a good conference?

Yes it was a good conference, an eventful conference especially the finally plenary where I saw a rather renowned academic act like a stupid, spoilt, paternalistic child. What bothered me most is that all of us in the audience put up with his egotistically-inspired tirade - a reflection of the hierarchical nature of academia?; the ideological power of compliance that made us all responsible for ensuring the careful maintenance of 'appropriate' literacy practice?; being polite or simply realising that there was no point in trying to fight fire with fire

Other than the last 30 minutes, the conference was a resounding success for me. I enjoyed Carey Jewitt's keynote although I was hoping she would say more about multimodality theory. I felt she had tempered her arguments to accommodate the linguistic focus of the conference. In many respect her presentation left me wanting more - more of the theoretical insights I found in her papers and especially her recent book. I guess this is always the case - we have such high expectations of the experts or gurus in the field and then feel really disappointed when they seemingly don't deliver against these (maybe unrealistic?) expectations. But I was glad I got to hear her and of course I will be able to recognise her when  she comes to the LiDU seminar series where my colleague and I will be presentation a paper in October.

The conference theme on ways of looking at data meant that I was challenged to think about my own approaches to the data for my research. I found the attention to detail or how Angela Creese puts it, the need to be 'systematic and rigorous' how we go about collecting and analysing data - almost a revelation. Sure I've heard it said before, but if I took anything away from this conference it was the value of being clear about how I want to deal with data.

I'm not a linguistic and I don't intend to do linguistically framed research but I can now appreciate the value of how their approaches simply because I have a better understanding of what they do. I always had this very one-sided view of linguistic-type research (applied linguistics, sociolinguistics and linguistic ethnography) and this conference has helped to shift some of my misunderstandings. I was preoccupied with staking out my claim to 'my own field' and distinguishing it from everyone else that I wasn't aware that this practice was also closing down any opportunities to see the possibilities for connections and synergies. Adrian Blackledge's short input on Bourdieu's notion of distinction and its relation to language provided a serious 'Ah ha!' moment, making it clear how language is a major way in which inequalities are constituted and reinforced.
So my conference experience could certainly be characterized giving me much needed positive exposure to the 'other'. A healthy requirement for any researcher, for anyone, really. Anyone wanting to understand the full complexities of life.

But it wasn't just about the experts - I went to a presentation on the implications of using photography as data by someone who had recently completed her PhD (Olga Solovona). I asked a question about her analysis process, wondering if she had considered multimodality as a way of unpacking the images, rather than foregrounding the interpretations of the image makers as her main analysis strategy. I was really just trying to see if she could offer me some advice about dealing with non-written text and documents - and secondly Carey Jewitt was sitting behind me and I wanted to impress her with my use of the term multimodality...ha ha ha (yeah right!). The presenter found me during the tea break and wanted to know from me if I could offer her any advice as I had sounded so knowledgeable about the possibly analysis processes. How do you like that...the blind being asked to lead the sighted.

Explorations in Ethnography

I'm off to a conference at Ashton University in Birmingham today - in the next hour or so actually. I'm really looking forward to it for some strange reason. Somehow I feel I will be 'entertained' with great and innovative ideas and insights. Feel that is what I need for myself at the moment. Also Carey Jewitt (no photo so how will I recognise her in the crowd?) is the key note speaker today. Anybody, who is anybody working with multimodal data will know who she is. I feel so privileged to be able to see these great scholars - to have almost ready access to them. ML said to me yesterday - oh you must introduce yourself to this one and that one - tell them that you are working with RG and me. I thought yeah right, I'll just walk up to these famous scholars and say - "Hello I'm Lynn from the OU and ML and RG are my supervisors. I find your work really interesting and helpful in helping me understand my research". Not bad for a little girlie from Bridgetown ne!

Well maybe I will - I learn again from Stephen who sees all these events as a step closer to making the right connection that will lead to his dream job. But at a more fundamental level and possibly even more important its just a good opportunity to make valuable personal connections with real people in a very abstracted, almost detached from reality world.

Making assumptions about what might be understood

I've been rewriting my paper so I can send it in for its re-review and part of the process means I need to cut out about 300-500 words (I've managed about 300-400 so far). I was reading through I section where I try to explain how knowledge and practices from the professional domain of web design becomes integrated or recontextualised into the academic environment of the multimedia course. I've been writing about this, in some way or another, since 2006 and used a particular diagram to explain my interpretation of the recontextualisation process. Previously one of my supervisors noted that the diagram was complex, but because I understood it and I had some positive feedback about it from another researcher I didn't think much about it. I used the diagram at Lancaster and struggled to explain it. In Lille I used a much amended version which I felt made a lot more sense and better helped to explain the relationship between the professional field and the academic curriculum of the course. Yesterday I realised again that the diagram needed to be changed and my explanation of this process needed clarification.

I guess I  realised AGAIN (I suspect this will always be part of the writing and learning process) that I make so many assumptions about my explanations about things - I just assume that it makes sense and that others will understand it just like I do. Writing is a process - linked irrevocably to the process of learning, knowledge and trying to make sense of what you are writing about. So it will always be changing and developing as your ideas and thoughts about that 'something' changes.

Original diagram and explanation

I have used recontextualisation theoretically to uncover how knowledge and practices located in the web design field’s professional domain are appropriated into the course curriculum and illustrate this in Figure 1 (above). In the web design field, website production is commonly referred to as web design, although a ubiquitous distinction made in this broad and fluid professional environment by the professional community and the literature in the field, is to differentiate between technical and visual components involved in the production of a website (Nelson, 2009; Krunic et al., 2006; Krug, 2000 and Lynch and Horton, 2001). The visual component involves the framework for the ‘look and feel’ of the website and includes consideration of all graphic and visual elements that make up a website including page layout, navigation, visual hierarchy and colour scheme. Professionals tasked with this component are called ‘web designers’. Web developers on the other hand, work with programming and technical components required to build a functional website. This might include the use of specialist dynamic scripting languages and database programming like PHP, MySQL, Flash, Java and JavaScript. The epistemological differences which underlie the distinctions in the professional environment between web design and development are, I believe, appropriated or recontextualised in particular ways in the course as illustrated in Figure 1. I want to suggest further that how this epistemological distinction is taken up in the course influences how the academic environment is physically and organisational constructed and which academic literacy practices are privileged.

Through the recontextualisation process, the course curriculum reproduces the design/development divide through its subject allocations and content. Considering the subject content of the course, it would appear that, the course is geared towards the development of graduates with more web design competencies, albeit with a strong programming focus. The course therefore inhibits the hybrid space where the two areas overlap. The course further recognises academic success predominantly through the design and production of functional and visually pleasing websites. Described in Bernstein’s terms, the web design field is the field of knowledge production where different kinds of knowledge are produced in professional practice, namely design knowledge and development knowledge. The overlap between the two types of knowledge illustrated in Figure 1 suggests that in the professional practice there is more scope for permeable boundaries to exist. However when recontextualised into the course curriculum, stronger boundaries are set up between these knowledge types. While not subject to empirical evaluation in the research, the professional field of web design can still be seen as performing a regulatory function informing the particular character of the course curriculum.

New version written just yesterday 

I have used recontextualisation theoretically to uncover how knowledge and practices located in the web design field’s professional domain are appropriated and transformed into the course curriculum and illustrate this in Figure 1. In the web design field, website production is commonly referred to as web design, although a ubiquitous distinction made in this broad and fluid professional environment by the professional community and the literature in the field, is to differentiate between technical and visual components involved in the production of a website (Nelson, 2009; Krunic et al., 2006; Krug, 2000 and Lynch and Horton, 2001). The broad field is therefore constituted by two main areas of knowledge and practice, web design and web development, that sit in an uneasy dichotomous relationship with each other. Each component of this relationship is made up of a set of sub-specialist areas; the web design component delineates the tasks associated with the visual aspects of a building a basic website using HTML and style sheets, including the ‘look and feel’ of the site, all the graphic and visual elements including page layout, navigation, visual hierarchy and colour scheme. Typically a professional web designer would inhabit the hybrid space where the two knowledge areas intersect, suggesting basic competency in both the visual and technical components required to produce a functional website. Web developers are defined by their work with complex programming languages (for example specialist dynamic scripting languages and database programming like PHP, MySQL, Flash, Java and JavaScript) and the creation of data bases linked to interactive websites. The epistemological differences which underlie the distinctions in the professional environment between web design and development are, I believe, appropriated and recontextualised in particular ways in the course. I want to suggest further that how this epistemological distinction is taken up in the course influences how the academic environment is physically and organisational constructed and which academic literacy practices are privileged.

Through the recontextualisation process, the course curriculum reproduces the design/development divide in how the subjects are epistemologically differentiated from each other i.e. as either having a design or development focus. This differentiation is further extended with the bulk of the subject content in the four course subjects devoted to technical and programming knowledge. Design based knowledge is only allocated to one subject in the course and when applied to this subject, all technical knowledge and practices evident in the professional domain is removed and allocated to the programming subjects. The course it would appear is geared towards the development of graduates with web design competencies, albeit with a strong programming focus. Academic success in this course recognises academic primarily through the design and production of technically functional and visually pleasing websites. Described in Bernstein’s terms, the web design field is the field of knowledge production where different kinds of knowledge are produced in professional practice, namely design knowledge and development knowledge. The overlap between the two types of knowledge illustrated in Figure 1 suggests that in the professional practice there is more scope for permeable boundaries to exist. However when recontextualised into the course curriculum, stronger boundaries are set up between these knowledge types.

Sunshine (Vitamin D) and human interaction (Social Vitamins)

Sunshine and people seem to make my world go round. I've had two really great uplifting days. All because the sun was out and I had some meaningful human interaction. Maybe that is what I miss most about my 'old' life back home; the sun and the easy access to meaningful human engagement.

Stephen (he signed the consent form and is happy to be 'outed' on this blog) reminded me today that its been two years since he arrived with his family in England. I forgot which day I arrived - think is was around September 22. I do remember leaving my flat in a state - boxes everywhere, the bed still in its place, all my plants on the stoep at front door. I also remember driving back to my flat, from Bridgetown just hours before I got on the plane to London, on the pretence that I have forgotten something, just so I could feel my presence there for the last time. Thinking back to that first year in the UK - on the personal front everything just seemed to go wrong. I just didn't fit, I just couldn't fit, but in a strange way I almost can't remember those really dark times. But I know I've experienced it because I am fundamentally different today because of it.

In a couple of weeks the amount of time I have left in the UK will get progressively shorter than the time already spent here. I would have tipped the balance in favour of a return back to Cape Town. This makes me happy, but also contemplative about my time here. The move to the UK has been such a fundamental event in my life with the impact and consequence having this almost constant rippling effect on how I see the world and my becoming in the world.

Wow - I only wanted to say how good the sun and contact with my friends and colleagues was over these past few days.

kinda melancholy feeling

Its drifting over me and I cant shake it. Its just the abstract nature of this 'thing' I'm doing. I just wish I had somewhere to go everyday where my 'work', my level of productivity could be measured in some tangible way. A place where I didn't always have to think in this concentrated abstract way. Its not that I don't like what I'm doing, but in the absence of anything else, another aspect of life, love, family this seems at times practically meaningless.

I've been thinking today I wish I could blame this melancholy on something - but there isn't anything. It just is and I suspect it will pass.

So I keep myself busy, forcing myself to:- read, tidy my papers, books and files, experiment with data analysis software, make list of things to do, clean the house, cut the grass, make endless cups of tea, try to stay away from Facebook and hope that tomorrow will be better. Hope that once I have data to work with the complexity, challenge and intrigue associated with finding out what is going on in the data will restore my enthusiasm and interest in this thing called research.

Time

Sitting at the window on my flight to Rome I saw all these white fluffy clouds. The wonderfully, big, white puffed out clouds you see in children's animated stories. I imagined myself floating on these white, weightless beauties, and all my troubles and thoughts becoming white, light and weightless just like the clouds.

My trip was beautiful in many ways and equally sad. I felt as if time were this tangible yet intangible thing all at the same time. Amongst the wonders of Rome where the ancient and contemporary sit next to each other like old lovers, deeply comfortable, I allowed time to wash over me. Everything passes - all the joy, happiness, anger, sorrow and hurt - slowly or quickly. Time whether you want it to or not washes over you

I spent Friday night in Sorrento at the birthday party of my oldest friend. Besides my family he is probably the only other person I know that I have had a tangible relationship with for more than 30 years. Reflecting on that now, it's amazing who we once were 32 or so years ago, and what we have become. Could we ever have imagined celebrating a birthday together in Sorrento, Italy? Who we once were and who we have become, who we are becoming...

I decided to take few photographs and just take in the moments, the sights, smells, thoughts and feelings, the time in this country were allowing me to experience and if I forgot them later it would be ok.

Twilight descending on the road towards the Colosseum. The Santi Cosma d Damiano is on the right

Some local children drinking water in the main street of Sorrento

a reassuring supervision

I had a good supervision yesterday. Both my supervisors were able to reassure me that spending 16-20 hours on a 20 minute conference presentation is not an indication that I'm thick and don't know what I am doing; rather it's an indication that I'm working at ensuring that the points I want to make gets across in the most effective way. We also agreed that as you become aware of the social practice of conference presentations the personal stakes become higher - both ML and I were finding that the more we do such presentations, the more anxious we have become about doing them. It was good to know I'm not the only one feeling the pressure of the 'performance' and that all the work I do on my presentations isn't an oddity, it just my unique way of managing this particular social practice.

We also chatted about the work load for the next few months leading up to December. Its going to be busy. I designed a special calendar marking off specific days to do particular tasks...otherwise these activities seem to slide into oblivion. I'm hoping my fancy calendar will help to make concrete all the 'little' tasks I need to do. I also got my grant form signed for my fieldwork in Cape Town - need to book that flight soon!


Writing has come back on the agenda - my plan is to focus on Research Methodology in general and write reviews associated with doing ethnography and approaches to textual analysis. I was somewhat enthused by ML's comment that thematic analysis can be applied to textual artefacts and that because I was collecting texts, this doesn't necessarily mean that I needed to do a particular form of textual analysis. We will have to see how this idea develops over the next couple of months.

Then some good news: 

Thank you for submitting your paper for consideration in the special issue of Higher Education Research and Development (HERD).

I am writing to inform you that J.... C... and I would like you to submit your paper to HERD as part of the special issue.

Isn't this great - I'm still in shock of course as I thought I would be rejected in this first round of selection and review. Now to work on my paper and make the submission. Thanks to SP and his die hard attitude of simply submitting papers that provided the bits of inspiration to just do it! My next submission will go through another blind review process...so we will see, but hell, I'm happy with getting this far.

some retrospective thoughts on Lille

I think the best blogging happens when you record your thoughts as close to an event as possible. Then you get your raw, almost unmediated thoughts and feelings. So many thoughts, insights and ideas have passed through my head since my last entry in Lille but unfortunately they have either drifted away, morphed into something completely different or been replaced by something I now deem more relevant - like the supervision I had today, for example.

Its Monday evening, I'm sitting in bed and I have a serious cold (no temperature thankfully). But I am keen to note down at least a couple of things that still seem to have some currency in my thinking about the conference.

• I liked being in France - even though I don't speak or understand the language. There is something about how people engage with each other on the streets and across class lines, how they talk to each other, make eye contact on the Metro, how they buy bread and smoke in public that is just appealing. Nothing scientific about my observations here - its just how I feel about it. 

Trying to look super chic in Lille

• But I also experienced a sense of real marginalisation during a bilingual session on Friday that had a rather negative impact on my willingness to attend other bilingual sessions. Basically, the presenters didn't provide any English translation for their presentation and continued to speak predominantly in French even when I noted that I needed to have some translation. I experienced first hand how not speaking a language can be a factor that can lead to serious exclusion. It was not a nice feeling.
• My presentation went well, I finished within the prescribed time and my supervisor, who also presented in the same session, was suitably impressed with the progression in my focus since my HECU attempt in July. I got some interesting comments and questions - and an American professor was really bowled over by my accent and kept telling me this whenever she saw me again. Of course she also wanted to know if mine was a 'normal' South African accent, as the South Africans she came across in the States certainly didn't sound like me and I sounded a lot better than they did. Needless to say I didn't bore her with an explanation of how South African accents are markers of race, class, geographical location in the country etc...
• I had some really good, thoughtful and provocative discussions with people working in the general field of academic literacies in the UK. This certainly was the highlight of the conference for me. It allowed me to build relationships with my fellow student colleagues, while engaging with my supervisor and her peers at a really human level. At one point as we were walking back to the metro after the Friday sessions were over, one of us 'students' commented "Half of my bibliography is walking just ahead of us'.
• I also realised AGAIN that things are never what it seems - and gained some insider insight into how one expert views another's work - certainly something you would not catch a glimpse of just by reading their work. I was challenged not to take anything at face value - hard to do when as a student you are exposed to the experts in the field first hand and are just overwhelmed by being able to hear them speak, see them  face-to-face or get introduced to them as a colleague.

Sally, Lynn and Jackie - The OU's 'star' Academic Literacies PhD students - enjoying a small taste of French culture in the streets of Lille.

in a little 'English' bubble

Everyone talks French here and I feel like I'm in a little bubble oblivious of the world outside. Lille seems like a nice town, although haven't seen enough of it - only ventured out for dinner last night.

 Unfortunately I'm staying in student accommodation about 15 minutes from the city and about 3 train stops from where the conference is located. I think I like this idea of not know what everyone else is saying - Its almost like I am being sheltered from the world in a way. Makes me think of all the people coming to a new country where they don't speak the language or all the isiXhosa speakers in Cape Town trying to engage with the dominant and dismissive English world. Now in this situation my English doesn't buy me any power - how sobering!