Abstract:
“Crystallization” is an intriguing new method that has appeared in recent years that
embraces the unique perspective that artistic thinking can bring to conducting and
writing research. This paper explores the peculiarity of qualitative crystallization in
research on Buddhist nuns in Sri Lanka. Buddhist nuns in Sri Lanka strive and thrive
under a system that excludes them in certain ways. It required a comprehensive
analytical approach to the study of the lives of Buddhist nuns’ groups (or the survival
strategies), whose places in Buddhism and the monastic community are not settled or
singular. Inquiring about their place within the monastic world requires the researcher
to elicit the significance of the different discourses and strategies for survival in which
they engage and co-create. Discourse is the knowledge that is created about the world.
Discourses talk about compelling stories that have varying degrees of power.
Discourses are highly multivocal and rarely united. Crystallisation gives a language
for describing and incorporating the diverse forms of representations of discourse,
ranging from performances and embodied actions to sophisticated multimedia
presentations and even state-sanctioned festivals of Buddhist nuns. Multidimensional
thinking is a representation of multi-genre performances and truths/knowledge, as
each of these genres offers a unique mode of knowing. This enabled us to address the
different genres of each group of renunciants, which were at times mutually exclusive
and at other times inclusive. This extension of qualitative research aims to stimulate
the conversation and position crystallization as a tool for obtaining a deeper and richer
understanding of the experiences of a historically silent group like Buddhist nuns.
