Regular readers of this blog know that I am doing a bike-focused PhD in Education. In a nutshell, my project explores how bicycles feature in West African girls’ access to secondary education.
It is a great project and I love working on it.
I’ve been developing a research methodology called velo-onto-epistemology (VOE) as part of this project. I know it is a mouthful, but the article explains what it means.
I am delighted to share my latest publication which introduces my novel bicycle-focused research approach for the first time.
I wrote this paper with my incredible supervisor Dr Sherilyn Lennon. In this paper, I take Sherilyn for a bike ride as a way to put to work my VOE research methodology and destablise the traditional power hierarchy of the PhD candidate-supervisor relationship.
To show how velo-relationality works differently, we juxtapose – or ‘recycle’ our experiences next to each other (see below) in what we call ‘tandem writing’.
This article is an engaging read.
It is theoretical enough to be rigorous and interesting, but relatable for the everyday reader-rider.
Below is the abstract and a copy of the paper.
Feel free to download a copy (third icon on right below).
Check it out!
Ride on!
Enjoy!
ABSTRACT
Traditionally, the candidate-supervisor-relationship is predicated on a supervisor as teacher/expert – candidate as learner/novice model. But what becomes possible when the materialities of this power dynamic are destabilised and reimagined? This article draws from emerging feminist ontologies to introduce the concept of velo- onto-epistemology [VOE] as a means of re-cycling candidate- supervisor-relationships. VOE acknowledges the agency of the bicycle in moving and being moved. This novel approach is used to explore how stor(i)ed encounters and in-the-moment bodily responses enact current-future becomings. Through re-cycling, the candidate-supervisor-relationship is dis-articulated and re- articulated in ways that enable alternative and more equitable understandings of the world to emerge.
In the previous blog post, I detailed a project I was involved in earlier this year called Reading with Reciprocity run by The Ediths. In that post, I explained the contributor’s brief, what we did and how we did it. In this post, I am excited to share the final output that contributors cocreated. It’s such a wonderful way to wrap up the year. What a project! So exciting! Great ideas on how to research more generously. See more below. NG.
Image: The Ediths
The Ediths are a feminist interdisciplinary research collective based at Edith Cowan University in Western Australia. The collective uses socially engaged creative methodologies to conduct ecologically responsive research.
I am delighted to announce the Edith’s Reading with Reciprocity Project has just been released. Congratulations to the organisers, Mindy Blaise, Jane Merewether and Jo Pollitt and to all book responders.
I was very honoured to be invited to contribute to this project and to have my book response included.
Reading with Reciprocityis an initiative by The Edith’s inspired by the Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research’s (CLEAR) blog post,#Collabrary: a methodological experiment for reading with reciprocity (2021), which draws on the scholarship of Joe Dumit (2012), Zoe Todd (2016), and Eve Tuck (2017) to learn reading practices that are “humble, generous, and accountable” (CLEAR, 2021). We were interested and impressed with the ways in which this methodological experiment was creating reading practices grounded in a feminist ethic committed to making room for diverse knowledges.
This initiative began by first curating a list of books based on the research interests of the membership and our commitment to privileging different voices. After sending out an expression of interest, we were surprised and humbled at the overwhelming response to the invitation and selected 11 members to take part in Reading with Reciprocity. Similar to the care taken in deciding which books to read and review, we also selected members with consideration and intention, including representation of early career, mid-career, and experienced researchers. Because we see the roundtables as part of postgraduate supervision and an expanded form of mentoring, some of the students we supervise were also selected to participate.
Those who took part in Reading with Reciprocity were asked to read the (CLEAR) blog post, #Collabrary: a methodological experiment for reading with reciprocity (2021) and then submit a review that was based on reading a selected text with reciprocity. We hoped that participants would reciprocate the gifts that the authors had given in their writing.
Reimagining how we might read and review these books with care, reciprocity, and generosity ended up not being as easy as we first thought. It is clear that there is such a dominant way of reviewing work that makes being generous to authors so out of the ordinary and unsupported in the academy. We have to do better! Reading with Reciprocity is one way that we can do this work, individually and as a community of scholars who are interested in doing academia more kindly and generously.
The Ediths
I enjoy being part of The Edith’s collective because the group’s ethics, topics and discussions align so well with my research and personal interests. When we meet, we focus on exploring the material and situated effects of environmental change on feminist bodies and practices and the relations between social justice, ecological sustainability, and Indigenous self-determination. This means a strong commitment to the decolonization of Western knowledge production.
Being part of this research collective creates opportunities for dialogue and collaboration among feminists from diverse backgrounds and to contribute to the development of more just and sustainable societies – such as this Reading with Reciprocity project!
It is so helpful for researcher-writers to have like-minded people to process, feed and be inspired by – I hope you have your own group that does this for you!
Earlier this year, I was invited by The Ediths to participate in a new project they are undertaking called: A feminist initiative towards reading with reciprocity.
The Ediths wanted to explore what it might look, feel and be like to work with #Collabary practices as a way towards becoming generous and accountable scholars.
For me, it was a toss-up between A/P Fikile Nuxmalo and Dr. Laura Rodríguez Castro. Both these scholars work have direct overlaps with my research interests.
In the end, given the direct application of Post-humanist/New Materialist approaches and because of the place-base(ness) of site-specific work (aligns with emplaced bike trails and accounting for other-than-academic/outside environments) with a deliberate engagement with First Nations, Black and People of Colour perspectives (which I have an ongoing interest in), I chose:
Once chosen, you get sent a copy of your selected book – and of course, that copy is yours to keep as a token of appreciation for participating in the project. Woohoo!
3) Using the Collaborary and Dumit resources/links above as inspiration, we are encouraged to experiment with one or more of these reading practices (close reading, constructive reading, positive, generous, slightly genealogical, methodological in focus, and ethical).
4) Then write a 600–800-word review that is informed by one or more of these above reading practices to show how a reciprocal, generous, and accountable review might be done.
We had a generous 6-weeks turn-around to get out work back to the organiser-editors who will then feedback our piece before release.
Once finalised, all project contributions will be publicly available on The Ediths website.
I’ll let you know how it goes!
On March 8th, A/P Deondre Smiles and A/P Max Liboiron did a #Collabrary Zoom session. Here, they discuss: Feminisms from Unthought Locations: Indigenous worldviews, marginalized feminisms, and revisioning and Anticolonial social science by Gaile Cannella & Kathryn Manuelito from the Handbook of Critical Indigenous Methodologies
I’ve been missing meeting with other like-minded writer-researchers. So August this year, I had an idea to form a ‘student club’ where we could meet to talk about writing and share skills and hold events that helped us become better writers and researchers.
Well… I pitched the idea to three friends, and we made it happen!
We called it the Research & Write Studio or RAW for short.
(Actually, we called it GAWLERS first… see more below)
I just found out that RAW has been award Griffith’s New Club of the Year!
Woohoo! I am so proud!
A big thanks to all the inaugural members for trusting in me!
And an especially heartfelt thanks to Janis, Rebecca and Jenny for all their great input and effort in forming the Executive Commitee with me.
You guys all rock!
See below for more about RAW.
Nina (R) with other Griffith Uni Club Awards Friends.
Origins
Like most other educational institutions, Griffith University life and work changed profoundly in response to the recent COVID-19 ‘educational scramble’. Soon after moving online in April 2019, EPS HDR candidate Nina Ginsberg established an online ‘Show Up & Write’ space for students she knew as a way of staying connected, focused and productive. These sessions were regularly attended and participants said how useful it was to have a collegial space to talk, share, and create academic work. In break times, we asked questions, offered support, discussed our writing, and gave suggestions for improvements in a low-stakes and impactful way.
While Griffith responded to COVID and snap lockdowns by reducing staffing, decreasing services, and suspending many student professional development and networking opportunities until further notice, our study group flourished. As word of mouth about our group passed to others, ‘new’ people joined from all over Griffith. It was clear there was an immediate need for this group and so in June 2021, the main proponents (Nina, Janis, Rebecca and Jenny) decided to formalise this opportunity and open it up for all Griffith students and candidates. We call the group Griffith ‘Research and Writers Studio’, or RAW for short.
What we do
We are an online club bound by our commonality of academic work, research, and writing. Our club aims (see at end) articulate our ethics, commitment and focus. RAW members include undergraduates, postgraduates, and professional teaching staff who are also studying at Griffith. Our members come from all Griffith locations not only in Brisbane (26) and Queensland (10), but all over Australia (6) and around the world (6). We are proud to be a truly transdisciplinary group, transcending cultures, hobbies, degrees and programs, ages, gender, ability, locations, backgrounds, and personalities. This plurality in membership adds vibrancy, interest and new skills we would not otherwise have access to at Griffith elsewhere.
Editing Heptathlon by RAW President Nina Ginsberg. November 2021.
What makes us exciting
We began with 28 inaugural members in August 2021. This increased to 48 members in 6 weeks by end of September 2021 with no advertising, further attesting to the popularity and need for this club. At a time when many other clubs have slowed activities, RAW has expanded in response to member needs, thus standing out as a unique, reliable and reassuring hub for Griffith students and candidates in progressing their university work.
What makes us so exciting as a new club at Griffith is that we are a cheap, open access and inclusive club for all. We are also lockdown proof, independent of university-dictated content and wholly needs-based and our events are run by RAW members for RAW members – meaning members gain valuable presenting and leadership experience. We are a grass roots club that continues to grow organically and is responsive to member’s needs.
One of RAW’s greatest features is that we are not defined by, or exclusive to, any particular educational discipline, cultural background, sporting or personal interest. On the contrary, RAW incorporates and celebrates disparate characteristics, harnessing these valuable differences in diversity collectively, so members collaboratively learn with other members, not learn about each other as separate from others in most other contexts. And it has been a smashing success!
Our membership includes Griffith researchers and writers who are First Nations, international students and speakers of languages other than English, mature aged and returning to study, first-in family, differently-abled and adaptive learners, part-timers, single parents and many others – including a wide range of cultural backgrounds. Being online means we are not bound by campus restrictions or scheduling, so RAW operates anywhere (across all Griffith campuses, remotely, online and for those on-campus as well) and at any time (for example, we have a 24-7 open online, drop-in ‘study’ space where local, national and international members meet). This enables multiple opportunities for social connections as people study and work from a myriad of locations.
As well as study group spaces, we offer a range of writing, editing and university skills workshops (see some examples below) which can be joined virtually in real time or accessed asynchronously via recordings. This means our events are equitable and accessible to all members. Our club allows for networking and skill sharing and provides opportunities to broaden minds and sharpen transferable capabilities. We have an active Teams site that is our communications, events and resource space where we also notify members of other (external) writing and editing events of interest so members can expand skills and contacts within and beyond the RAW cohort.
Screenshot of RAW’s Get ahead for T2 classes (Session 2): Rediscover your motivation! July 2021. This session was run by RAW Vice President, Wiradjuri woman & Griffith PhD Candidate, Ms. Jennifer Campbell
What is our future?
Our vision is to allow the club to grow and to continue to offer a range of academic skill workshops not provided elsewhere, while providing online participation and facilitation. We seek to connect people with our overarching purpose of enhancing our research and writing capabilities.
Some 2021 RAW events already held:
Show Up & Write Space – 24/7, online, drop-in study space.
Early Bird Study Sessions – every weekday 5am -7.30 am.
Inaugural Annual General Meeting.
RAW Coffee & Chat: Member Drop-in Meet-and-Greet. (1-hr)
Get ahead for T2 classes (Session 1): Leveraging course profiles. (1-hr)
Get ahead for T2 classes (Session 2): Rediscover your motivation! (1-hr)
Get ahead for T2 classes (Session 3): Start(ing) class right. (1-hr)
The Dark Academy (and how to survive it). (2-hr symposium)
Getting Feedback on Thesis Writing (HDRs). (1-hr)
Goal Setting Bootcamp. (half day intensive)
How trees help us write better sentences by RAW President Nina Ginsberg. December 2021.
Research and Writer’s Studio Aims
Aim 1. To present academic writing and research in influential ways to diverse audiences. Develop and grow fundamental and advanced academic, writing and research skills and experience through a range of online and in-person opportunities. These include exclusive focused study groups, writing, editing and specialist workshops, writing process forums, accountability writing groups, skill drill sessions, special events and writing retreats and targeted academic skill sessions. These events consolidate and extend transferable oral, written and visual communication skills underpinned by positivity, engaged expression and critical evaluation of information, argument and opinion. Applicable for all levels of study across all disciplines.
Aim 2. To build confident, competent, and collaborative identities.
An inclusive and safe space to share university, writing and researching experiences. Instead of the usual teach-to model, this club moves towards a learn-with approach. Members are X to pursue their own academic and professional goals in ways that are productive, thoughtful, engaged and self-directed. Supporting a passion for lifelong learning through achievement, capacity and mastery. Provide opportunities for leadership and active engagement. Connect members with additional editing, proofreading, mentoring and/or other academic support services if needed. Interaction between Ph.D, Masters, Honours and undergrads is encouraged. To build relationships within and beyond the physical campus by establishing a collaborative and diverse community of practice.
Aim 3. To extend, challenge and share innovative, creative, ethical, and positive writing-research-action.
Provide members with opportunities to develop their own personal and professional goals. Respecting and strengthening engagement with First Nations, cross-cultural, and individual or cultural diversity people, culture, perspectives and lifeworlds. This club adheres to an ethical code of conduct based on compassion, positive change and social and environmental responsibility and action. This club supports members to be intrepid and innovative in their writing and research endeavours to initiate, develop and implement new ideas and projects.
In this session, we are truly transcending time, space, place and bodies as we explore the NM potentialities of reimagining an inspirational, yet relatively, unknown WWII story.
We are very excited to have guest presenter Jenny Ginsberg (University of La Trobe) presenting key insights of her recent Master’s research.
Jenny is putting together a PhD submission and is keen to discuss this opportunity with the SIG to garner some initial New Materialisms ideas and suggestions as a launching off point for this exciting next step.
…and yes, as you might have noticed from the similar surname, Jenny is my Mum!
This session’s provocation was:
What new possibilities might emerge from a New Materialist ‘return’ to the inspirational flight and return of the Danish Jews 1943-1945?
The Civilizing Process: moving from sociological understandings to Posthumanist materialities.
Abstract
The genesis of this research lies in an extraordinary moment in history. It was one in which lives were saved; when courage, creativity and social cohesion combined and triumphed.
This research merges a fortuitous and rare meeting of a wartime story of escape and return. It is the story of the flight of the Danish Jews in 1943 and their return home in 1945. Nearly 8,000 Danish Jews escaped directly to Sweden while 470 were imprisoned in Theresienstadt (Terezin) concentration camp. This project traces the extraordinary and unparalleled rescue of those imprisoned in Terezin, as well as the survival of more than 95 percent of the Jewish population of Denmark – a remarkable achievement at the time that was unmatched by any other Nazi-occupied European country.
In her Master’s, Jenny used Norbert Elias’ concept of national habitus to foreground relational, long-term state formation processes as part of a theory of The Civilizing Process (Elias, 2000). Jenny’s project uniquely put to work national habitus to argue that the events of 1943 flight and the 1945 return, must be considered as an ‘entangled’ experience. This enables a close relational understanding of the significance of this point in time with(in) the inclusive and compassionate Danish national ‘habitus’ at that time. This project looks at the multiple figurations found in Danish society and the crucial role they played in the successful escape and return of the Danish Jews.
Of particular interest for the NM SIG is the recognition of the often overlooked and under-appreciated contribution of Danish women to the wider occupation historiography, which was largely written and curated by men. Jenny invites the SIG to engage in the yet-to-be-explored materialities of this story – such as the boats used in the escape, letters, clothing, symbolisms and defiant collective practices adopted by the Danes – and myriad other material-affective-discursive forces and most notably, those co-contributing to the unified and compassionate leadership and the sustained, collective response to the urgent needs of fleeing and captive Danes.
Some session snapshots
We had an amazing time! The warmup activities got us thinking beyond and making links that we were not able to arrive at individually. Jenny’ session was expertly put together and she is a highly engaging storyteller.
The rich materiality of this era gave us much to discuss and there were some great ideas on how Jenny could move forward using a posthumanism and/or New Materialist approaches.
Below are a few session highlights.
NM SIG Activity
To start, we did a few collaborative thinking-writing activities. The first was a collaborative poll of keywords and ideas (see above). We then did a responsive, collaborative writing task using the chat box. That was great fun! Below is what we cocreated (names removed for privacy).
Collaborative chat box writing activity
My 100-word worlding for this session
Jenny’s telling untold stories again. The WWII flight and return of Danish Jews. Snippets of materialities: no yellow stars, food parcels, clothes, boats, Red Cross visitations, propaganda films and the king defiantly riding his horse down Copenhagen’s main street. Ignoring German soldiers in bakeries. Leadership agreements. Unspeakable everpresent brutality. Inescapable – ineluctable. A nation-wide underground resistance: all locals were in on it. National Habitas. Protect all Danes. Homes preserved (not looted), goods boxed up, gardens watered for those ‘away’. Rescue missions, drunk signatures and white buses sweep for ‘others’. Secret fishing boat crossings. Flowers, chocolates and K1,000 compensation on return.
*Postscript: As of March 2022, Jenny was accepted to do this topic as her PhD.*
CONGRATS to Jenny….
…and a massive thank you for sharing her hard work and this most remarkable story.
Presenter Bio
Jenny Ginsberg is an educator of 40+ years, a social activist and an artist. She has taught at a range of Melbourne schools, including MLC as a leading teacher in gifted education and oral history. This September, Jenny is submitting her Master’s by Research (School of Social Sciences at La Trobe Uni, Melbourne) and is looking to undertake a PhD in 2022.
She aims to use the PhD to deepen and extend her Master’s project (see abstract below). Jenny’s research interests include the sociological theories of Norbert Elias, an emerging interest in Feminist New Materialisms, long-term historical/sociological processes, leadership, and the interconnectedness of all things.
As a mature-age researcher (74), she is growing old, with the emphasis on growing, and brings a wealth of knowledge and life experience to her work.
The 2021 Australian Walking and Cycling Conference is on! Thursday the 30th of September and Friday the 1st of October – and this year it is all online!
This year’s theme is: Global Lessons, Local Opportunities.
I have been to this conference a number of times in the past and I’ve always enjoyed it.
There is always a good mix of research, community, international and local perspectives, sustainability, urban planning, and new and interesting ideas.
I am definitely going to miss not seeing delegates in person, or doing the side-conference activities and events – they are a real highlight!
But even without the trimmings, I’m excited about this year’s program.
I’m looking forward to connecting with some old conference mates and meeting some new people and hearing what some of ‘the big issues’ are in cycling research.
I’ve been pouring over the abstracts and speakers, checking out the new projects, selecting what sessions to go to, and preparing notes to add to chat discussions during presentations.
I’ve listed the program at the end of this post for those interested.
For anyone going – I’ll (virtually) see you there!
AWCC 2019. Source: AWCC
Conference vision
The simple acts of walking and cycling have the potential to transform the places we live, our economies and how we engage with our environment. The Australian Walking and Cycling conference explores the potential for walking and cycling to not only provide for transport and recreation but solutions to challenges of liveability, health, community building, economic development and sustainability. As one of Australia’s longest-running, best-regarded and most affordable active travel conferences, we bring together practitioners and researchers from Australia and across the world to share their work and engage with conference participants.
The Australian Walking and Cycling Conference aims to send zero waste to landfill.
AWCC
Keynote speakers
I am very excited about the keynotes speakers – especially Meredith. I have been following her work for a while (total researcher fan-girl crush!) and she is kick-ass! Meredith is also a consummate speaker, so I can’t wait to hear her present on her current work. Double Woohoo!
Meredith Glaser is an American urban planner, lecturer, and sustainable mobility researcher, based in the Netherlands since 2010. At the Urban Cycling Institute (University of Amsterdam), her research focuses on public policy innovation, knowledge transfer, and capacity building for accelerated implementation of sustainable transport goals. She is one of the world’s most experienced educators for professionals seeking to learn Dutch transport planning policies and practices. She also manages academic output for several European Commission projects and sits on the advisory committee of the Cycling Research Board. Meredith holds master’s degrees in public health and urban planning from University of California, Berkeley.
Fiona Campbell has been working for the City of Sydney since 2008 and is the Manager Cycling Strategy. She is deeply committed to making Sydney a bike-friendly city and to helping others achieve similar goals. Fiona is currently managing the roll out of 11 new City of Sydney cycleway projects, three of which are permanent designs to upgrade temporary Covid-19 pop-up cycleways. Fiona mostly rides a Danish (Butchers and Bicycles) cargo trike, and on weekends accompanied by two Jack Russells. Fiona will present on “Global lessons, local opportunities”. This title is also the Conference theme.
Regular readers of this blog know that I have been working with Griffith’s Indigenous Research Unit (IRU) and Kungullanji as an Academic Skills Advisor for the last 4 years. But this is the first time I have put in to be a project mentor.
Image: Griffith News
Recently, Kungullanji announced their Summer Expressions of Interest (EOIs). These are small research projects that will be offered to Griffith’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students for the Summer 2021- 2022 Program. Students get to pick which project they would like to work on. The projects need to be achieved within eight weeks (over Summer before T1 starts). Usually, projects include field work, laboratory work, data analysis and statistics, literature review, case studies, method development, and/or product design.
So, I thought I’d through my hat into the ring this year.
It is an unusual project with experimental methodologies – so it’s a long shot that it will be attractive for an undergrad – but you never know! There might be a brave researcher out willing to try something a little different! We’ll see!
The process of writing up the abstract alone was a really helpful activity in helping me clarify aspects of the methodology and thinking through how to explain what VEO is in clear and simple terms.
Below is what I submitted.
I’ll find out in 6 weeks if a Kungullanji student-researcher chooses my project.
EOI: Project description
Title: Cycle Shiftings: Reconfiguring First Nation presences in Morton Bay Bikeway
Project supervisor: Nina Ginsberg (School of Education & Professional Studies)
Project description:
Bike riding is a ubiquitous part of modern life and offers significant social, economic, environmental and health benefits. However, there is ‘an unbearable whiteness of cycling’ (Hylton, 2017) that is keenly evident. Bicycle trails are not free from the history, culture and politics in which they are built and used.
This project focuses on one section of a popular bikeway located on Narlang lands of the Quandamooka peoples (commonly known as the Morton Bay Bikeway (MBB), Wynnum-Manly, Brisbane). This bike path is the focus of this project which uses emerging mobile ‘riding-with’ research approaches that work to decolonise place. ‘Riding-with’ research approaches are unique as they consider what bicycles can ‘do’ and ‘be’ beyond being just objects of transportation, utility or recreation.
This means paying close attention to what is seen, said, remembered, thought, felt, understood and experienced while bike riding researcher-community members move through particular environments – and in this case specifically, the Moreton Bay Bikeway. This project fits into an exciting and newly established research space that uses embodied and mobile methodologies to destablise current settler-colonial bike path logic and praxis – to look at what might be learned or discovered by cultivating more First Nations experiences as/into bike paths. The underlying aim is to bring forward possibilities for identifying and refiguring what is considered ‘normal’ on bike paths by promoting and celebrating First Nations presences – and that doing so will broaden and bolster similar conversations elsewhere.
The Kungullanji researcher will be encouraged to actively co-contribute to all aspects of the project process. There are opportunities for the researcher to communicate work undertaken (ie via publication, community bike tour, etc) which is highly encouraged, given time and interest. This project would suit a motivated, curious, mature and open-minded researcher who is interested in working with innovative research skills. The supervisor, Nina Ginsberg, will provide guidance at all stages of this project.
Student responsibilities:
Research mobile methodologies and local First Nations presences (around Wynnum-Manly area)
Write short summaries/narratives based on key research themes
Co-develop (with supervisor) an approach to action key research themes
Develop and experiment with riding-with approaches
This project involves being able to go for regular bike rides along Wynnum-Manly foreshore (accessible by train)at a leisurely pace with regular breaks for about 10 kms. Must have a general level of fitness and know how to ride a bike safely. Ideally, the Kungullanji researcher will have their own bike (in good working order) and safety gear (if not, Nina can help arrange this).
Meet with Supervisor at least weekly for bike ride-meetings to discuss findings, progress and next steps.
Opportunity for a co-authored publication (Kungullanji researcher and Supervisor) and/or community bike tour to share findings (if time/interest allows).
Morton Bay Cycleway. Image: Visit Queensland
The Kungullanji Program
The Kungullanji Research Pathways Program raises aspirations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students by providing an undergraduate research experience, professional development, and connections to the broader Indigenous research community. The idea is to provide an introduction to research and develop valuable skills for students to start their research journey.
The idea is that First Nations undergrads work alongside research staff (who may be an academic staff member, research fellow, postdoctoral fellow or HDR candidate) to gain hands-on research. Supervisors provide regular and ongoing mentorship, guidance, research-specific training, and experience.
This award-winning program is a key part of Griffith University’s strategy to “grow its own” First Peoples higher degree research cohort.
Kungullanji is an Aboriginal word from the Yugambeh language that means ‘to think’ – and this service is specifically for undergraduates.
Kungullanji offers practical research experience and opportunities to develop research skills and confidence not found elsewhere for undergraduates. Students receive a scholarship and are provided with online and in-person research skills training, cultural experience activities, a transdisciplinary art-based workshop, and Peer Mentors provide additional guidance and support.
Image: Griffith News
Postscript: This year there was a remarkably high number of EOIs submitted (the highest ever!) – which speaks to the growing recognition and high caliber of this program! Ultimately, 46 projects were submitted. There were 23 students. My EOI was not selected – another time!
and what does gender and sexuality have to do with it?
We were very excited to have guest presenter Assoc. Prof. Alyson Campbell from the School of Theatre, Victorian College of the Arts (University of Melbourne) to lead us on this curious and provocative journey.
Artist-scholar-makers: Thinking about affect work to queer performance.
My understanding of affect draws on Brian Massumi and cultural theorist Jeremy Gilbert. I’ve built on this general line of thinking to explore more particularly concepts and strategies for queering performance. This all springs from working with Reza Abdoh in Los Angeles in the early 1990s, where I encountered live performance in a way I never had before. Abdoh’s play Bogeyman was dealing with the AIDS pandemic and it has taken me many years to try to find ways to articulate how its queerness was based on something far beyond its content; it was the experience of it, or, in other words, its affect. I’m still trying to understand that interrelationship in my own and others’ work. One strand of this links directly back to Reza in thinking about affect as viral (Viral Dramaturgies, co-edited with Dirk Gindt, 2018) and another strand is as erotohistoriography (Freeman, 2010; e.g. Campbell 2015). As an artist-scholar the whole thing converges in trying to find specificity in language for this (e.g. through musicology/musical thinking, e.g. Campbell 2012) and rehearsal/making strategies.
My question for the session is: What are the gaps in the discourse around affect in performance?
What we did in this session…
… er… how to summarise this session … is very hard… we did so much!
It is so hard to explain all we covered and what stuck for each of us. I loved how Alyson took the time to just think-out-aloud her ideas and explain her motivations, musings, work, and connections – for me, that was so interesting and inspiring (we so rarely have those personal insights as to the process-thinking that goes into academic and performance work!).
I did capture some of what we did, discussed, thought-with, and activated in this session in a few 100-word worldings I wrote from this session. Here are my worldings:
Seek the Affect mechanism.
Freefalling with A/P Alyson Campbell’s Queer Dramaturies. Director process(es) unfolding: pertinent theatre movements, Phenomenology, Massumi’s ‘Affect’, Gormley’s ‘body’s first way of knowing’, Gilbert’s ‘affective specificity’, and Epstein’s ‘shaping affect’. More important than describing affect (as end point), is seeking the mechanism by which it is structured. Not ‘supposed’ to talk about the ‘real’ journey/process/practice. Various maker book think-throughs: Practice-as-research (Practitioners), Affect Explorations (Theory), or Queer Encounters (Personal). More on intersectionality, form and hybridity… maybe queer hybridity? How long does it take for language to move? Pondering practice-theory as contagion or miasma. A juggernaut of multiple threads.
What’s missing in Affect.
With a new artist-scholar friend, we discuss what is missing in Affect. Thoughts disperse and range from uncomfortable school-based moments, to performance making, to the inescapable hard lines of capitalism, to points of deficit in myriad forms. A strong conversational start. Body sameness and what (im)presses. Someone mentions ‘anti-lack-thinking’. I like that idea. I settle into queering beyond what I think and know – and I’m excited by new viral suggestions. We talk of the joys of popping fuchsias and what is learned from migrating bodies. The importance of ‘accepting your in-thereness’ and of (missing) laughter. ‘Not just’ embodied jerks.
Bound up with affect.
I’m leaning into intense inquiries of somatic means and translations. Being led, hand-held, through body-emotion(s) that disregard mental training. I’m ‘bound up’ with affect, constipated by shifting ‘pulling a(part)s’. I’m intrigued by In your face theatre as an attempt to synthesize smaller audiences, funding, and affective capacities – and the aesthetics of what that might mean and do. I see inchoate segregised resistance, near-Punk tendencies, and pre-queering workings (t)here. Not just relying on arguments between characters or choreographies to drive dramatic interest. Activating experiential theatrics and what that actually means when working through ideas, bodies, and hearts.
Grokking 4:48 psychosis.
Moving within/without a binarized sociality bites. Invitations to re(un)see Amelia Carvello’s extraordinary bodies. Being crossed out and knowing the marginalia is where it is at. Meeting a lang-scape for the first time. Considering body-affect as thinking-of-performative ‘affect’, or as queer dramaturgy applied to worlding and how to shape it all. The ‘roomness’ of the room stands out. Grokking 4:48 psychosis. Theories only get you so far, but new meanings and makings lead naturally into methodological spaces, processes, loops, actions, ambiguities, openness and speculations. Uncovering universal ‘truth(s)’ of research-making becomings seasoned with psychological implications and pre-intentional purpose.
Alyson’s main areas of research and supervision are in gender and queer theory/performance, directing and dramaturgy, phenomenological approaches to performance, social justice and disability in the arts. Alyson’s focus is around the representation of women and the nexus of queer theories and feminism. She is committed to developing modes of practice led/as research throughout her teaching at all levels. Alyson is a freelance director and dramaturg with an astounding 30-year career, and teaching credits that feature the School of Creative Arts, the University of Melbourne, Queen’s University Belfast and Brunel University, London.
Regular readers of this blog know I have a particular panache for academic writing and research practices.
As a researcher, I like to muddle long-held academic conventions to reimagine scholarship differently – like using experimental feminist approaches when referencing. (Note to any undergrads reading this: don’t do this! Don’t mess with academic referencing. Tow the line! Unless you have a Ph.D. before your name, follow academic style and referencing conventions. You will be penalised if you don’t (ie loose marks). I’m a known disrupter at Uni and the feminist expert-iments I use like the Visible and Valued: In(Citing) Feminist Scholarship and the recent Reading with Recipocity Project are part of my research methodology so I can get away with it!).
As an academic writing advisor, I regularly work with undergrad and postgrads and look for ways to help them better understand course content and practice skills that produce better writing.
I teach an elective course for pre-service teachers called 3404EDN Gender & Literacy and am currently working with a number of postgrads who are diving into their first-ever text analysis.
Text analysis is different from a video/film analysis (like the video above).
This post outlines a few ideas to get started with text analysis – whether you are at uni, a text buff, or just an interested party.
This is not a definitive or exhaustive list of ideas. A caveat: use your good judgment! The ideas here are suggestions that work for me and the undergrads I work with, they are not rules to be applied ALL the time, to EVERY assessment, in EVERY situation.
Here, I’m covering the regular questions I get asked by students doing an AV text analysis at uni for the first time – and some aspects that are interesting more broadly.
Let’s get into it!
Text Aanalysis
Have a systematic way to analyze the text.
Always follow what your tutor/supervisor says as far as how to ‘analyse’.
If you have not been provided with a clear outline of what/how to begin a text analysis, ask for one, or find one and check its appropriacy with your supervisor.
This might be a theoretical framework, a model, a process, or some other way to systematically work through critical points for analysis.
For example, in my 3404EDN class, we focus on gender. We use the text analysis process below to identify and interrogate gender patterns within a given text. This helps us look carefully at character representations. From there, we might discuss the dynamics we see, like if/where there are examples of traditional, transformational, or a mix of gender representations, how this links to theoretical perspectives of how gender is constructed, and what this means for us (as uni students/pre-service teachers), other audiences (more widely), learners (students in our future classes/workplaces), and society at large.
If it is a recognised text analysis process, theory, or approach drawn from academic literature, include a citation.
So, you need to know what/how to approach your text analysis.
How to reference a visual text.
Most students know (hopefully!) how to reference an academic source – a journal article (best published in last 10 years), a chapter in a book, and/or a book.
Fewer people know who to accurately reference a report (like a UN Annual Report or Government document) or other grey literature.
This is understandable as it is tricky to do.
Even less know how to reference audio/visual (A/V) texts (unless it is your area of study).
Here I am referring to films, TV shows, radio programs, podcasts, posters, artwork, illustrations, TV commercials, comics/manga, video games, and the like.
The best way to approach this is to find a really good referencing guide.
Find an online tool or download a guide you like and keep it handy.
There is no excuse for losing points for references. There is so much help, support and many resources available. Plus, it is an academic skill you’ll need for all courses in your uni degree and beyond, so it’s best to know how to do it accurately.
Know what referencing style to use.
Ask your tutor if unsure…in fact…ask your tutor anyway …just to double-check – don’t assume!
It has examples and formats for both in-text and reference list entries.
But there are limits to this particular tool. For example for AV, it lists video stream database, YouTube/Vimeo, and DVD/BluRay only. Any other AV format means you’ll need to use a different referencing tool/style guide.
In my experience, Griffith’s APA tool will cover most of what is needed for undergrad work.
Here’s an example for a DVD film from Griffith’s APA 7th Referencing Tool:
If you go online there are heaps of downloadable referencing guides.
Find one that you like and one that covers your most used sources.
Make sure it is not overly complicated and is quick to use.
Sometimes, you might need to cite an uncommon ‘wild card’ reference – something that is more challenging to cite – like a podcast or some other source not in your handy guide.
You’ll need to accurately cite any sources used intext in the Reference List.
Let’s say you are writing about the film The Bicycle Thief.
HOT TIP # 1
Always write the title in italics (this helps distinguish it as ‘the text’ as opposed to your writing or citations (anything not in italics).
“The film The Bicycle Thief centers on a man called Mario who….”
HOT TIP # 2
The first time you write the title, you’ll need to include the year the film was first released after it.
First time naming the text example:
“The film The Bicycle Thief (1948) is a classic example of Italian Neorealism as ….”
In my 3404EDN course, the first assessment is only 750 words. For brevity, I’m happy if the text is ‘yeared’ the first time it is introduced, but thereafter, I don’t see a need to include the year every time the text is named.
But if your assessment is longer or your tutor is a stickler, you might be required to include the year every time (like you would for an academic citation… or use some other technique). This is in line with ‘official’ APA 7th formatting.
Personally, I think it is overkill. For me, the initial intext citation with the year is evidence enough the student knows what they are doing (it’s usually more than other undergrads do anyway), as well as the use of italics for the title thereafter, is enough. Besides, it inhibits readability and flow – that is just me. But it is a thought to consider.
My students need only include the year the first time. After that, no need to include the year. Just make sure the title is always in italics.
HOT TIP # 3
If you want to get super fancy and accurate (not many students know or do this, so it stands out when you do – it’s next level), use timestamps (as a page number variation) when discussing a particular scene, an utterance, or a moment.
Timestamping shows extra attention to detail. This is good practice as it shows high-level critical analysis, showcases specific details, and advanced referencing skills.
Most tutors I know (myself included) LOOOVE seeing this.
Again, if you are not sure, ask your tutor. (Maybe after class if you want to keep it to yourself, or in class if you are happy to share this secret weapon).
There are a few ways to timestamp.
The ‘official APA 7th’ way is:
Hours/minutes/seconds format H:MM:SS e.g. 1:35:02
I have also seen it done like this:
Minutes/seconds follows the MM’SS” e.g. 23’12” or 75’33” (if over an hour)
Personally, I don’t mind either way, just as long as it is applied consistently.
Using this technique in writing might look like this:
“Mario’s independence transgresses heteronormative and essentializing male gender roles. An example of this is when Mario and Henry blah, blah (34:12). In this scene, Mario blah, blah, blahs which is/means/demonstrates…..”.
34:12 or 34’12” means 34 minutes and 12 minutes – an A/V text equivalent of a page number.
“…and this is best exemplified when Mario publicly shouts, “I am a man, not a mouse!” (56:22), which is meant to position him as…”
References List entries
Keeping in mind you will always need to double-check/modify/edit all Reference List entries regardless. Vic Uni offers this basic reference list format for films:
Primary contributor or contributors with their contribution identified in round brackets (e.g. the Director).
Year (in round brackets).
Title (in italics).
Description of work [in square brackets].
Publisher (e.g. the production company).
URL (where relevant).
The first line of each citation is left adjusted. Every subsequent line is indented by a TAB or 5-7 spaces.
Reference List format example:
Ireland, P. (Director). (2016). Pawno [Film]. Toothless Pictures.
A few ideas to get started with text analysis and referencing AV texts.
As always (again) … double-check with your tutor (they have the final word) and make sure you check formatting and edit references to suit your specific purposes.
I first came across this story while scouring the internet for community-focused, bike-related, arts-based projects. This project caught my eye as it was initiated by a group of senior UCLA academics and I like the innovative use of technology to get more people engaged with bicycle commuting. Projects like this are inspiring not only in the end product, (more people on bikes), but also in the process (engaging arts-based participation in new and creative ways) and in bringing together a range of people (professors, artists, riders, and community members) who are passionate about bikes, sustainability, transport, healthy communities to create a more positive future for all. Below is an article published earlier this year in Transfer Magazine explaining the project in detail.
I love the idea of senior academics and professors being passionate about biking. Here’s to (hoping for) more projects (and academics) like this! Enjoy! NG.
Image: Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition
For many Los Angeles residents, the daily commute is frustrating. A project by three UCLA faculty members aims to change that — especially for those who ride to work on two wheels — by creating bicycle “flows” that produce real-time digital art exhibitions throughout the city.
One of the project’s goals is to make cycling to work feel as accessible and safe as other modes of travel, so the professors envision groups, or flows, of cyclists that would be organized by a smartphone app. The app would encourage reluctant or inexperienced cyclists to participate by pointing them toward those flows, suggest routes that are optimized for enjoyability and safety over efficiency or speed, and enable participants to share their experiences.
Those experiences, in the form of text, photos, videos and other creative submissions, would feed directly into digital murals throughout Los Angeles. The murals would be located in community spaces and transportation hubs around the city — including, for example, a large interactive display at the Los Angeles State Historic Park, adjacent to Chinatown — elevating biking to work to a collective creative experience.
“We envision the cooperative bike flows as a type of performative media artwork that is shared live with all of Los Angeles in public spaces and on the internet,” said Fabian Wagmister, the project’s principal investigator and the founding director of the UCLA Center for Research in Engineering, Media and Performance, known as UCLA REMAP.
“By inviting communities to think about bicycle riding as a way to express themselves in the urban landscape, we can strengthen commuters’ ownership of the system and offer a deeper level of engagement in the future of the city.”
The project, called Civic Bicycle Commuting, or CiBiC, is co-led by Jeff Burke, co-director of REMAP and a UCLA professor-in-residence of theater, and Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, a distinguished professor of urban planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.
The project already is gaining some traction: In February, the initiative received $50,000 in funding from the Civic Innovation Challenge, which is funded by the National Science Foundation in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. CiBiC is now in contention for an additional grant of up to $1 million, which the researchers would use to create a prototype of the project.
CiBiC’s art-led approach makes it somewhat of an anomaly among most of the competitors in its category, “communities and mobility” — most of the other proposals have origins in the STEM fields and social sciences.
To ensure the project incorporates the diverse experiences and needs of Los Angeles commuters, the researchers are soliciting input from Los Angeles neighborhood groups. Loukaitou-Sideris said the team will especially seek participation from low-income residents of Chinatown, Solano Canyon, Dogtown and Lincoln Heights.
“We want to hear from community groups and residents and understand how we can create something that is tailored to their needs,” she said.
The researchers also are collaborating with Eli Akira Kaufman, executive director of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, who said the project could demonstrate how transformative bicycle culture could be in Los Angeles if bicyclists could help create infrastructure that reflected their needs.
“Instead of allowing the built environment to dictate the culture of bicycling in Los Angeles, we need to uplift the culture of bicycling to make sure the built environment is defined by the social infrastructure and the people who use it,” he said.
Aggregated data from the app could also eventually be used to influence Los Angeles’ long-term infrastructure planning.
And Wagmister said the project stands to both reflect and amplify the city’s creative spirit: “We want to create an alternative transportation system in Los Angeles, one that values our collective creative capacity to transform the city for all.”
Image courtesy of Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition. This article was sourced from Transfer Magazine and was originally posted on the UCLA Newsroom.
