In Heuristic Research: Desing, Methodology and Applications (1990), Clark Moustakas describes incubation as one of the essential phases of inquiry. Following immersion in a research question, the researcher deliberately steps back. Rather than consciously analysing the phenomenon, they allow the question to rest, trusting that deeper levels of awareness continue working beyond deliberate thought. It is during this period that tacit knowing, intuition, and unconscious processing prepare the ground for illumination.
I have found myself referring to the lived experience of this phase as composting.
I do not propose composting as a replacement for incubation but as a way of enriching our understanding of it; composting suggests to me transformation through decomposition and renewal.
The metaphor of composting recognises that research is not simply about allowing ideas to grow quietly. It is also about allowing previous assumptions, experiences, emotions, conversations, readings, and fragments of knowing to break apart before they can become something new. Just as a compost heap appears inert while extraordinary biological activity takes place beneath its surface, heuristic inquiry often enters a period where visible progress disappears, even though profound transformation is occurring.
From the outside, composting looks like inactivity. From within, it is a complex ecology of change.
For me, this metaphor resonates deeply with heuristic inquiry because the researcher is inseparable from the research process. It is not only the literature or the data that are composting. The researcher themselves is changing. Connections emerge unexpectedly between seemingly unrelated experiences. Certainties begin to decompose, making space for more nuanced understanding.
This aligns closely with Moustakas’ emphasis on tacit knowledge and the inward journey of heuristic inquiry. He reminds us that meaningful insight cannot always be forced through deliberate analysis. Instead, we must trust processes that unfold beneath conscious awareness.
Composting offers language for this hidden, often troublesome and liminal, work.
Unlike decomposition as loss, composting is decomposition with purpose. Nothing is wasted. Every experience, doubt, contradiction, and fragment of understanding contributes nutrients to the inquiry. The apparent disorder is precisely what makes new growth possible.
Eventually, as Moustakas describes, illumination arrives. An insight surfaces with remarkable clarity. Yet that moment is not spontaneous. It is the visible expression of an invisible process that has been unfolding throughout composting.
I hope this metaphor can help me during those periods of heuristic inquiry where my work appears to have stalled. Rather than interpreting uncertainty as a lack of progress, we might recognise it as evidence that something essential is happening beneath the surface.
The inquiry is composting.
Moustakas, C. (1990) Heuristic research : design, methodology, and applications. Newbury Park: Sage Publications Inc.