ICQI 2021: Collaborative Futures in Qualitative Inquiry
ICQI…..you know….only the largest ……. and most respected qualitative research conference IN THE WORLD! … and with all the biggest names!
My PhD supervisor said I should consider submitting an abstract for this conference.
Doing so is a VERY BIG DEAL – this congress is the pinnacle in my field. I’ve never presented at this conference.
For the first time ever, the ICQI 2021 will be held online. This is a super attractive feature for me as it will mean if I get an abstract accepted to present, I wouldn’t have to spend the extra money to travel to the USA as was required for all previous (and probably subsequent) ICQIs. If I ever wanted to give ICQI a solid shot – this is it!
So I did – and my abstract got accepted! Woohoo!
My ICQI 2021 Abstract
Velo-onto-epistemology: Becoming(s)-with Bicycles, Gender, Education and Research. This paper traces some experimental and experiential wonderings of researching gendered journeys on bicycles in West Africa. This session shares what is unfolding for one rider-researcher as she works to excavate the entanglements, tensions and possibilities of becoming(s)-with post-qualitative inquiry that foregrounds African landscapes, smells, desires, dynamics, beliefs, practices and peoples with emerging feminist posthuman ontologies. My research puts to work feminist New Materialisms to explore how bicycles feature in West African girls’ access to secondary education. This undertaking is bold, complex and unsettling. It requires (re)turning (Barad, 2006) and challenging habitual preoccupations about bicycles, embodiment, movement, identity, ecology, sp/pl/p/ace and methodology. There is much about gendered bodies navigating trails that commands attention, yet defies explanation (McLure, 2013). Drawing on key encounters experienced in Brisbane (Australia) and Lunsar (Sierra Leone), I trace the skills, wills, spills and thrills from which a velo-onto-epistemology is emerging.
The 2021 Congress theme is: Collaborative Futures in Qualitative Inquiry.
The rapidly changing social, cultural, political, economic, and technological dynamics brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic are inescapable as we endeavor to move forward. The pandemic has also amplified hard truths about everyday life: the ongoing historical devaluation of teachers, nurses, and service workers, and the precarity of the working classes, the unyielding privileging of business and the free market as the answer to all social and health ills, the differential experience of the virus relative to race, class, and gender dynamics, including as related to co-morbidity and mortality rates, access to care, and visibility, the rise of right-wing populism and its deleterious impact on positive governmental responses to pandemic conditions, the prominence of conspiracy theories in mainstream and social media discourse (e.g., masks don’t help, virus is man-made, etc.).
At the same time, we cannot overlook the broader context in which the 2021 Congress will take place: Black Lives Matter, #MeToo creeping authoritarianism, environmental crises, economic shocks to higher education and continuing public health crises.
Collectively and collaboratively, this moment calls for a critical, performative, social justice inquiry directed at the multiple crises of our historical present.
We need a rethinking of where we have been, and, critically, where we are going.
We cannot go at it alone.
We need to imagine new ways to collaborate, to engage in research and activism. New ways of representing and intervening into the historical present. New ways to conduct research, and a rethinking of in whose interest our research benefits.
Sessions in the 2021 Congress will take up these topics, as well as those related to and/or utilizing:
feminist inquiry
Critical Race Theory
intersectionality
queer theory
critical disability research
phenomenology
Indigenous methodologies
postcolonial and decolonized knowing
poststructural engagements
diffraction and intra-action
digital methodologies
autoethnography
visual methodologies
thematic analysis
performance
art as research
critical participatory action research
multivocality
collaborative inquiry
………..and the politics of evidence.
Sessions will also discuss:
threats to shared governance
attacks on freedom of speech
public policy discourse
and research as resistance
Scholars come to the Congress to resist, to celebrate community, to experiment with traditional and new methodologies, with new technologies of representation.
Together we seek to develop guidelines and exemplars concerning advocacy, inquiry and social justice concerns. We share a commitment to change the world, to engage in ethical work that makes a positive difference.
As critical scholars, our task is to bring the past and the future into the present, allowing us to engage realistic utopian pedagogies of hope.
ICQI provides leadership to demonstrate the promise of qualitative inquiry as a form of democratic practice, to show how qualitative inquiry can be used to directly engage pressing social issues at the level of local, state, national and global communities.
The Congress sponsors the journal International Review of Qualitative Research (IRQR), three book series, and occasional publications based upon the more than 1,000 papers given at the conference each year. It the largest annual gathering of qualitative scholars in the world.
My PhD looks at how bicycles feature in West African girls’ access to secondary education.
This means I read widely about gender, geography, aid and development, education, mobility and innovative research methods.
I’ve been reviewing what has been done so far to help girls get to and from schools on bikes – and this has to lead me to Sport-for-development literature. Which I love!
The field of sport-for-development (S4D) has received significant attention in the last 10 years, legitimizing it as a recognized and critical new genre of scholarship and praxis. The focus of S4D is to engage disadvantaged people and communities in physical activity projects with an overarching aim of achieving various social, cultural, physical, economic, or health outcomes.
Where at the beginning of the 21st century it was difficult to find projects that use sport or physical activity as a specific vehicle for positive change, the number of S4D initiatives that aim to make a difference has grown substantially. One explanation for this escalation is the strong political support for a movement that combines sports associations, aid agencies, development bodies, sponsoring organisations, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs)under a single umbrella.
An example of this is my project, which showcases how for the last decade, the collaboration of NGO Village Bicycle Project (my research partner organization) with Stylish Karim Kamara has helped progress local individuals, schools, community groups and education/health organisations by supplying bicycles and bike riding services.
A lovely moment of (research) providence
Often in research, what is being worked on is removed and abstracted from the goings-on in ‘the real-world’.
But not for me this week! This week I had a lovely moment of research providence!
I am currently reading a book on S4D (see image above) which details programs like Football for Peace in the Middle East, Ganar and Deportes para la Vida in the Caribbean, Soldados Nunca Mais which rehabilitates and retrains Brasilian child soldiers using sport, Pacifica Wokabot Jalens (team-based step challenges) programs and other EduSport initiatives.
And it just so happened that my reading of this book coincided with the UN International Day of Sport for Development and Peace (IDSDP 2021) which was on the 6th of April.
So this made what I am working on even more real and meaningful.
What is the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace?
In recognition of the positive contribution that sport can have on the realization of sustainable development and on the advancement of human rights, 6 April was proclaimed the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace (IDSDP) by the UN General Assembly in its resolution 67/296 in 2013.
Theme:International Day of Sport for Development and Peace (IDSDP) 2021
The International Day of Sport for Development and Peace 2021 there is an opportunity to recognize the role that sport plays in communities, in individuals’ lives, in building resilience and in the recovery from the pandemic through online and social media activity in the lead up to and on the Day.
The Department of Global Communications, in collaboration with DESA, WHO and the co-chairs of the Group of Friends of Sport for Sustainable Development in New York – Qatar and Monaco – have developed social media and online messaging around the theme of recovery from the pandemic, the importance of equity in that recovery, and what is necessary to build back better for a more resilient and equitable world.
Sport can cross boundaries, defy stereotypes, improve our physical and emotional health, and inspire hope across nations, but we will only be able to get back to this, if we recover better and help end the pandemic by helping ensure everyone is protected from COVID-19 Using the hashtags #SportDay and #OnlyTogether, interested UN entities and external organizations will be able to tailor the theme to closely fit their own specific mandates and activities to demonstrate how sport and physical activity can help build back better and stronger as society begins to reopen and recover, once the pandemic ends.
Sporting analogies, such as “achieving success through teamwork,” and “using a level playing field” can also be incorporated to deliver the important equity and resilience messaging, and sports personalities and organizations can help promote. Teamwork is essential to building back better.
So, let’s help end the pandemic by ensuring everyone is protected from COVID-19. Let’s level the playing field and recover better. #OnlyTogether will we play again.
Objectives
The 2021 International Day of Sport for Development and Peace aims to:
– Reaffirm the place of sport in the recovery from the pandemic and beyond – Foster equity, solidarity, community and team spirit in response to the pandemic – Encourage healthy habits through physical activity and building emotional wellbeing – and inspire hope through sporting analogies.
These are the hashtags for the International Day of Sport this year: #SportDay#OnlyTogether
In this post, we are looking at a very specific subset of bike tattoo and that is – bike tattoos that have specifically detailed colour or design included in the bike wheels … or what I call … ‘wheelie’ specific bike tattoos.
I scoured the internet and rolled through hundreds of cool, funny and (at times) questionable bike tattoos to find 5 solid representations of tattoos that have details in the bike wheels as their central focus.
In each of these cases, colour and form was used as the central cohesive design feature.
Let’s have a look…
@Mountainbike on Pintrest
@Mountainbike on Pintrest
The first two tattoos (see above) have a similar aesthetic which uses a sunset or landscape scenery as the key motif. I put two versions of this design here as the gentle difference in colours has quite a significant impact on the ‘feel’ of the overall tattoo, yet the symbolism is equally clear and meaningful. Having mountains on the side and a river or track running through the middle helps accentuate the perspective of the ‘never-ending great outdoors’ so desired by bike riders. This iconography is made all the more striking when contained within the circular frame of both wheels which (also) forms a simple black bike frame silhouette with no background. Interestingly, I sourced both these tattoos from the same location, which makes me wonder if this specific design is ‘a mountainbike thang.’
Image: Bicycling.com
The third tattoo (above) is more of a whimsical, flowery bike design interpretation made more impactful with the use of the two strongly contrasting and complementary colors of blue and red. This is an unsual and particular tattoo that stands out for its unconventional and creative design – a bold choice for a permanent tattoo!
Scott Schmidt on Pintrest
The fourth tattoo (above) is a calf single wheel tattoo highlighted by the distinctive red and black diagrammatic colouring that really makes it pop. This tattoo is dramatic in its almost tribal-style patterning. The composition is controlled, yet creative with clean and authoritative lines that clearly accentuate the ‘wheel-ness’ of the design. The strong outlines are offset by the red 5-petaled flower at the centre of the wheel, hinting to the softer interior of the ‘hard-wheeled’ rider-owner who is bold enough to wear it.
Image: Next luxury
The last tattoo (above) looks like it takes its cue from graphic design using both colour, texture and geometric patterning to good effect. On closer inspection, it almost looks like the texture of puff paints (it did make me second guess whether this was a ‘real’ tattoo) or maybe the tattoo had just been applied and was brand new, hence the raised (or skin reactive) beveling of work.
Tattoos – and more specifically bike tattoos – are not for everyone. But there are many people who love riding and want to celebrate, share and commemorate bikes with tattoos. And these ‘wheelie’ bike tattoos are just one example of people do this.
Which begs the question:
If you were to get a bike tattoo, where and what would you get?
Our New Materialisms (NM) Special Interest Group (SIG) is back on!
The March NM SIG is our first meeting back for 2021. I’m so happy!
Because we are reconvening after the New Year break, we wanted to offer the opportunity for participants to reconnect more directly. So instead of going straight into guest presentations, we decided to have a writing-process open forum to ‘warm-up’ our ideas, discussion and writing-with NM approaches.
So, in this session, we gave breathing space for a topic we all wrestle with: how to ‘write up’ or ‘present’ New Materialisms research.
We invited participants to bring a piece of writing/data/something you are working on to share.
This NM forum encouraged cross-pollination, stimulate new ideas, spark some inspiration, offered some new skills and probed what im/possibilities might emerge for stretching your NM research writing-data.
In this meeting, we asked: How might researchers who are working with New Materialisms ‘write up data’?
We had two readings to get the juices flowing.
Readings:
Somerville, M. (2016) The post-human I: encountering ‘data’ in new materialism, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 29:9, 1161-1172, DOI: 10.1080/09518398.2016.1201611
Niccolini, A. D., Zarabadi, S., & Ringrose, J. (2018). Spinning yarns: Affective kinshipping as posthuman pedagogy. Parallax (Leeds, England), 24(3), 324-343.
5 mins warm-up: Delicious Research(er)s. NM SIG March 2021.
March NM SIG notes
Our warm-up NM writing activity was on: Delicious research(er)s. I developed my Delicious Research(er)s warm-up into a 25mins, 100-word worlding – and this is what emerged:
Delicious research(er)s.
Delicious research(er)ing is an open-ended kitchette of inquisitiveness, capabilities, ingredients and alchemy. Folding, passing, mixing and blending: foundational blisters pop into syrupy-sweet intellectual nectar. Flavour(ful) data fragments over tongues, in eyes, and on minds. Delicious researchers are lightning rods for the unexplained. They stand tall: chins up, ears swivelling, noses twitching, eyes roving and skin electrified with buzzing intensity. They dive deep into salty pedogological soups, spin with umami-rolled embodiment, and languish in astringent-infused relationalities of common wor(l)ds. Delicious researchers are sexy, amorous, desirable and magnetic, heated yet ‘cool’ – and prone to spontaneously combust in moments of exquisite flambé rupture.
See images below for some of our other NM lines of flight.
Spinning Yarns. NM SIG March 2021.
Post-human ‘I’. NM SIG March 2021.
Discussing NM problematics. NM SIG March 2021.
NM SIG collaborative notes. NM SIG March 2021.
NM ‘data’-research-writing discussion. NM SIG March 2021.
But not many people know that March 21st was the UN International Day of Forests.
So to commemorate both Women’s Month and Day of the Forests, I put the call out to three inspiring female friends (Nix, Alex and Wendy) who work to improve gender and environmental imperatives – and invited them to come for a night-time ride along our bayside foreshore to visit the ‘Tree of Light’ to honour the ‘every tree counts’ key theme for this year’s Day of Forests.
And so we did – and we had a great time!
It was low-key, colourful and super fun.
I let them know I was dressing up and they were welcome to join me if they wanted to. I know dressing up is not everyone’s jam – but they all arrived at my place dressed up as well! Not only was this a way to have fun, but it was also a subversive ‘up-yours’ to social expectations of what is ‘appropriate’ for a woman to wear in public and traditional views of women dressing ‘properly’ and ‘conservatively’.
My idea was to go for a night ride ‘reclaim the night/bike path’ style. I deliberately arranged our departure for 7.30 pm – when it was ‘darkly’ – and after dinner – a time most women are socially trained to stay in as it is ‘not safe’ to be out at night.
There were four of us for this ride. On the ride were myself and the formidable Nix (who you might remember from the New Materialists Garden – PhD Retreat), as well as Wendy and Alex, who are two of ‘Green Aunties’ from my community garden. Both Wendy and Alex are in their legacy years and rode pedal-assist bikes.
Nina & Leki (L), Nix, Alex and Wendy (R)
Time for a chat
Alex cruising in style
Wendy and her ‘climate emergency response vehicle’ (bike)
Nix was resplendent!
Nina and Leki (flower bike) en route
Celebrating Women’s Month and Day of the Forests at our local ‘Tree of Light’.
Bight bike path lights
Leki’s caboose in the gloaming
Not so darkly female bike riders!
As if the aunties weren’t brave enough doing this ride, I also found out just before we left that Wendy and Alex had never been for a night ride before. This was a big win for women-them-us-community claiming public space – at night – in a super positive and direct way!
It was a stunning evening – clear, warm and inviting. The moon was out and our community was safe and welcoming.
We saw a few people as we started out, but the more we rode, the less people there were about until we saw no one on our return trip at all. We had the whole place to ourselves! While we rode we discussed what it felt like to be ‘out alone’ and ‘roaming the streets.
It was brilliant!
We rode 6kms along the foreshore, then stopped at the ‘The Tree of Lights’ to have a break where we joked, enjoyed, paid homage to women’s month – and trees and forests. Then I rode my guests happily home.
Our ride was a small, but wonderfully personal way to honour and celebrate sisterhood, forests, and being free to ride our bikes wherever and whenever we want to.
If you have not been out for night ride recently – I highly recommend it.
Grab a mate and your bikes and go visit a tree in your area!
Happy riding!
Key messages of the UN International Day of Forests
The UN are promoting 8 key messages for the 2021 International Day of Forests:
Healthy forests mean healthy people.
Forests provide health benefits for everyone, such as fresh air, nutritious foods, clean water, and space for recreation. In developed countries, up to 25 percent of all medicinal drugs are plant-based; in developing countries, the contribution is as high as 80 percent.
Forest food provides healthy diets.
Indigenous communities typically consume more than 100 types of wild food, many harvested in forests. A study in Africa found that the dietary diversity of children exposed to forests is at least 25 percent higher than that of children who are not. Forest destruction, on the other hand, is unhealthy – nearly one in three outbreaks of emerging infectious disease are linked to land-use change such as deforestation.
Restoring forests will improve our environment.
The world is losing 10 million hectares of forest – about the size of Iceland – each year, and land degradation affects almost 2 billion hectares, an area larger than South America. Forest loss and degradation emit large quantities of climate-warming gases, and at least 8 percent of forest plants and 5 percent of forest animals are at extremely high risk of extinction. The restoration and sustainable management of forests, on the other hand, will address the climate-change and biodiversity crises simultaneously while producing goods and services needed for sustainable development.
Sustainable forestry can create millions of green jobs.
Forests provide more than 86 million green jobs and support the livelihoods of many more people. Wood from well-managed forests supports diverse industries, from paper to the construction of tall buildings. Investment in forest restoration will help economies recover from the pandemic by creating even more employment.
It is possible to restore degraded lands at a huge scale.
The Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative, launched by the African Union in 2007, is the most ambitious climate-change adaptation and mitigation response under implementation worldwide. It seeks to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land, sequester 250 million tonnes of carbon and create 10 million green jobs by 2030, while greening landscapes in an 8 000 km belt across Africa’s drylands. Vast areas of degraded land elsewhere would also become highly productive again if restored with local tree species and other vegetation.
Every tree counts.
Small-scale planting and restoration projects can have big impacts. City greening creates cleaner air and more beautiful spaces and has huge benefits for the mental and physical health of urban dwellers. It is estimated that trees provide megacities with benefits worth USD 0.5 billion or more every year by reducing air pollution, cooling buildings and providing other services.
Engaging and empowering people to sustainably use forests is a key step towards positive change.
A healthy environment requires stakeholder engagement, especially at the local level so that communities can better govern and manage the land on which they depend. Community empowerment helps advance local solutions and promotes participation in ecosystem restoration. There is an opportunity to “rebuild” forest landscapes that are equitable and productive, and that avert the risks to ecosystems and people posed by forest destruction.
We can recover from our planetary, health and economic crisis. Let’s restore the planet this decade.
Investing in ecosystem restoration will help in healing individuals, communities and the environment. The aim of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, which starts this year, is to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems worldwide. It offers the prospect of putting trees and forests back into degraded forest landscapes at a massive scale, thereby increasing ecological resilience and productivity. Done right, forest restoration is a key nature-based solution for building back better and achieving the future we want.
March is Women’s Month. March 8th was International Women’s Day and throughout the month there are many other events highlighting a range of social and gender justice issues.
There were major March4Justice protests organised in all major cities (and elsewhere) around Australia on March 15th.
It was epic!
So I headed to the Brisbane protest to march!
Nina (with her subtle placard) and JenNina with inclusive side of her placard
I brought my own two-sided sign.
One side was super inclusive, the other a little more ‘confrontational’.
A friend called the controversial side the ‘the thinking person’s sign.’ GOLD!
Heaps of people said the loved the sign (both sides) and I go lots of COVID Hi-5s.
It uses bicycle inner tubes, wheel spokes and bike parts, broken jewellery, second-hand objects and curb-side barbie dolls. The sash is reminiscent of a beauty pageant, yet echoes the idea that even though women may feel free to move (the barbies bodies swing – but only as I move), they are in many ways still ‘keep in line’ (strangled by the confines of the sash’). The blondes are at the top, while the brunette (representing any/every ‘other’) is at the bottom of ‘the beauty hierarchy’. The headpiece mixes themes of gender expectations, worship, money, sex, religion, plastic surgery and armour together into a quasi-tiara-cum-pagan headdress which is deliberately a little ‘off'(-set) and awkwardly constructed.
It was very challenging hearing so many stories of disadvantage, abuse, injustice and oppression – difficult, but also very important.
There is so much that needs to change.
To find out where, when and why the protests were hitting the streets, Alicia Nally (ABC) here.
And some good commentary, Like Hayley Gleeson’s for the ABC looking at what happened after the protests as well.
Alyx Gorman wrote a good outline of the Australian protests for The Guardian wrote:
Across Australia, survivors and their allies will be calling for gender equality, and justice for victims of sexual assault, through a series of protests under the banner March 4 Justice.
The focal point of the protests will be a rally outside Parliament House in Canberra on 15 March, which many people have stated they are travelling from interstate to attend.
There, March4Justice organiser Janine Hendry alongside Dr Anita Hutchison and Dr Kate Ahmad from Doctors Against Violence Towards Women, will be presenting parliament with two petitions outlining both broad and specific requests for further action.
Outside of Canberra, there will be approximately 40 local events around Australia, starting in Perth on Sunday 14 March. Organisers are projecting that 85,000 people will participate across the country.
The protests follow a wave of allegations of sexual assault, abuse and misconduct in some of the highest offices of Australian politics.
Start of Brisbane Protest
Nina and friends
Source: ABC News
Brisbane March 4 Justice
Brisbane March 4 Justice
Source: March4Justice
Brisbane protest
Source: March4Justice
Nina and friends
Source: ABC News
All Brisbane protest march and ‘Nina with friends’ photos by Nina Ginsberg.
In anticipation of Griffith’s New Materialisms (NM) Special Interest Group (SIG) starting back up very soon for 2021, I’m looking back over what we have done so far.
I am the co-convenor of Griffith’s New Materialism SIG. The aim of the New Materialisms Special Interest Group is to provide asupportive space for students, HDR candidates, ECRs, mid-career and more senior Academics to explore, discuss, experiment and share complex and emerging post-qualitative/post-humanisms ideas, methods and approaches.
I am particularly proud of the diverse and transdisciplinary nature of the current group which includes members from the Health Sciences, Humanities, Education and Psychology and from multiple Universities Australia-wide and internationally.
This SIG is a fertile environment for sharing ideas, research experiences and synergies with multiple projects and possible papers benefiting from the ideas and expertise made available.
We started out with 13 members in 2019 spread evenly across Griffith University and other Universities in South East Queensland (UQ, QUT, Sippy Downs). After four 2019 monthly meetings, interest in the SIG expanded significantly as word spread.
August 2019 – Inaugural meeting
The inaugural session of the Griffith New Materialist (NM) Special Interest Group came together to support researchers and academics to engage more deeply, critically, collaboratively and creatively with NM thinking and practice. This first meeting was semi-structured with the readings and discussion focus being on: The emergence of feminist New Materialisms.
In this second NM SIG meeting, we had a guest presentation by Prof Simone Fullagar and Dr Wendy O’Brien whose book (cowritten with Dr Adele Pavlidis who could not make it), Feminism and a Vital Politics of Depression and Recovery, had just been published. In this meeting, we discussed feminist New Materialisms and how the book traces the complex material-discursive processes through which women’s recovery from depression is enacted within a gendered biopolitics. Within the biomedical assemblage that connects mental health policy, service provision, research and everyday life, the gendered context of recovery remains little understood despite the recurrence and pervasiveness of depression.
In this session we had PhD researcher Geraldine Harris share some of her emerging New Materialisms thoughts, approaches and inroads from her research looking at early intervention and prevention strategies for child-centered leadership. This meeting was called Diverse plateaus + visualisations of place-based child-centered leadership and it was a great presentation for many reasons. Geraldine shared some of her unique data analysis visualisations that have helped her think-with, process and communicate the complexity of her work (they were amazing!). We also got to hear about her current PhD musings and emerging NM understandings, as well as tips, challenges and blockages she has experienced using New Materialisms approaches in educational and workplace settings.
Our SIG New Materialisms Garden Retreat was for HDRers only. This was a special event. For the NM Garden Retreat, I invited five New Materialist and Posthumanist PhD friends to a full-day group/workshop in my garden where we collaborated to create and share knowledge. I wanted to get out of the uni confines and have the (literal) time and space to work, think and share more generatively and deeply with others – without time constraints or other pressures. The garden provides an alternative ‘learning context’ that deliberately disrupted and displaced traditional notions about academic knowledge, performances, educational spaces, and who is ‘an expert’. Each participant nominated an NM tropic to share/teach the group. We also had time for writing, teaching-learning discussions and reflection. We had a musician friend of mine come to play and stay for lunch and the afternoon (so awesome!). Everyone brought a lunch plate to share and each participant went home with a garden box bursting at the seams. A wonderful day of collaborative NM work.
Instead of having a guest presenter, we invited everyone to ‘present’ by bringing a piece of data that ‘glows’ for them – a piece they would like to ‘re-turn’ with and share with some suppotive-critical friends. The idea here is that we are all working on different research projects, with different applications and with different data. This was our last meeting before the holidays, so we thought it might be interesting for participants to share a part of their research with others as a way of mining alternative insights – and to give each researcher some fresh ideas and considerations to mull over during the holidays. It was a huge success and wonderful to hear what everyone was working on, wrestling with and how they were thinking-with and processing. Super helpful and inspiring! A great end to our first year as a SIG!
Some people are still away in January. February is busy orientating and getting prepared for the year, so we start our SIGs in April after people have had a chance to settle back in at Uni.
In 2020 we had 6 meetings from March – November and our membership expanded to 40 members – not only Griffith and other Queensland-based universities, but Australia-wide and internationally.
April 2020
I had just returned from my bicycles-for-education PhD fieldwork in West Africaand the other SIG members were keen to hear how it went and what/how I was thinking of moving forward to frame the experience as a posthumanist research project. Great questions! So, to kick off the NM SIG for 2020, I presented my project to date. I outlined what I did during fieldwork and some initial ideas for moving forward and putting to work NM approaches. It was wonderful hearing people ideas, comments and suggestions on possible ways to process and think-with all that had transpired. I brought a lot of (actual) materials and realia from Sierra Leone – and my bike – into the session.
In this session, we had Dr Lazaroo return to her PhD work (two years ago) to untangle the mess in order to make new discoveries. Her project was: Making Noise: An Ethnography of a Community Performance Project between Vulcana Women’s Circus and People with Disabilities. In this session, Natalie reflected on her early methodology and locates a poem titles ‘Expressions of longing’ which she wrote in response to NM SIG provocations. This return poem captures the essence of articulations that emerged during her artistic collaboration over a 4-month period of fieldwork with Vulcana Women’s Circus to create a community performance called Stronghold, which involved people with disabilities.
Our presenter (referred to as X) for this session had just submitted her Griffith EPS Master’s thesis two days before this meeting. In this session, X shared some insights, ‘data’ and narrative moments from her latest research project which was an exploration of workplace sexual harassment on teacher identity. Now that X’s Masters was submitted, she was interested in feedback from the group on what resonates and how she might build the project into a PhD using a New Materialisms lens. Specifically, X was keen to explore how the sexual harassment complaint has its own agency and to get feedback from the SIG on how she might approach this. A very unsettling and moving session for all.
For this session, we had the incredible Melbourne-based PlayTank Collective – Alicia Flynn, Sarah Healy and Allie Edwards present a session entitled Lessons from the Play Tank: Adventures in playful scholarship. In this session, we discussed enacting NM theories and how to provide a playful and collaborative space to re-think, re-imagine, re-( ) research for others. We looked at using art education and design as opportunities to create workshops that attended to the joys and curiosities experienced while working/playing together in a material way. A key focus was on collaboration, intentionally responsive and response-able practices. And we had lots of fun playing, making and learning!
For this session, we had Griffith PhD candidate Janis Hanley take us on a creative and analytical exploration of Milieu, Territory, Atmosphere, Agency & Culture. Using written and visual excerpts from her current PhD research-in-progress on the historical Queensland textile industry, Janis provoked us to consider how milieu, chi, concepts of ‘home’ and atmosphere resonated with us and in our research. We did a number of individual and collaborative activities that helped activate and draw out interesting aspects such as how a piano, political graffiti in a factory and participant appreciation of research diagrams reveal new opportunities. We also looked at how conceptions of ‘home’ feature in our own work and life.
For this session, we had our first international guest presenter, A/P Tom Reynolds (Dept of Writing Studies, Uni of Minnesota, USA). Tom’s interested in critical theories of writing instruction, histories of popular literacy, and intersections of literacy and cultural movements. He is currently working on multimodality with his students, who are making group digital videos that advocate for issues. In this session, he shared some ideas (and wanted feedback for) how these projects might involve greater NM engagement with both discursive and non-discursive elements. Hells yeah! Did the SIG have some good ideas on how to do that!
For this session, we held aNew Materialist’s Writing Party!This session provided time and space for thinking-writing-playing and to shift the focus from ‘academic’ reading and presentations into a different positive and exploratory space. Many of us are hard at work writing alone at our desks, so this was an opportunity to come together, share ideas and get some serious NM writing done. I hosted the party – it was close to my birthday so it was an extra academic birthday treat and celebration for me! We had a few fun warm-ups, a few open-ended guided writing activities, and some research-focused timed writing time. We also had time to chat, reflect and share as much or as little as people wanted. Great fun!
For our last session of 2020, we had Patricia Ni Ivor who works in Project Management at RMIT (Melbourne) present a session with the amazing title: Feeling success in project teams: Travelling from the domain ruled by the supreme God-of-Things to the fresh air of Sensation and the Ineffable. Patricia explored the concept of affect as used by Deleuze and Guattari, drawn from Spinoza’s Ethics and the work of Henry Bergson. She outlined the fit between the theoretical paradigm of Self-inquiry (Spinoza’s synergy with eastern spiritual traditions and Bergson’s notions of consciousness) and how the emphasis on embodiment or somatic inquiry reflects the yogic basis of Self-inquiry (central to Patricia’s thesis) and more recent theories in social science, psychology and physical movement studies in art and wellbeing. The participants got to practice with one of Patricia’s self-inquiry/meditation exercises during the session.
Nina and Zoe the kelpie. ‘Follow the dog’ trail. Forest, VIC.
Many trail riders are what you might call ‘outdoor people’.
One of the greatest delights trail riders can have is going for a ride on wicked trails with best mates. And when I say best mates, I mean two-wheeled (of course), but also two-legged (human mates) and four-legged (trail dogs) mates.
I love riding trails with dogs.
My kelpie Zoe and I have been on many happy bike riding adventures.
Having a dog just makes life, and riding your bike, so much fun.
Ruby the Trail dog is one of many trail dogs that I go to if I need a lift and seeing her out on natural singletrack with her MTB dad turns always makes me smile.
There are always some great content, videos, products and artworks circulating for special events and days like US National Dog Day.
Or the big-hearted project Riding for Rescues, a program where bike riders raise money to help, rescue and sponsor animals (many of them dogs) to get them out of high-kill shelters and be re-homed instead of being put down.
Recently I got sent a link for A Dogs Tale which celebrates dogs and trail riders. It is in a similar vein to Paws and Wheels, but with a stronger narrative line from the POV of retired trail dog Raven.
This video has a mix of all kinds of shapes, sizes, colours, ages, locations and breeds. In this video we are introduced to:
Raven (the narrator)
Levi
Lucy & Sid
Driggs
Nash
Emmy
They are all adorable and make you want to get out on your bike on single track.
So many awesome bike riding trails, environments and moments.
Emmy’s tummy scrub at 6′ 55″ is such a great slo-mo shot! Just saying!
So do your mental health a favor … and check the video out.
The description for this video reads:
It all starts with the trail. The crunch of the dirt, the smell of a dewy morning ride, or the feeling of brushing away pebbles with a perfectly timed belly scrub.
These are the happy memories of a trail dog’s life well lived.
Raven is a 13-year-old retired trail dog from Squamish, British Columbia who’s spent countless days frolicking on loamy singletrack beneath towering spruces. Old age has slowed her down, and now Raven happily lies in the driveway, watching dog after dog, and their human, head for the hills.
Celebrating the joys of mountain biking through the eyes of the trail dog, Raven takes us from her driveway memories in BC to the high deserts of Utah, to freshly cut South African trails and back again.
We meet some of the feistiest, four-legged trail personalities along the way, who all enjoy the mountain bike world in their own way, just like us humans do, whether it’s hitting jump lines, lapping through the loam, or setting out to build new trail.
Being an open and inquisitive researcher means I attend a wide range of SIGs, workshops and seminars. I’m open to lots of new ideas. Recently, I went to a feminist research group where a PhD candidate presented their work. The presentation gave me much to think about – and below is a 100-word worlding I wrote that explains why.
ATR WFU Women Leadership. Source: Worker’s Control
Cooperative Gap-ness
Passionate work to accelerate fair and (just) transitions to climate action using a grassroots union of Western Australian youths. Encouraging and political. Using Feminist Participatory Action Research and Cooperative Inquiry to be more culturally responsive, ethical and inclusive. Emotional labour. Green and ‘sustainable’ as false solutions. Extractivism of volunteers. Research(er)ing through-with-and-as ‘storying’. As insider-researcher-activists, I suggest Sherilyn Lennon’s ‘Unsettling Research’. Nicely messy. Critical cusps of Hope. Anna Tsing says hope can obfuscate activism. Astrida Neimanis and Jen Hamilton question hope, turning instead to desire. Tactical gap-ness. Expectant tool-processes of change and reviving neglected knowledges. Wrangling manageable recuperative action.
Image: NIH Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
Internationally, March is known as women’s history month.
The aim of this initiative is to redress previously omitted women’s participation and achievements from being known by celebrating women’s contributions to history, culture and society.
There are many exhibitions, projects, protests and events run during March that raise awareness for the significance, roles, struggles and issues of women and girls.
So to kick off ‘Women’s Month’, here are three more-than-usual initiatives that are exemplary in celebrating a range of women’s achievements.
This page celebrates March being Women’s History by highlighting a range of Australian women and the diverse contributions they’ve made to Australia’s history.
What I like about this particular page is that it is inclusive and immediately understandable in what it is trying to achieve. Having a simple photo album-style layout showcasing significant women (with names and dates) makes it quick and easy to get a sense of the range of cultural backgrounds (Indigenous, Australian-Chinese, European immigrants, white) and their contributions (politics, literature, arts, sport, law and many others) over time – ranging from Fanny Balbuk Yooreel (1840) to Everly Scott (2017).
I think it is imperative to not only name the person but also to give each woman just identity. Consider how many times you’ve seen historical male figures of significance. There is ALWAYS a photo of them to reinforce their status as ‘important’ and that ‘this individual is not only someone you should know the name of, but you should know what they look like.’
Including images of women is a political move in this regard. It’s a critical move to shift past erasures of significant women from not just naming them (whereby their name is ‘listed’ and therefore at risk of being yet again ‘lost’ in the density of descriptive discourse), but so that the uniqueness of each woman is also recognised – as well as their name.
Photos are especially important given that surnames are patrilineal (assigned by fathers and husbands) so it is usually only first names that distinguish individuals from others. Linking women to their first and surnameswith their photoshelps to identify AND personalise these women beyond a perfunctory mention by name in passing. This is what the RAHS site does well.
There are so many incredible women listed on the RAHS – and many that most Australians have probably never heard about. For example: Muruwari Community worker and filmmaker Essie Coffey (otherwise known as the Bush Queen of Brewarrina), or Ruby Payne-Scott who was Australia’s first woman radio Astronomer, or one of Australia’s first great actors Rose Quong, who was a breakthrough given her Chinese heritage during the Australian White Policy, or WWI war correspondent Louise Mack.
I’m following Dr Katie Phillips’ Twitter account for all of March.
In an act of radical generosity and support, each day, Katie uploads a different post each day that shares the voices, work and contributions of highly influential, but lesser-known Native, First Nations and Indigenous women from what is now called the USA.
This project was a real eye-opener for me. Not only did I appreciate the forethought, planning and process that Katie applied to make this happen, but it was also an incredibly educational initiative that has far-reaching scope and implications.
Twitter’s limited text allowances meant that each day, Katie provides the name, image and brief synopsis about ‘the woman of the day’ and her significant contribution. I not only learned about these incredible women (which, as an Australian, I would have not have been exposed to), but this approach is also an invitation (and reminder) to keep learning about amazing women elsewhere around the world.
I found myself following up on many of the women Katie posted, wanting to know more about their conditions and experiences.
As a teacher, researcher, creative, and someone with half a brain and a heart, I was impressed by Katie’s approach. It showed a genuine commitment to decolonizinghistory and better accounting for diverse women’s experiences.
F@*king incredible work!
Dr. Kat Jungnickel – Bikes and Bloomers
Image: Kat Jungnickel’s book cover “Bikes and Bloomers”
Kat’s specific interest area is reinvigorating Victorian women investors and their amazing cyclewear. She published a book based on her PhD research called Bikes and Bloomers. Here’s a description of the book from Kat’s portfoilo:
The bicycle in Victorian Britain is often celebrated as a vehicle of women’s liberation. But much less is known about another critical technology with which women forged new and mobile public lives – cycle wear. Despite its benefits, cycling was a material and ideological minefield for women. Conventional fashions were inappropriate, with skirts catching in wheels and tangling in pedals. Yet wearing more identifiable ‘rational’ cycle wear could elicit verbal and sometimes physical abuse from parts of society threatened by newly mobile women.
In response, pioneering women not only imagined, made and wore radical new forms of cycle wear but also patented their inventive designs. The most remarkable of these were convertiblecostumes that enabled wearers to secretly switch ordinary clothing into cycle wear.
This highly visual social history of women’s cycle wear explores Victorian engineering, patent studies and radical feminist invention. Underpinned by three years of in-depth archival research and inventive practice, this new book by Kat Jungnickel brings to life in rich detail the lesser-known stories of six inventors and their unique contributions to cycling’s past and how they continue to shape urban life for contemporary mobile women.
Talk about raising awareness for previously hidden women’s achievements! Go Kat!
