Research as a Political Device

This presentation is an interactive discussion on the structures of research as they are used politically, to keep people in hegemonic power and the order of things. What an interesting concept. Wayland Walker is speaking about these issues, and how various civil rights movements move forward while still maintaining the status quo.

Nice discussion at the beginning of the process about methodological perspectives, and from which frameworks he is working in (such as post-structuralism). Interesting about the concept of speaking differently depending on who is in the room, namely queer space. Have not heard that concept before.

Who makes knowledge in adult education? Interesting ethnographic question about this. This group is usually tenured professors who buy and sell education and training. The ritual acts are known as research. The shamans are peer reviewers. I really like hearing about this. He is continuing about how research takes on almost religious or cultural senses. Academia in the US is a religious sense in qualitative methods is listed as the real, in that triangulation and reproducing coding and such are now issues brings qualitative to quantitative.

Interesting perspective that qualitative work is becoming increasingly quantitative. Mixed methods is increasingly being used, so qualitative will have just enough quantitative. In this way, qualitative is increasingly seen as a step toward quant.

There is a great discussion about packaging funding and grant requests in order to get the funding, and then balance the research and advocacy (in whatever perspective) with it. This can be seen as a political issue. Interesting how much there are discussions about funding. Is that what academia has sunken to, constant talk about money? Perhaps in this way, working out in industry is more straight-forward?

Disrupting the theory/practice binary. Reminds me of the work I do in AHRD.

Are there academics in the trenches in adult education? Are adult educators involved in the fight and the movement for social change?

LGBTQ&A Pre-Conference

This is the 7th Annual LGBTQ&A Pre-Conference at the 50th Annual Adult Education Research Conference. We are in a nice room on the 5th floor at National Louis University, overlooking the Art Institute of Chicago.

Nice slideshow with an overview of the history of LGBT issues in the US (and beyond). Interesting how this seems interesting, especially after the California Supreme Court decision yesterday. Now, into the introductions . . .

People are mentioning what they have done, published, etc. Some of the online journals, such as New Horizons and Radical Pedagogy were discussed.

Adult Education Research Conference (AERC2009)

No sooner do I get myself home and settled from my perspective-reinforcing Qualitative Congress, but now I am off again, this time headed to Chicago for the 50th Adult Education Research Conference. This time, I am presenting a paper entitled The Critical Incident Questionnaire (CIQ): From Research to Practice and Back 5008 Again.

If you are in Chicago on Saturday, May 30, from 9:00-9:45 and want to check it out, I will be in room 5008 at the National-Louis University (NLU) Campus, 122 S. Michigan Avenue.

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Photos from the Qualitative Congress, QI2009

I carried my camera with me at all times, though generally forgot to take it out and use it, being so busy liveblogging! Here are the few I did manage to take.

Note to self—take more at my next conference (that begins on Wednesday, as a matter of fact). I only have one more this year, AERC2009, but more about that later.

Revision: Panel Discussion on Carolyn Ellis’s Text

We are crushed into a room much too small for the number of people present (any hear of “fire hazard”?). I wonder if it will be a metaphor for what it to come.

Laurel Richardson is introducing the theme of this most interesting session looking at Carolyn’s newest work, Revision. The panel will read parts of her book and then ask Carolyn questions about it. What an interesting panel discussion concept.

Laurel reads Carolyn’s opening paragraph, and why she decided to begin with this paragraph, which is about a dream sequence. Carolyn intentionally does not say what dreams mean. She often speaks and then asks questions about them. This reminds me of my own work, which cannot happen without semicolons and parentheses. Carolyn says that questions often generate new ones and on and on. I am thinking about how my own autoethnographic voice is developing, and how Carolyn reminded me before this session to email her the link to my blog where I have been liveblogging the conference.

This dream sequence is about autoethnography itself, especially about drawing lines and crossing them, and being aware of whether some people will be concerned with it, or not. How much is the dream and how much do we put there ourselves?

Laurel is reading one last sentence, around the narrative challenge that leads into the other challenges that really lead to the heart of the book (pg. 13). Glad I already bought this book right when it came out. I have not yet read it, as I have been crazed with work and teaching and doctoral studies. I suppose it will be the one that is next on the list to read upon my return, especially after finally meeting Carolyn and now seeing her read in my mind’s eye when I now read her works.

The detail Carolyn chooses to tell or not tell, and how issues of gender affects the tales. This next panelist, Jonathan Wyatt, wants to know more about the writing process. He then did a similar form of writing as Carolyn did. It seems the questions were wound within his own story modeled off Carolyn’s work.

When Carolyn first started writing, she was told to “just write everything” and then delete later. She tries to put herself back in the moment when she writes, and puts it all down. When she writes stories, as opposed to prose which is written and rewritten, it seems it just comes to her and she put it down on the page. With her stories, there is often something that happens that urges the story on. She does not always choose to put much back story into the work, and the question is when does back story come in and when should it be placed away. For the scene with the classroom, she considered the variety and complexity of the realm of positions that exist in a room.

Julie White reads from chapter 11. She reads from Barack Obama who promises to end the war and the culture of fear. I love Barack Obama, but I do not think he has done a lot to end the war and make thee world a safer place. Maybe it is unrealistic on my behalf to expect it to happen so quickly. Oh, Julie is still reading, now about Carolyn’s flying at the time of September 11. This brings me back to 9/11, when I was still teaching and we were on strike when the attacks happened. Julie continues about how the radio news reporters help Carolyn to feel not quite so alone. I am having trouble paying attention. I recall seeing parents covered in dust and debris walk into our school to fetch their children later on the morning of the attack. They walked from the World Trade to us on East 56th Street. They walked since all mass transit in NY was shut down. It stopped for some time, as the powers that be did whatever they had in mind to make them want to stop the entire subway system. Carolyn continues speaking through Julie’s reading, about the taxi driver who raises many of the issues about people who resemble those terrorists who changed so many things now eight years ago. Julie talked about how the media became everybody’s lifeline in Australia, where there were horrible fires that killed hundreds and destroyed thousands.

Carolyn became obsessed with the moment to moment life after the event of 9/11. She ended the book with the quote from Barack Obama, which she felt was the first time there was hope coming after the many difficult years after 9/11. Carolyn had a number of episodes to discuss, as well as addressing the issues where to bring in literature and analysis.

Norman Denzin is speaking now, where he said that this is a very important book in the autoethnographic genre and methodology. He asks how to hold it all together, now after the difficulties since 9/11, and how there is now the Obama hope. Denzin read about Carolyn’s initial shower scene, and he flashed to the Psycho shower scene. He then speaks about a shower scene in Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill (not familiar with this movie). I agree with Norm, where he said that he “does not take anything as innocent.” There is not an innocent scene, and there is not anything innocent or unconnected or isolated; whose reading is it?

Carolyn, when she heard Norm speak about the shower scene, she in turn went to the showers in the Holocaust. Interesting how these themes turn to one another, and move one another forward. How images and shared culture leads one to move meaning along. What about those who may not have the shared memories, or have the same memories but from an alternate perspective? Isn’t that what most of our sessions here at the Congress all about.

Laurel is reading again, though I did not hear the context as I was musing in my own experiences. I wonder if there is ever any way to encounter context than through musing on my own context?

Laurel mentions the richness of the book in that the readers / panelists read the text in so many different ways. Carolyn’s goal is for us to go out and have conversations about this book and about our experiences, in addition to encouraging people to go and write.

Carolyn tells that she has a lot of strategies to not have to face death, at least for some time. She laughs, she thinks positively, and in general enjoys life. Good suggestions here.