dozens of other real and
painted wooden clocks have been nailed to trees and propped
against other art pieces and buildings (see Figure 2). Each
clock displays a different time. Taken together, the assem-
blage of painted clocks disrupts temporal constancy and cer-
tainty, and, in effect, mediates time.
These clocks mediate my writing in much the same way. By
attending to the rhythms and pace of my local surroundings,
206 Qualitative Inquiry 23(3)
Figure 2.  Unwinding time: Heidelberg clocks.
Source. Ulmer (2016), the Heidelberg Project, Detroit.
whether they be a neighborhood-folk-art-installation, rural his-
toric cemetery, or island state park, the local materiality of what
I feel, touch, eat, breathe, walk, drive, think, and dream—what
I see every day—finds its way into writing (e.g., Ulmer, in
press). In this regard, it is as if composing within Olmsted’s
landscapes has un/subconsciously shifted manuscripts toward
issues of urban democracy and environmental justice, particu-
larly as they relate to the organization and use of city-space and
the ways in which spatial arrangements bring us together.
Perhaps Olmsted’s and Guyton’s landscapes have Slowly writ-
ten me.
Writing local landscapes through a Slow Ontology mate-
rializes differently within and across local environments.
Although access to writing localities varies alongside eco-
nomic, environmental, and geopolitical circumstances,
Slow Writing is adaptable across many settings. The previ-
ous examples are drawn from a major post-industrial city
that is unlikely to be described as an idyllic, natural paradise
either now or in the immediate future. These examples dem-
onstrate how Slow Writing can occur within unexpected
settings, including within distressed areas that not only have
a history of arson, abandonment, violence, and lack of pub-
lic services, but remain the active focus of neighborhood
stabilization efforts (such as the state park, which recently
was taken over from the city). Even though Slow Writing
avails itself the opportunity to write ugliness (as I have writ-
ten elsewhere regarding material markers of systemic rac-
ism in the city), I turn to Slow Writing here as an opportunity
not only to explore the environmental niches and local land-
scapes of a post-industrial realm, but to locate and write
about beauty that others might be quick to overlook.
Writing Sensory Images
Finally, while immersing writing in local and natural sur-
roundings, scholars might turn to Bachelard’s philosophical
suggestion of a slower ontology to find more sustainable
rhythms of inquiry. Bachelard suggests that a slower ontol-
ogy might be prepared if images were multiplied and taken
“into the domains of light and sounds, of heat and cold”
(Bachelard, 1958/1994, p. 215). For Bachelard, it is not a
matter of analyzing images in their two-dimensional state,
but in expanding images beyond what we perceive to be
their initial capacity. Without taking the time to (re)create
and (re)experience the potential of images, viewers sense
images as they are, and, in so doing, miss opportunities to
experience images as they have been and as they are
becoming.
Marcellvs L. has followed Bachelard’s suggestion of a
slower ontology through visual art. The Brazilian artist’s
oeuvre is replete with images that multiply throughout the
visual sound installations. In the exhibition “Slow
Ontology” (Marcellvs L., 2015), for example, video images
create openings in which viewers might perceive elements
of everyday life that hastily are overlooked in an emphasis
on speed (Rocha, 2015); these elements not only create a
sense of becoming, but also resound with echoes of the dis-
tant past. The exhibition includes three video projections
and four sound streams; the cumulative effect is intended to
dilate time through photography, sounds, and bits of every-
day life. The gallery description notes that “Slow Ontology”
was recorded while traveling by boat down the British canals
between Birmingham and Manchester. During the Industrial
Revolution, the canal system played a key role in the emergence
of modern capitalism. However, today its function has shifted
and the canals are used almost exclusively for leisure . . . The
Ulmer 207
camera captures a languid drift from a fixed point on the
moving narrow boat, observing subtle changes in the
environment. This effect slows the viewer’s attention, and is
meant to heighten their sense of perception. (carlier | gebauer,
2015, pp. 1-2)
In this respect, Marcellvs L.’s “Slow Ontology” writes the
watery landscapes of British canals through video images
and sound.
“Slow Ontology” builds on a previous, yet similar, work,
in which Marcellvs L. (2010) wrote sound images as a boat
pulled an upside-down grand piano through the waterways
of Venice, Italy. As the piano travelled through the water,
omnidirectional microphones recorded “the resonances of
the strings, waves, motor, boats” while “the sounds of the
environment of the lagoons [were] filtered by the piano’s
acoustic properties” (Marcellvs L., 2010, para. 1). Although
studies regarding how material phenomena intra-acts to
produce affective sounds and images need not involve com-
parable feats, they are rare nevertheless. Perhaps the act of
Slowing down might enable these types of creative inter-
ventions more often.
Are We Already Slowing Down?
In developing alternative inquiry practices, many (post)
qualitative researchers perhaps already have begun to Slow,
albeit not under the official banner thereof. Although Slow
Writing may be new to qualitative inquiry, related princi-
ples manifest in other experimental writings that creatively
intervene into normative research practices (e.g., Bridges-
Rhoads & Van Cleave, 2013; Guttorm, 2012; Hofsess &
Sonenberg, 2013). These creative texts, I would respect-
fully suggest, potentially parallel Slow Ontology in that
they similarly hone artisan skills and seek alternatives to
homogenized writing methodologies. Nonetheless, creative
interventions are but one illustration of how (post)qualita-
tive researchers already may be Slowing in unexpected
spaces. These spaces may not yield easily to questions of
when or where, especially if we do not explicitly recognize
them as such. Slowness, then, might exist even without hav-
ing been identified, particularly within new materialist and
(post)qualitative inquires that potentially write a Slow
Ontology through nature, local landscapes, and sensory
images.
With regard to writing sensory images, qualitative schol-
ars have expanded writing and research through the use of
sounds, texts, and images (e.g., Daza & Gershon, 2015;
Kaufmann & Holbrook, 2016; Waterhouse, Otterstad, &
Jensen, 2015). These authors write with sensory experi-
ences. Other researchers write about sensory experiences.
Pink (2011), for example, uses participatory photography as
a method of visual and sensory ethnography to study Slow
Cities (see also, Pink, 2007). As this occurs, scholars also
are exploring how the material (vs. digital) processes of
photographic production complicate methodological analy-
sis (e.g., Ploderer, Leong, Ashkanasy, & Howard, 2012).
The material nostalgia for photography that has resulted in
the return of the Polaroid camera is perhaps not unrelated.
In these regards, the turn toward materialism in slower
visual and sensory methodologies can be seen in the new
materialisms as a whole (e.g., Bennett, 2009; Hekman,
2010; Kirby, 2011).
In calling for a more-than-human, entangled approach to
research, new materialist qualitative scholars often write
environmental landscapes, as well as write on/with/through/
in aspects of nature. In addition to weather writing
(Neimanis, 2014) and walking through the weather world
(Ingold, 2010), scholars have developed methodological
responses to natural phenomenon such as air (Banerjee &
Blaise, 2013), water (Somerville, 2013), and snow (Rautio
& Jokinen, 2016). Other researchers have begun to explore
the possibilities of new materialist writing, as well as “find-
ing and composing connections to our surrounding nonhu-
man world” (Rautio, 2013, p. 446). If organic rhythms are
at the forefront of a Slower inquiry, then our thoughts might
follow the rhythms of celestial bodies, land formations, cli-
mates and seasons, flora, fauna, and our material selves.
Slowness offers an embodied ontological approach in which
more-than-human methodological possibilities animate
through research.
At first glance, these developments in (post)qualitative
inquiry appear to be advancing on separate methodological
fronts. Yet, in taking a step back to consider the confluence
of visual and new materialist methodologies in (post)quali-
tative research, these movements converge to call for a way
of doing methodology differently in a way that, like Slow
Ontology, represents a methodological pause—a temporal
stasis in which spacetimematterings shift. Slowly.
Implications
Honoré (2004) writes,
If we carry on at this rate, the cult of speed can only get worse.
When everyone takes the fast option, the advantage of going
fast vanishes, forcing us to go faster still. Eventually, what we
are left with is an arms race based on speed. (p. 11)
It could be argued that continued escalation is a risky strat-
egy for those working within marginalized paradigms. When
particular strands of research are thought to count “less” by
default (Denzin & Giardina, 2008), taking the time to craft
the best scholarship possible becomes even more important.
Continued escalation might also, unfortunately, remain nec-
essary until enough momentum builds for alternative
approaches to become realistic possibilities, particularly for
scholars facing decisions related to hiring, tenure, and
208 Qualitative Inquiry 23(3)
promotion. These paths are not built through slowness. For
the time being, rather than continue to accelerate in an invis-
ible arms race (which ultimately only serves to raise the bar
for ourselves and others), we instead might collaborate and
explore possibilities for a Slow Ontology in which we simul-
taneously write with speed2 and Slowness. My hope is to
spark the beginning of a long-term, collective endeavor that
fosters healthy, sustainable, productive, balanced, meaning-
ful, and Slower—if not Slow—approaches to inquiry.
In the process, scholars might produce writing differ-
ently within a frame of Slow Ontology. Writing might
advance creative interventions in conventional research
methodologies or creatively compose the organic material-
ity of nature, local landscapes, or sensory matter through
sounds, images, videos, and other texts. If materiality and
merit became as important as metrics, Slow Writing might
lead not only to more joyful, productive writings, but also to
scholarship that is more responsive to the landscapes and
cityscapes in which we live. Moreover, a Slow Ontology
might continue to write us. As Slowness lingers, percolating
within our writings, we might begin to work within a living,
shifting ontology that also provides us with an ontology for
sustainable living. We might view our own spaces differ-
ently and eventually find ourselves within the scholarly
spaces in which we would want to work and play and live.
The central tenet of Slow philosophy, thus, is both sim-
ple and appealing: Take “the time to do things properly, and
thereby enjoy them more” (Honoré, 2004, p. 278). This is
perhaps the greatest limitation of Slowness: its rhetorical
appeal suggests itself adequate in addressing the concerns
of society and individuals, however complex. It is not an
antidote or placebo, and it currently is more respite than
remedy. At this point, the Slow movement (like Slow
Ontology and Slow Writing), is largely aspirational.
Although general Slowness has spread in the last three
decades, it largely remains unrealized. Researchers who
adopt a Slow Ontology, therefore, might find themselves
working within a diffuse, experimental framework that dif-
ferentiates across spacetimematterings and, in some
moments, might fail. Researchers also might find them-
selves working within yet another approach that has been
placed outside the bounds of sanctioned research methodol-
ogy. However, perhaps writings grounded in Slow Ontology
might activate ideas that continue to pull and push and pro-
voke their authors, as well as move research in different,
unanticipated directions. This could manifest through indi-
vidual and subsequent collective moves toward something
more sustained, for Slowness potentially offer benefits even
“when applied in piecemeal fashion. But to get the full ben-
efit from the Slow movement, we need to go further and
rethink our approach to everything” (Honoré, 2004, p. 17).
In the meantime, Slow Ontology might continue to take
shape within (post)qualitative, new materialist, and perhaps
even (post)critical forms of research. Further explorations of
Slow Ontology, for example, might include the temporal
theories of Bergson and Spinoza or Deleuze’s writings on
time-images, cinematic-images, and repetition. Qualitative
scholars might deconstruct time and writing through Derrida
and Malabou or turn to literature to explore how, for exam-
ple, Faulkner shifts time. Critical frames might involve
Baudrillard and the role of hyperreality in academic produc-
tion, the difference between the use value and exchange value
of time (per Lefebvre and Marx), or, from a Foucauldian
standpoint, the ways in which “power is articulated directly
onto time; [and how] it assures its control and guarantees its
use” (Foucault, 1995, p. 160). Postqualitative scholars might
draw from Slow Ontology to “create different articulations,
assemblages, becomings, mash-ups of inquiry given the
entanglement that emerges in our different projects” (St.
Pierre, 2011, p. 623; see also, Lather & St. Pierre, 2013); such
projects might resist the edicts of time by approaching litera-
ture reviews as revisable (Zawliska, 2016), curation as an
aesthetic form of living analysis (Hofsess & Thiel, 2016), or
“data” as spectral (Nordstrom, 2013). Scholars might further
draw from art to explore time in Salvador Dalí’s surrealist
melting clocks or the recent installation “A Million Times,”
in which the arms of 288 electric clocks are “unleashed from
a solely pragmatic existence” and rotate in a series of syn-
chronous and asynchronous movements (Humans Since
1982, 2013, para. 1). Each of these perspectives might foster
analyses regarding not only how our academic cultures cur-
rently are, but move us toward the cultures we desire.
Conclusion
Slow Ontology is a diffraction—a dispersal—of time,
space, and matter across different wavelengths, moving in
different directions at different speeds. As waves travel,
they move along the cycles of the sun, moon, water, land,
living organisms, and our waking dreams. Because a Slow
Ontology invokes time that is rooted in nature, it inspires
more natural rhythms for our spatial, temporal, and material
localities. Such a change requires changing our frames of
reference. This might be as simple as shifting our vantage
point—the lens through which we see everyday life (see
Figure 3). In this regard, nature, art, literature, and philoso-
phy each offers different rhythms than the artificial space-
times that segment our lives. As an alternative, a Slow
Ontology provides respite in the local spaces and places in
which we might be Slow.
Thus, in creating a robust, organic, living methodologi-
cal practice, we might draw from Lefebvre and Régulier’s
(2004) encouragement to
go deeper. Do not be afraid to disturb this surface . . . Be like
the wind that shakes these trees. Let your gaze be penetrating,
let it not limit itself to reflecting and mirroring. Let it transgress
its limits a little. (p. 89)
Ulmer 209
Figure 3.  One architectural complex, two analytical vantages: Speed and nature.
Source. Ulmer (2015), RiverWalk, Detroit.
In adopting a Slow Ontology,
we might return to nature
or perhaps take a Slow Roll through the city,
cycling through rain drops,
heartbeats, and rustling leaves—
writing through jet streams, occasional hibernations, and
static.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to
the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes
1. As St. Pierre (2016) explains, epistemology is the “branch of phi-
losophy concerned with the nature, source, and limits of knowl-
edge” (p. 3) and ontology is “a branch of metaphysics concerned
with what exists and the basic categories of existence or reality,
which have always been debated” (p. 4). As ontology contin-
ues to receive attention in (post)qualitative inquiry (e.g., Lather,
2016), it offers opportunities to rethink writing in research.
2. Speed is not problematic in and of itself. Rather, speed poten-
tially leads to haste. In addition to the requisite capacities for
speed scholars currently need within academia, technology
continues to advance knowledge, methodology, and scholarly
thinking in this digital age. Speed, then, also facilitates meth-
odological innovations. Nevertheless, when we only move as
fast as we can accelerate, an undue emphasis on speed invites
the risk that we limit our thinking and the potential of our
scholarly selves.
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Author Biography
Jasmine B. Ulmer is an assistant professor of educational evalua-
tion and research at Wayne State University. Her research interests
include visual and spatial methodologies, critical qualitative
inquiry, digital research methods, and writing as inquiry.