During this holiday break, I have sorely missed our New Materialisms (NM) Special Interest Group (SIG) monthly meetings. NM is the approach I am using for my bicycle PhD (more specifically Quantum Physicist Karen Barad’s Agential Realism). I thrive on sharing ideas, resources and experiences with this incredible group. In November, we had our last meeting for 2020. We reconvene in March 2021. It feels so far away! I am craving some NM activity. So, I revisited my 2020 NM SIG notes and here’s some of what bubbled up in 100 words. Enjoy, NG.
Worlding: A galaxy of relational encounters
Each month we meet to discuss theory, practice and research. Who knows what might emerge? The bite of elliptical surfboards. How affects have wayward offspring. Stealth(ily) mother-in-laws. Malian master desert musicians. Temporarily captured objects. Run-ins, rangings, ruts and recognitions. The half-life of (could-be) facts. Un(re)learning sentipensanto feminisms. Personalities, prisms, passions and ponderings. Gothic academic co-authored monsters. Atmospheric political graffiti in disused textile factories. A school-child’s unexplained vomit. Women’s business from the paddock to the boardroom. Dynamics, details, disorientations and discoveries. Always something interesting, always something new. Conversations worth having and experiences worth sharing. This is what is remembered.
Regular readers of this blog know I am a co-convener (with the amazing Dr Sherilyn Lennon) of Griffith Uni’s New Materialisms (NM) Special Interest Group (SIG). Each month we meet to discuss NM theory, methodology, practice and application. Each month we do readings, share ideas and invite an NM researcher to present an aspect of their work.
This month we were delighted to host Patricia Ni Ivor from RMIT, Melbourne. Patricia is working in Project Management and is looking at what NM might bring to her PhD research.
It was not only great about her workplace and research but also her current experience of being new to NM approaches. Patricia also shared some diagrams she had made about her thinking (OMG – they were incredibly detailed and thorough!). Visually representing the complexity, range and scope of her thinking really showed the evolution of her understanding and the connections she’s made between scholars, theories and key themes in her study. Super impressive!
As part of her presentation, Patricia also ran the group through a self-inquiry activity which was a unique and thought-provoking experience.
This session was our last NM SIG for the year and Patricia’s session was a wonderful way to come together, share NM ideas, but also experience a shared mindfulness activity in a way that was productive, unique and meaningful. We had much to discuss and take away to think about.
A wonderful way to finish off this year’s NM SIG program!
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.
Presenter
Patricia’s extended career spans teaching, journalism, media education, public & industrial policy reform and project management. From time to time she has lectured in Film & Media Studies and in Project Management. Her doctoral studies are applied research in the development of soft-skills in project teams in the technology and construction industries, especially emotional capabilities, empathy and resilience.
Abstract
My doctoral research is investigating whether an ancient yogic practice of Self-inquiry, repurposed for the 21st century and focused on feelings, would work in project teams and, if so, under what conditions? Unlike mindfulness or other meditative tools, Self-inquiry can be practiced in teams, is swift in producing results and builds emotional capabilities, empathy and resilience. As a process tool, it has the capacity to be embedded in organisational systems and procedures – just what the project management industry wants and needs but is unsure how to develop.
Seeking a theoretical underpinning that did not skew the research has been difficult: organisational development and psychology, emotional intelligence and other emotional development/regulation theories, neuro-science, meditation and eastern philosophy, social science, knowledge and sense-making etc. each have value, but none really fits the research purpose.
Earlier this year, Janis Hanley introduced me to New Materialism and the concept of affect as used by Deleuze and Guattari, drawn from Spinoza’s Ethics and the work of Henry Bergson. Not only did this seem to fit the theoretical paradigm of Self-inquiry (Spinoza’s synergy with eastern spiritual traditions and Bergson’s notions of consciousness) but their emphasis on embodiment or somatic inquiry reflects the yogic basis of Self-inquiry and more recent theory in social science, psychology and physical movement studies in art and wellbeing.
I am still new to the area and the literature, so this SIG session will trace my journey from hard-nosed Project Management through softer social and emotional skills to non-dual ideas of matter and consciousness. The attached readings are ones I have found useful so far. I’m looking forward to our discussion of ‘applied’ research in New Materialism.
Readings
Rice, J. (2008). The New “New”: Making a Case for Critical Affect Studies. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 94(2), 200-212. doi:10.1080/00335630801975434
Stanley, K. (2017). Affect and Emotion: James, Dewey, Tomkins, Damasio, Massumi, Spinoza. In D. R. Wehrs & T. Blake (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of affect studies and texutal criticism (pp. 97-112): International Publishing, Cham.
As many readers know, October is my birthday month. It is also a busy time for most universities. So for this month’s New Materialisms Special Intrest Group (SIG), I floated the idea of having a writing party. Instead of adding pressure to read and discuss, I thought it’d be a good time to pause, take stock, and to put into playful practice some of the NM ideas and approaches we’ve been discussing thoughout the year in our SIG.
It might seem a little weird to have a Writing Party for your birthday and not a bike-themed party but seeing as though my PhD research is on bikes – it was a win-win for me!
Woohoo! Writing Party!!!
Writing Party Invite
Here is the NM SIG Writing Party invite I sent out to NM SIG members:
Are you feeling overworked and lonely? Has your enthusiasm for writing taken a hit lately?
Are you struggling to get those paragraphs perfect and on the page?
Then it’s time to PARTY!
At our next NM SIG, we shift the focus from reading to writing and you are invited to join our 2-hour Writing Party (details and link included here – it was a closed event, so no details here on the blog – sorry!).
With a continuing focus on the feminist New Materialists, we welcome your ideas/musings/partially formed paragraphs and feedback for others in our group.
Bring along a partially formed paragraph for sharing and feedback.
This Writing Party will also include guided writing warm-ups and research-focused timed writings as well as some time to chat, reflect and share as much or as little as you want.
The aim is to help you get over the writing hump and back into the flow…
No matter what your current research project is, this session will help reinvigorate your writing passion!
We look forward to seeing you there!
So what did we do?
We had a great time!…..And we wrote heaps!
It was a small, but dedicated crowd who were up for writing and sharing NM ideas and practices.
We had 2 hours and I wanted to make sure we had time to write some new material, share some writing we had already done and have time to discuss and process writing styles and production.
I opened with each person saying why there were here for the sessions and what they hoped to achieve,
Then we did a 10 min writing warm-up activity I call Embodied writers in the here and now. I developed this as a warm up task for my own working days a while back and have been using it with others, colleagues, study groups and writing retreats since. It is a generative and useful warm up that gets the juices flowing and there is always something interesting to talk about that comes out of it.
We then shared a piece of our own writing that we were proud of. this is a great activity to do to boost confidence and be exposed to different types of writing and processing. I enjoyed hearing other people’s ideas on why it was meaningful to them and what they learnt from/while writing it.
Then, we did a word sprint activity looking at Research Tentaclesto get thinking about vocab, fluency, collocations and expression.
A 15 mins Rolling Research Activityfollowed the vocab discussion up nicely. Here we wrote down our answer to the question; What is a current research-writing-tension for you? We then took time to read other people’s answers and add some suggestions and ideas on how to shift or move forward with these. This was a great way to pool our experiences and resources and get some great ideas we would not have thought of by ourselves.
We then did a Matter Matters sprint. Using a piece of our own writing, we discussed , provoked, challenged and layered how matter matters in our research. We then did a quiet 10 mins written reflection to excavate if anything had shifted or moved as a result of dong the activity-discussion-writing.
For our last activity, we opened the floor to a Partial Writing discussion. This is where you share piece of unfinished writing you are currently working (selection or except) for those who want to get some feedback or ideas on what and how to move forward.
I had a ball! It was so great to have designated time to write, share, discuss, laugh and learn -we so rarely create opportunities like this – where there is no pressure or expectation, yet you can still experiment with writing ideas and prose.
I think it is very important to celebrate ALL types of writing and to keep writing fun. After all, sitting at a desk for years writing up formal academic research would be a challenge for any one – so it was nice to stop for a breather and to play and have some fun with writing.
Doing a PhD is usually seen as a good thing. But sometimes it can cause perceived or actual tension for yourself or others. Recently, this happened to me and it served as a great reminder that often (as with most things in life), things are not always what they seem and that everything is always-already with(in) a twist. Here’s what happened in 100 words. Enjoy, NG.
Well-meaning advice for my first-time BBQ: ‘Maybe don’t mention your PhD’. Gloomy backyard introductions and I only remember Mouse and Skipper. I stand awkwardly. Drinking. Tattoos pour down legs and arms, scraggly beer strained beards and black heavy metal T-shirts. Smoking. My trendy hat feels too tight. Disappearings. A huge brown mastiff watches half-naked kids fight. Reappearings. I make a joke that falls flat. Eating. Jonno tells me his secret fishing spots. Teasing. Raucous stories of youthful antics. Laughing. On departure: sweaty hugs and a take-home food pack. Over the balcony, Big Dan yells ‘Best of luck with ya research!’
For nearly 2 years now, I have been the co-convenor (with Dr Sherilyn Lennon) of Griffth University’s New Materialisms (NM) Special interest Group (SIG). We meet each month to read, discuss and experiment with New Materialisms approaches in teaching, learning and research. It is also the framing I am using for my bikes-for-education PhD project.
For this months’ New Materialisms session, we were delighted to host our first international presenter Assoc. Prof. Thomas Reynolds (Dept. of Writing Studies, Uni of Minnesota).
I met Tom after I emailed him following a session he did for an international online teaching conference. Despite the time differences (it was hosted by an Israeli Uni so the international timezone shift was brutal for Aussie attendees – Tom’s session was on at 10 pm Brisbane time), I still attended his session, but they ran out of time for questions. I reached out to him and we got email chatting and I invited him to (re)present for our NM SIG. And he said yes!
Title: Multimodality: digital video and the materiality of academic writing.
Tom’s research interests include critical theories of writing instruction, histories of popular literacy, and intersections of literacy and cultural movements. He is currently writing about multimodality in writing instruction. Tom teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in writing and literacy studies. His classes typically write in and study current media.
Abstract
I have been thinking about how to set new ground for the teaching and learning of writing through a lens of multimodality. In particular, in addition to asking my students to read and write traditional academic texts, I’ve asked them to make group digital videos that advocate for issues that are important to them.
With new materialist ideas, I’m interested in helping students see how their work on these projects might involve engagement with both discursive and non-discursive elements. The attached readings explore writing through a non-discursive and, in Cooper’s case, post-humanist framework.
The ideas for this project are exploratory for me at this stage and will hopefully lead to an article.
What we did
This session was an engaging, fun and productive exploration of Tom’s current project onmultimodality, literacy digital video and the materiality of academic writing.
We discussed the two articles and collated some standout concepts (see image) then had a lively conversation following Tom’s presentation about many things, including: who holds power on campus, how to (affectively?) tracing emotional responses to places/space, going on a ‘sound diet’, habituated bodily responses to sound, and territorialising/mapping campus s/p/places as a class/student activity – wow!
It was a real delight to enter a completely different world …that of Tom’s class practice. Each session we get stretched and pulled in different ways and it really helps us to stay open-minded and flexible in our thinking and experimentation.
The discussions were animate, fun and productive – it was a real pleasure to flex our intellectual muscles and share the ideas and lines of flights that emerge for each of us from the conversations, reading and links to our research.
I found Tom’s session and his work to be inspiring and generative – I’d love to be a student in his class!
It also gave me a lot to think about how I teach and holding space for others to tell stories, narratives and learnings via different modalities – a very stimulating session!
Other takeaways included:
How do our habits of thinking and paying attention help us (and our students) transform our writing/understanding/being?
How to give students agency to choose their own passion, to fuel their multimodal creations which (hopefully) leads to better “products” outcomes, but also creative processes leading up to those endpoints?
Readings:
Ceraso, S. (2014). (re)educating the senses: Multimodal listening, bodily learning, and the composition of sonic experiences. College English, 77(2), 102-123.
Cooper, M. M. (2019). Enchanted writing. (pp. 19-44). University of Pittsburgh Press.
As many readers know, I am using Feminist New Materialisms (FNM) as my framing for my bicycles-for-education PhD project. FNM is a wonderfully rich and challenging approach to be working with. To help deepen my understandings of NM, this year I have been working as the co-convenor (alongside the amazing Dr Sherilyn Lennon) of Griffith’s Uni New Materialisms Special Interest Group (SIG). Each month, we meet to discuss NM approaches, readings ad applications. We do writing and process activities to help activate and stretch our NM understandings and have an invited guest present to broaden our ideas for working with NMs. Click here to see our other New Materialisms sessions.
This post shares some highlights from this month’s NM meeting where we had Janis Hanley (Social Science PhD candidate) presenting on Milieu, Territory, Atmosphere, Agency & Culture.
See more incredible work by Janis at her Local Yarns blog.
Abstract: For some time now I’ve been exploring ways to conceptualise organisational culture, and safety culture in relation to organisations as assemblages – both for my PhD project and assisting in WHS research. The ideas I’m currently playing with are milieu and affective atmospheres. This work is for a journal paper presenting a case study of safety at a regional coal fired powerplant (scheduled to be phased out), based on ethnographic interviews conducted by Dr Tristan Casey and myself, about a year ago.
Tristan, a workplace, health and safety expert at Griffith, led the project, and is the co-author. The ideas around this paper are being presented here to test it out as a work in progress, and as a practical application. I hope it will help stimulate discussion around these concepts, and be practical for you in terms of considering your own research. Do these concepts resonate with your research? What new things might they reveal?
This meeting was really great. In a meeting prior to the session, Janis and I discussed the abstract and how best to organise the session. We ended up pivoting from the original abstract and instead, Janis ran us though some of her milleu work from her current PhD project.
This was a really interesting session (aren’t they all!?!). Janis took us on a creative and analytical exploration of milieu, territory, atmosphere, agency & culture. Using some 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.
Stand out aspects of this discussion were divergent responses to a piano, political graffiti in a factory and participant appreciation of Janis’s diagrams that showed the ‘bite of elliptical surfboards’.
We also did a number of individual and collaborative activities that helped activate and draw out some points for discussion. I found these to very revealing and generative. You never know what to example or what might emerge – but it is always something unusual and interesting. I took a lot away from this session and it gave me much to think about in regard to how atmosphere, milieu and conceptions of ‘home’ feature in my own work and life. Very provocative.
We also did a writing activity. This is one of my favourite things to do I n the SIG as it really helps me try and apply and explain NM considerations in writing, which is a critical skill I need for writing up my dissertation – so any help, practice and feedback I can get with this is very welcomed.
The writing activity we did was for us to write for 10 mins and then share and discuss interesting aspects that emerged. Below was our stimulus for this task.
Writing Activity: Think about the layer of milieu or territory in your research. Write a 100 word or so autoethnographic piece inspired by your musings.
Below are some snapshots of our discussions and a draft of this session’s writing activity.
For this session, we were delighted to have incredible minds behind the Melbourne-based PlayTank Collective – Alicia Flynn, Sarah Healy and Allie Edwards present a session entitled: Lessons from the Play Tank: Adventures in playful scholarship.
Abstract
In this session, we will discuss a workshop that was created to enact NM theories and provide a playful and collaborative space to re-think, re-imagine, re-( ) research for participants at the AARE 2019 conference. Working between the disciplines of art education and design, we embraced the opportunity to create this workshop in a way that attended to the joys and curiosities that we experienced while working/playing together in a material way. This collaboration was intentionally responsive and response-able, allowing us to experience a different way of being academics together, and enabling us to create a workshop that offered the same opportunity for those joining us in our session.
We will share some of the insights from our process of creating the workshop, some highlights and images from the workshop, and pose the question we now have:
What does this workshop make possible, both for us as researchers and for the people who participated in it?
Is this a method that allows people to practice more affirmative and ethical ways of working/playing/being together?
Session Activity: 100 word collaborative brainstorm
Session highlights
Sarah and Alli (and Alicia) not only presented, but also took us on an engaging 2-hour journey through their ideas, inspirations, readings, discussions and no less than two 100s (Stewart, 2010) writing activities (see image) and left us with the enticing thought:
What does this experience make possible, both for us as researchers and for the people who participated in it?
Part of the framing for this session was this incredible piece that Alicia read out:
“Imagine a pattern. This pattern is stable, but not fixed. Think of it in as many dimensions as you like – but it has more than three. This pattern has many threads of many colours, and every thread is connected to, and has a relationship with, all the others. The individual threads are every shape of life. Some – like human, kangaroo, paperbark – are known to Western science as “alive”; others, like rock, would be called “non-living”, but rock is there, just the same. Human is there, too, though it is neither the most nor the least important thread – it is one among many, equal with the others. The pattern made the whole is in each thread, and all the threads together make the whole. Stand close to the pattern and you can focus on a single thread ; stand a little further back and you can see how that thread connects to others; stand further back still and you can see it all – and it is only once you see it all that you recognise the pattern of the whole in every individual thread. The whole is more than the sum of its parts, and the whole is in all its parts. This is the pattern that the Ancestors made. It is life, creation, spirit, and it exists in Country” (Kwaymullina, 2005, p. 12).
*Kwaymullina, A. (2005). Seeing the light: Aboriginal law, learning and sustainable living in country. Indigenous Law Bulletin, 6(11), 12-15
For this meeting we had 2 readings:
Braidotti, R. (2009). On putting the active back into activism. New Formations, (68), 42. doi:10.3898/NEWF.68.03.200
Stewart, K. (2010). Worlding refrains. In M. Gregg & G. J. Seigworth (Eds.), The affect theory reader (pp. 337 -353). Durham [N.C.]: Duke University Press.
Session note: A great question from last meeting that emerged out of the readings was: What is ‘the second corporeal turn in social theory’ referred to in Taylor and Ivinson (2013, p 666)? This question stemmed from this quote here: “Such moves reinforce earlier feminist theories (Butler 1990; Grosz 1994), and speak back to the second corporeal turn in social theory (e.g. Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992; Foucault 1979; Merleau-Ponty 1962, 1968; Shilling 2008) and within education (Evans, Rich, and Davies 2009; James 2000; Prout 2000; Walkerdine 2009). We indend to discuss this further!
As long-time readers of this blog know, along with Dr Sherilyn Lennon, I co-convene Griffith University’s New Materialism Special Interest Group (SIG). New Materialisms (NM) is an emerging post-qualitative research approach that has a significant take-up in education, queer and gender studies, environmental science and arts-based disciplines in particular, but is gaining traction more widely as well.
This month, we had a mix of three stimuli for the discussion. This was followed by a very moving presentation about a project exploring school workplace sexual harassment and the impact on teacher identity.
Image by Franz Marc: Fighting Forms
Presentation: Workplace harassment and teacher identity
Our presenter had just submitted her Griffith EPS Master’s thesis two days before this meeting, so we were very grateful for her time.
In this session, she shared some insights, ‘data’ and narrative moments from her latest research project which was an exploration of sexual harassment on teacher identity.
Now that her Masters had been submitted, the researcher was interested in feedback from the group on what resonates and how she might be able to build the project into a PhD using a New Materialisms lens.
As a starting point, X was keen to explore how the sexual harassment complaint has its own agency.
As always, it was a very generative and thought-provoking session.
The presentation blew up away and gave us much to think about.
We applauded the bravery, resilience and strength that underpinned this work.
This presentation focused on the impact of sexual harassment on teacher identity and, in so doing, opened up conversations around gendered harassment in institutional settings. The aim is to lift the curtain on the unacknowledged, misunderstood and often overlooked. These discussions offer insights into the ways that identity, power and culture interrelate and operate in institutional settings and how to shed light on the gendered nature of workplace harassment from a position that is often silenced. Here, feelings of powerlessness, critical reflexivity, and scholarly reflection were used to interrogate construction of institutionalised norms and examine how language, subjectivity, and power-relations impact on gender.
This session resonated very strongly with SIG members as it honours the insider’s perspective of the social complexities and challenges many women face in institutional workplaces.
It was certainly very moving – and left us all with much to consider – individually and collectively.
New Materialisms Reading/Discussion
For this meeting we had a mix of 3 stimuli.
First was a Taylor & Ivinson’s (2013) editorial for a journal special which was quoted from in the May meeting and flagged for the SIG to follow up. We also had a reading by Gamble, Hanan & Nail (2019) from the last meeting that helps trace the NM origins, epistemological developments and contested space. Lastly, we used a 30 min YouTube video of Iris van de Turin in which she discusses diffractive reading and asks questions about the spatiotemporality of diffractive reading: where and when does diffraction happen in reading processes?
We used the readings and our own knowledge and experiences to explore our central question of: ‘What lines of flight emerge for you?’
We used this key question to pick at the seams of NM and how we can engage with, and apply, New Materialist methodologies. Here is a sneak peak at some of our machinations.
Taylor & Ivinson Reading NotesGamble, Hanan & Niall Reading Notesvan der Tuin Reading Notes
Session resources
Editorial: Taylor, C. A., & Ivinson, G. (2013). Material feminisms: New directions for education. Gender and education 25(6), 995-670.
Reading: Gamble, C. N., Hanan, J. S., & Nail, T. (2019). What Is New Materialism?. Angelaki, 24(6), 111-134.
Youtube Video: Iris van der Tuin – Reading diffractive reading: were and when does diffraction happen?
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.
Researcher positionality: Who am I and how did I come to this projectResearch context background : 5 intersections of Girls unfreedomsGirls Ed Lit Review: Current directions in NGO Literature on the topicEstablish Space: The Child Mobility Project – Key project that opens my research space. Completed 2010Confirm & Extend: Lauren’s Hof follow up: a specific project on girls bicycle projects in Lunsar. Completed 2016My Study Design: MethodologyFieldwork details: Tech MattersFieldwork details: Other research developments/considerationsCountry 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) and Stylish (host/research participant/all-round incredible person!)Fieldwork ‘Data’: list of all the research data/activities achieved (so busy!) and other events, opportunities and visits – so busy!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
Hello, bike nuts! Thanks for dropping in. As you have noticed, it has been incredibly hectic since my return from Sierra Leone. Not only has it been a profound shift returning from my PhD fieldwork and all the emotions, work, people and activity that entailed, but COVID-19 has taken complete hold of the world to which I returned. Just like everyone else, for the last month, all my time and energy has been consumed with transferring to remote work. For me, that means all managing and adapting all my teaching, learning and classes to virtual spaces – as well as supporting my international and domestic students (116 in all) do the same. The COVID-shift, as I have come to call this phase, has taken precedence over updating this blog. Rest assured, I will be updating as I get the chance, but it might not be as regular as we are used to – but I will continue uploading content – after all, it seems more critical now more than ever to celebrate life and keep positive (on and off the bike!). NG.
Social Science Research in COVID-19
It’s a crazy time to be a (social) scientist – and an even crazier time for fieldwork.
In addition to my own direct experience of recently travelling and researching overseas, I have returned to a world that has significantly changed since I left.
COVID-19 was a threat as I left for my fieldwork in Africa – and it was a reality when I returned.
Everyone has had to make sacrifices, changes and adjustments for family, work and research.
These adjustments take weeks if not months and there is no avoiding it – but as Victor Frankl reminds us, we do have control over how we chose to face challenges.
I have been heartened to see some academic proactively moving to meet the challenge of researching during COVID-19.
For those researchers who need a little lift and motivation – this post is for you.
Here are 3 ways social scientists are productively responding to COVID-19.
Deborah Lupton This Sociological Life has posted some resources for social researchers working in a COVID society saying ‘I’ve put together a few open-access resources concerning what an initial agenda for COVID-related social research could be and research methods for conducting fieldwork in the COVID world’. Her post includes the links below:
This is an open-source global spreadsheet that collates COVID-19 research projects. This impressive repository includes large and small projects from some of the leading universities in the world and showcases the range and significance of COVID-19 impact. All hail GitHub! The organisers state: ‘Social scientists have an important role during a pandemic. We can do this much better through cooperation. This international list tracks new research about COVID 19, including published findings, pre-prints, projects underway, and projects at least at proposal stage.’ What a gift.
COVID-19 and my PhD research
Once my transition to full remote working and teaching has ‘settled down’ (whatever the hell that means?!), I’ll be making space to sit down and reflect.
I’ll be taking stock and considering how and where I’ll incorporate this unique encounter into my academic work, my dissertation and beyond.
