Vulnerability, Poetics, and Mysticism: Troubling the Taboo of Unsanitized Writing in Information Systems

This essay examines the taboo of writing differently in information systems research by exploring the use of ‘unsanitized writing’ techniques, writing practices concerned with defying utopian pursuits of clarity and linear argument. I argue that writing techniques are a methodological choice akin to data collection, analysis, and literature review techniques. However, writing practices are rarely considered an active research decision, but rather an adherence to an established epistemic script, which necessarily limits the generation of knowledge that falls outside standardized academic writing. I make an argument for the use of alternative writing techniques in information systems research. I aim to encourage the open-minded addition of unsanitized writing, such as poetics and mysticism, to the information systems methodological toolbox. In doing so, I claim such techniques can promote inclusive and innovative research which can attune researchers to often overlooked aspects of sociotechnical phenomena and promote more engaged research through considering how we write.