Note: the first 2020 NM SIG gathering was held before COVID-19 social distancing and workplace lockdown came into effect – hence us meeting in person.
As many of you know, I am the co-convenor of a New Materialism Special Interest Group (SIG) at Griffith’s Institute for Educational Research (GIER). Each month a group of HDR candidates, Early Career Researchers and Academics meet to explore, discuss, experiment and share complex and emerging post-qualitative ideas, methods and approaches.
New Materialism is the framing I am using for my African girls’ bicycles-for-education PhD Project. To kick off the first SIG for 2020, I presented my African fieldwork.
I’ve had a few people contact me asking how the trip went. Below is a snapshot of my bicycle PhD project, the context and what I did during my PhD fieldwork in Lunsar, Sierra Leone.
The amazing FNM SIG group: discussing readings and my bike fieldwork 
My NM SIG discussion notes 
Some of the realia I bought in from my fieldwork
Here’s some highlights of my fieldwork presentation (more details in slides below).
- Opening: An Acknowledgement of Country, Diversity and Inclusion and that Matter Matters and thanks to the local Lunsar chiefs and the amazing people who have been instrumental in helping make this project happen.
- Researcher positionality: Who am I and how did I come to this project
- Research context background : 5 intersections of Girls unfreedoms
- Girls Ed Lit Review: Current directions in NGO Literature on the topic
- Establish Space: Key Project that opens up my research space – completed in 2010
- Confirm & Extend: Follow up – a specific project on girls bicycle projects in Lunsar – completed 2016
- Established gap leads into my research questions (no slide for this = top secret!)
- My Study Design: Aims, Methodology and theoretical framing (NM)
- Fieldwork details: Tech Matters and other research developments/considerations
- Country context: Background to Sierra Leone (very general history & context)
- Site Location: Background and context about Lunsar (my fieldwork location)
- Research partnership case study: Intro to Village Bicycle Project (organization) Stylish (host/research participant/all-round incredible man!)
- Fieldwork ‘Data’: list of all the research data/activities achieved (so busy!) and other events, opportunities and visits – so busy!
- Present some ‘Data‘: I showed some fieldwork bike ride footage for discussion (no slide – top secret)
- The return: Now I have returned, I outlined my next steps and questioned how/what to do to start ‘data analysis’
- Q&A: Open discussion and suggestions on entry points for data analysis using NM approaches.
Aside from being able to share my fieldwork experiences with others, it was also great to get stuck into some rigorous academic discussions and come away with a number of productive and tangible ideas to apply for data analysis.
Most satisfying of all though, was seeing how interested people are in Sierra Leone and having the opportunity to promote and celebrate the beautiful people, places and experiences I had there.
