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Monday 26 July 2010

online discussion group

I've been acting as a moderator for a post-grad online discussion group for the past 3 weeks. I need to pull together some of the discussion threads and construct a summary of the main issues raised as a means of taking the group forward. The group was initially conceptualised as an online conversation sitting parallel  to its parent face-to-face seminar - now it seems it has developed an identity all of its own and needs to be ushered into the world to stand on its own little legs.

Its interesting how people are - at conferences, seminars, online forums...some are outspoken, some draw attention to themselves, others love the 'network' buzz, while others try to hang out with the 'famous' and 'exciting' participants, others sit quietly in the background, careful not to draw any attention to themselves, then there are the enthusiastic and optimistic ones - able to see the positive and interesting angles in the most banal and uninspiring presentations and comments, others just want to defy the norms, conventions - so pitch up without a powerpoint, or arrive with a super duper prezzi creations, or simply read their paper to the stunned audience, then there are the cliques - yes the South Africans all sitting in a group, or the ethnographers, or academic literacies bunch, the Bernsteinians or the Bourdieu or critical realistic devotees who can only see the world through their theoretical rose tinted glasses - and so separate themselves out from everyone else.

I've just realised how hard it is to be an academic wading through all of this 'nonsense' and wondering what is our job really? Its partly the 'stuff' we are researching and the other bits are about projecting ourselves to the world in very particular ways. At the Lancaster conference I chatted to a retired sociologist lecturer who suggested how interesting it might be to do an ethnography on academic conferences. I'll be keen to read that paper any day. Might help me to make sense of it all and be less cynical about it all.

Sunday 25 July 2010

Wish I had said more about Lancaster

I had this great plan to write down my reflections  of the conference on my way back to Milton Keynes on the train. But I travelled back with my supervisor, ML, and in between talking to her, about all manner of things including where to stand on the platform to ensure you get onto the best carriage, and reading a paper on race and academic practice in SA higher education (something I must reflect on too ) - I forgot to put down my thoughts. Not only are they gone now, but they would also be clouded by retrospection. So I'm settling for some photos of the countryside round the university.

The rolling hills and threatening clouds 
The little church in the village of Galgate in the distance
I accidentally found this river running through Galgate, pub in the distance (of course)

Wednesday 21 July 2010

so academics can dance?

Well not really, but the South African women certainly can inspire others to get their grove on!

Just come back from the conference dinner that didn't pass without incident. I was designated a vegetarian so not allowed to receive a salmon starter...sorry I'm not doing justice to what actually happen except to say - the service sucked big time. I felt like a child at boarding school being told off by the dinner lady.
 Many of us (yes the South Africans) were lamenting on how fantastic the HECU 4 conference was and how the HECU 5 just paled in comparison - on all dimension including, food, service, support in dealing with infrastructural issues, music and entertainment at the dinner etc, etc, etc...South African bias? probably.

I had a evening long conversation with a Marxist sociologist who was taught by Basil Bernstein...fantastic I say. So I hear that he was human with all the conflicts and errors us normal people have. But also that he put into practice through his teaching, his theories. I think its important that these mythical figures get de-constructed and brought down to earth, rather than being placed on a pedestal and worshipped like idols. I think my previous posting might have come across as if I was angry and upset by one person's view on her experience. I realise we all are just seeing the world from our perspective and what this affords us - and before I cast a judgemental gaze I should bear this in mind.

Its late, I've had a bit more too drink than I should have and maybe its time to creep into my bed.

 I went for a lovely walk to the little village just outside the campus - think its called Galgate. While walking back to the campus I had this feeling of contentment that I was able to experience the 'prettiness' of the English countryside and the unique way in which little villages like these exists alongside bustling urban centres but retain their unique and beautiful character. Maybe there is a lesson in that for me...

on being 'marked'

I just need to put this down in words before it slips out of my consciousness. As South African's our research is marked - for being strange and exotic or for not being strange or exotic enough. These are thoughts of LT who did a presentation at the Ethnographies of Academic Literacies seminar I attended on Friday. Today sitting in a session about 'disadvantaged' as a deficit term in SA higher education discourse - I felt marked - in a negative way. I almost thought as if 'we' - meaning all the South African academic's contributing to the discussion, at the almost exclusion of everyone else in the room, were just navel gazing at our 'strangeness' and I wondered if we are as strange as we believe we are. I felt that burden of being marked.

Then another black South African raised the issue of how discussing the notion of 'disadvantaged' reflects so much on her, she was wondering how researching 'disadvantage' might be enhanced by the researcher being 'disadvantaged', so that the 'disadvantaged' persons voice could be heard. She continued, saying that in order for her to become an academic she had to give up a lot of her blackness  (I'm paraphrasing here so probably I'm not fully capturing the essence of her feelings) BUT what I want to say is that my immediate response to her comment, already framed by this overwhelming sense of being 'marked' was - hang on - I'm Black and I've researched 'disadvantage' students - recognise me, or am I not Black enough? Also the argument that only woman, black people, disabled people etc...can research issues affecting this as no theoretical or methodological basis any more.Secondly, I thought, why do you have to give up the one thing to take on something else? Not all Black academics give up their blackness in order to fit into a white academic culture.

To really challenge deficit thinking in HE firstly we have to embrace and recognise the differences that our students bring to the academic context and then we need to help them negotiate the choices and options they have, helping them to understand the different practices that make up the academic environment to the extent that they can, at that moment, of their learning. With choice comes consequences, and choices aren't neutral or equal to everyone, so that is a further layer that we should help students navigate. Education is inherently unequal and its in the interest of the powerful in society that this hegemonic view persists - do we will also have some version of the deficit discourse floating around out there. Its how we choose, if we have the courage, the understanding, the support, the inclination, to confront those discourses - even when they refer to us - that might help us to deal with the 'marking' such discourses ingrain.

Tuesday 20 July 2010

in Lancaster

I arrived this afternoon to a misty and rainy Lancaster. I town I had read about in the seminal Local literacies book published by the almost iconic scholars of the New Literacy Studies. And finally I am in the town and at the university where the concept of literacy as social practice was made real. I'm sorry I didn't plan to stay longer and explore the city which, I was told by the taxi driver driving me to the university, is an old Roman city and has a history of  hanging witches.

I'm at the HECU 5 conference finally and surrounded by fairly large contingent of South Africans mostly from UCT. Its a comforting feeling as I have been missing Cape Town a lot recently. Reminiscing my financial freedom, my comfortable sense of who I was, my uncomplicated connection to my family and my deep sense of belonging. I'm not sure why I've been feeling like this lately - as I was feeling like I was really starting to settle in England and I really don't want to lose this hard earn sense of security in where my life is at the moment. So being surrounded by people who mostly sound like me is good.

The conference so far (its only been half a day) has been...moderate. SS's keynote was excellent, provoking and inspiring in the depth of its theoretization. I came away thinking - goodness I would like to be able to analyse curriculum structures like that - to really understand what underpins curriculum choices and how those choices construct consequences for students, for pedagogy, for staff. Then SS mentioned my paper, my name, my work as a way in which different theories where being brought together to understand practices in HE. I didn't think too much about it, except that - wow maybe people will think I have something profound to say, which I clearly don't think I have. So I guess I am a bit famous here @ HECU 5 and although I worry about the responsibility that comes with it.

The other session I went was...a bit hint-and-miss really. I tried to maintain an open mind but it just didn't say much to me. And I had to tell myself very loudly and clearly : "We are all trying to tell a story and we all think that OUR story has valid and important merits, some of us even think, our  story can change the world, make it a better place"  But its all just a particular story that not everyone will understand or will want to understand anyhow.

Thursday 8 July 2010

on being tired

I'm really tired, its been a super long day and my head is still filled with too many thoughts. What started out as a innocuous little attempt to write a paper for a conference about 2-3 weeks ago has snowballed into some sort of an iron-woman endurance race. My supervisor is involved and getting the paper published is now firmly on the agenda.

So here I am at 11:30 having just sent the powerpoint presentation off for some feedback. The presentation is so rough at the moment and having done it I can see all the cracks and gaping holes. I'm wondering how the hell am I going to fill them in only 10-12 days? Anyway that's a story for another day.

Other thoughts floating around in my head at the moment
- plans for a writers circle at the OU
- sorting out my library books
- the online postgraduate discussion group for the Ethnographies of academic writing seminar happening all of next week
- connecting with my family in South Africa - making time to talk or write
- shopping in the morning
- walking to the OU tomorrow
- the long drive to Stanstead airport
- the folk festival in Woburn Sands this Saturday
- Belly dancing in Monkston on Saturday
- debating my return to Facebook