feeling sorry for myself

Its Saturday morning, the sky is blue, the sun is out and the trees outside look an inviting burnt orange and yellow. But I'm feeling oh so sorry for myself. I've had some dental surgery done - an apicoectomy to be precise, but I wont share a link on this because you need a good constitution to bear looking at the images or reading about the procedure. I had one done when I was like 22, but I don't remember it being eventful at all. I suspect when we are younger, we deal with pain and minor irritations in a different way. The recovery isn't that bad, I have some swelling in my face and lots of irritation inside my mouth, but no pain to speak of. But eating and talking seems to make things worse. So overall its not that painful. However in a strange way I keep tracing the roots of all this trouble - my desire to improve the aesthetics of my smile. I lay in bed at  3am last night thinking, why the hell did I make those (now seemingly) stupid, shallow decisions that has brought me to the place where I am now - irritated by the discomfort, wondering if the procedure will work and if it doesn't, what I might do if I lose the tooth. A tooth that was perfectly normal, healthy a mere 3 years ago when I started to disturb its finely balanced equilibrium. The price we pay for dabbling in the material and aesthetic. Of course my rational and spiritually connected self (does this imply a contradiction here!) keeps saying - it will work out, and if it doesn't its not the end of the world, there will be a solution and in the grand scheme of things its only a freaking front tooth. So I'm trying to allow my ego to gain some perspective. 


Feeling sorry for myself, I haven't looked at work since lunch time Thursday, choosing instead to stay rooted to the couch in front of the telly, but feeling somewhat uneasy about it. Anyway life is a strange, but equally wonderful experience and sometimes I think our brains and certainly our egos don't allow us to fully enjoy and appreciate its wonders (good and bad); All we do is worry, be hard on ourselves, stress disproportionately about tomorrow and focus on the negative and surface level issues that cross our paths. Ok this is my philosophical reflection for the month, maybe it will help me get over feeling sorry for myself and go outside into the sun.

I don't want a blank page

For the past three weeks I have been exploring ethnography as it relates to my research. I'm not doing an ethnography in the anthropological sense, of trying to immerse myself in a community for a couple of months/years in the hope of understanding and documenting their cultural practices. I am however trying to use ethnographic principles to inform my research methodology. Over these past three weeks I've been trying to establish to what extent I want to embrace this notion of ethnographic. I've discovered it's a rather complex thing, because, ethnographic, if you are really serious about it, implies taking a very specific ontological and epistemological position about the nature of the world and how we construct understandings about it. And forgive me here because I do struggle with what exactly ontological means - I can use it in a sentence, but don't ask me to explain it.
The major issue of course is that ethnographic, particularly in contemporary anthropological and sociological terms, requires the researcher to abandon the notion of objective research and embrace a subjective, interpretative realm of knowledge construction, along considering the researcher as integral part of research. In many respects such interpretative views embrace a post modern epistemological positioning, clearly distancing itself from its methodological roots in naturalism and positivism that sought to accurately capture true 'reality' through observation. Anyway all of this philosophical posturing has done my head in, and even though I'm not completely confident about my ability to articulate the strengths and weakness of the approach, I'm fairly confident now in making a decision about how much of the ethnographic I want to embrace. Careful of course not to see my methodological standpoint (flirting seriously in realivist territory ) clash with my theoretical frameworks i.e. my structuralists leanings -  via Bernstein (suggesting a post realist inclination). My supervisor in her infinite wisdom said to me last week when I was rambling on about this - 'Don't worry Lynn, your'e not doing an ethnography, wont be expected to account for all this philosophical distinctions, so don't have to concern yourself about this too much.'

But, but, but...I don't want to start with a blank page, so I've been trying to capture at this time and place (i.e. context) my understandings of the ethnographic perspective I want to use in my research.  I have about 1700 words and as I typed it up over the past two days I realised its a bit crap, needing some serious reworking. But at least its not a blank page - its a spring board to a more coherent, thoughtful, considered understanding of how I hope to incorporate the ethnographic into my research methodology. An understanding that will only be enhanced once I get my hands dirty in the field. This is my plan, anyway.

life on a mission

Its official - 7 weeks to go before I move out of 21 Bardsey Court. Well maybe it will be 5 weeks before I move out of 21 Bardsey Court - depends on my landlord and whether he needs me to be out by December 1. Either way I'm getting my arse into gear to make this transition as smooth as possible. Hopefully nothing as traumatic as my move from Hilchama.

I have a lot to do - need to pack up here in England, prepare for fieldwork and make plans and firm up arrangements for my 6 month stay in Cape Town. Started a de-clutter today and need to organise myself so that I can start selling off stuff via the OU intranet. Unfortunately there isn't a very robust second hand furniture market here - people just go to Ikea and get whatever they want new. If you sell anything second hand you have to sell it cheap, cheap. But I'm positive that I can recoup some of the money I spent to get this place furnished. In a strange way I feel positive about all these arrangements - I'm moving forward, being proactive, so its all good.

reflection on teaching and learning

Yesterday I participated in the OU academic literacies forum. Basically a discussion group for students and their supervisors who are working in the general area of academic literacies research. We were discussing the Lea and Street(1998, 2006) models of writing in higher education. A lot of the time we were discussing its implications for pedagogy and its incorporation into teaching and learning practices. Then later in the evening I was chatting online to a really old student of mine. His promotional video for Cape Town is a finalist in The My Cape Town competition. He was sort of crediting me for developing his script writing ability, way back in 2001 when I first starting teaching on the Multimedia technology course. My only reaction was embarrassment, because honestly I really didn't know what the hell I was doing then. Through the years I have seen my ex-student excel in their professional lives and really become experts in their field. Of course this makes me very proud, but I do wonder if this was through any help from me.

I don't remember being a very humanist lecturer and teacher - yes I professed to be this kind of teacher, and took my teaching very seriously. I was committed to being accountable, professional, always seeking new ways to enhance the learning experience, always challenging my student to do more, be more, think me and never accept second best for their work. But I was hard, really hard - in my critique of their work, in the expectations I set for them, and not tolerating anything but their best effort in everything they submitted for assessment. My main motivation for such behaviour was my own interpretation of how I could challenge deficit discourses about students, especially 'disadvantaged' students in higher education. I always saw all my students, anyone who gained entry into the course, as being able to succeed in the course and succeed in industry. I was my responsibly to help them succeed.  But my drive was also to ensure that they were tough and could withstand any assault from anyone who looked down at them because they chose to come to Pentech or couldn't get into a 'proper' university or simply because they were black. I wanted them to feel self assure, confident that they were worthy and could match anyone out there - that their background would not determine their future. So I was hard and expected nothing but excellent work from them.

My reflections on my own teaching practice yesterday made me think how I could have done it better - how I would never want to do what I did over those 8 years at Multimedia (and especially those first 3 years) AGAIN. I mentioned at the meeting yesterday a point which I firmly believe - any golden ideals about being a teacher that encourages students to learn are thrown out the window, when you make that same teacher assess that learning against criteria that can never really accurately capture the complexity of learning. And here I am talking about all the things that have almost nothing to do with a person's cognitive ability to learn something new. I'm talking about issues of epistemology; i.e. notions of what counts as knowledge within the discipline, within the profession, within the department, within a particular subject area, for the lecturer, for the student, for the student's family etc... - all the social, power and ideological processes that impact, shape and contort what is meant by knowledge and how it is meant to be demonstrated. I think my heart was in the right place - I saw in each of my students the possibly to learn something new and for that learning to act as a catalyst for new, positive things, as they determined it. But...somehow I wish, now, I could have been more mindful of all the obstacles they would need to overcome in order to make such an ideal a reality and I wish I could have fulfilled a more supportive role - rather than being so driven by my own ambitions to prove society wrong.

The old and the new

I moved office about a month ago and I'm starting to feel the slight dislocation from my previous practically perfect 'official' working space. I was very 'open' to the move even though I knew it would be to a larger more open-plan working space (housing 15 students). In the old 'office' 6 of us actually did share an office with a door that closed and everything. Our comings and goings were more predicable and there were times when I could be all alone in the office for days on end. Also I had a view - I could watch the comings and goings of the university as they went to and from The Hub (the biggest staff diner on campus).
But the cracks in our new little space are beginning to show - a clash of practices between those of us used to a more carefree and accommodating stance on noise levels and movement and who generally use our official working desk as a secondary location for our academic activities, and those who use the space as their primary working area and are more used to whispering and hushed tones. I think it will work itself out - eventually.

My old desk with view of the staff diner in distance.

My new desk - with view of the wall, and two people on either side of me. Luckily I have one friendly neighbour who enjoys being a great distraction engaging me in long chats about English history, the HE system and whatever else takes our fancy .

I'm back on a mission (thankfully getting some enthusiasm back) - reading around the notion of ethnography (yes, again) and had this brilliant idea just as I got out of bed this morning - wouldnt it be cool to be a PhD student doing an autoethnography on my own PhD? Ouch! maybe not - too much self reflection and reflexivity, but a cool idea nonetheless. Any takers?

seminars and things

The Literacy in the Digital University seminar thing happened on Thursday and Friday. Some general impressions:

1) When you give people internet access at a conference they are going to use it - I was amazed or rather shall I say disgusted that so many participants (even on of the keynoters) were answering e-mails, checking Facebook, tweeting, checking the London underground maps etc...while presenters were up there trying to tell us about their worthy research. What does it really mean to be a participant at a conference?
2) I am just amazed at the opportunities I've been given to be part of really interesting debates about research methodologies - I just find here in the UK that people are so attuned to unpacking their methodologies and searching for ways to do things better. And Ethics...I don't think I even knew what this word meant in relation to research until I got here. A big issue at the seminar was the extent to which the researcher is responsible for consent issues in internet/online based research, especially when participants say they aren't really bothered about consent for example.  Another issue is how traditional principles of research are being challenged within the digital environment, with traditional methodologies (especially on the issue of ethics) struggling to keep up with the pace of change. We seems to be applying traditional approaches to these digital environments with an obvious gap developing.
3) I just find it fascinating that I can sit in a room with Mary Hamilton, David Barton, Candice Satchwell, Carey Jewitt etc...and engage in a conversation about research in and with the digital. This seminar was very inclusive as they ran parallel workshop sessions that everyone got to attend and this allowed me to discuss my research inadvertently with Mary Hamilton. I didn't want to appear like a groupie and say "Oh I love your work, its so great to finally see you in person". Although I did take on 'the groupie' persona yesterday when I was asked to escort some participants to their taxi pick-up-spot and found myself walking alongside David Barton. Restoring my faith in all things human, Mary Hamilton said a personalised goodbye to me, meaning that she had actually registered me and my presence.
4) I'm not that great at doing the conference small-talk-networking thing (I've said this before). Although when I'm by myself - i.e. without colleagues I know, I tend to push myself a bit more to engage with people and strike up conversations.


ON THE PRESENTATION
I was surprised at how calm I was about the whole presentation thing on Thursday - right up until I had to do the darn thing. But it went down well - I however worried about my accent, my vocabulary, my pronunciation, about the fact that I had scripted the whole thing and so it might not sound fluid and spontaneous, and that I was marking myself as South African and therefore deserving of some special treatment or 'uniqueness' factor (ironic since my presentation was struggling over this very idea).

My presentation was a joint bill with a colleague of mine SB, who is using facebook as a research tool. I went first and she followed, with the question and answer session happening right at the end of both our presentations. So I was slightly nervous when during the Q&A session nobody asked me any questions - sure your rational mind reassures you that people only remember what they last heard and that's why they aren't asking you questions, and its not because they found your ideas completely ludicrous and cant possibly find anything intelligent to say to you - but of course life isnt all about being rational. HOWEVER after a dry 5 minutes I got some really interesting and challenging questions which I answered in a sort-of-ok way. Overall the feedback was positive - colleagues (and supervisor) saying the presentation was good, that I was coherent and clear, although TL hit the hammer on the nail by saying I was incorporating many layers of issues that weren't always clear all the time. This I know - but I was glad I was able to articulate my idea, even though they are still rather rough and in need refinement.

in images not words

Maybe these images will tell you more about my Swedish visit than my words

Stockholm castle from one of the little islands in its archipelago 

outside the museum of modern art

on a bright autumn day in Stockholm

upside down view of autumn in uppsala from the comfort of a warm home

the current state of play

This is what it currently comes down to...A little e-mail I wrote to my supervisors yesterday sums it all up

I’m about 3 weeks behind in my schedule and won’t be able to meet the deadline I set for next week i.e. a written review of ethnographic methodologies as they apply to my study. I don’t think I can do it justice in the time I have available. I would like to suggest that at our meeting next week I provide a very rough overview of what I’ve been reading, highlighting salient areas that might be interesting/useful for my research, while suggesting areas that require further attention.

I’m sure that I’ll be able to make up this lost time over the next couple of months running up to the December break.

I havent had a response yet...BUT today its day one of the LiDU seminar and my presentation.

what can one say in 12 minutes?

I've just found out that I will only have 12 minutes for my presentation next week. What the hell am I meant to say in 12 minutes? It doesn't help that I haven't done much by the way of preparation for this presentation - I have a mind map that outlines my ideas, but that's it at this point. Knowing that I will hardly have any time to explain anything meaningful or develop my argument is certainly putting a damper on my enthusiasm and inclination put my mind to this task...shame!

so distracted

I'm trying to formulate my ideas for a presentation I have to do next week. I suspect that the conception of my initially ideas for the presentation were 'fragmented' at best (and here I'm being kind). As a result I can't find the common thread holding my ideas together. To help me I started reading some theorisation around discourses of the African self (thanks LT for engaging me in some mental gymnastics where my brain is screaming "ouch! man I cant freaking do this"). Goodness me - what a distraction - I am being challenging to rethink 1)notions of race, especially the notion of black as being different or in opposition to white, 2)notions of 'African' as being victimized, a wounded subject and culturally unique, 3) how discourses of Africa have always attempted to preserve notions of difference and 4) importantly how the idea of Africaness defined as anything other than black is almost unthinkable. Of course too much of the argument is way above my intellectual ability to understand - although I am imagining a space where I could be part of a reading group debating the arguments being outlined in this paper by Achille Mbembe. How cool would that be?

Anyway onto issues that relate directly to me - well the reason I read the paper in the first place was because I was trying to understand this idea of representation in ethnographic research (again another idea planted in my head by LT - I went to see Inception last night and am now imagining that my brain must have implanted with these crazy ideas because I certainly couldn't have come up with them myself ).

So my thinking about representation in research writing goes - Is there is a way to ensure that the writers meaning is maintained when a text travels from one context to another? How to avoid a decontextualised reading of ones research without 'othering' the context i.e. thus not buying into the idea that research about Africa has to capitalise on its difference to the West to make it interesting or valuable ? Anyway - the idea has been planted, it hasn't come to fruition yet - I suspect it will be one of those ideas that are best left to developed over time - a long time. And still I haven't gotten any closer to resolving my distractions.

Openness

I'm sitting in a flat in Uppsala Sweden working on a paper for journal submission. It seems I've been working on this paper forever and I guess I have. I cut it down by 300-400 words on Friday. I enlisted the help of my good friend and colleague who is obviously the master of writing short concise direct academic prose (can one say prose?!). I suspect if he had a look at what I considered a cut down version of my paper he would see loads of potential for even more succinct phrases and sentences. But I'm happy anyway. 

I've been experiencing the 'open learning' philosophy espoused by my current university - you don't need a classroom to learn. No all you need is a computer and internet connection and the world is your learning oyster. So for the next week it will be Uppsala - a renowned academic or university town. I've also celebrated (wrong word really because it just passed almost unnoticed except for the 2.5% or so increase in my salary on 1 October) the half way mark of my current academic journey. In a strange way I'm preparing for the beginning of the end and realise that until my fieldwork starts things will pretty much be rather 'easy' and 'relaxed'. 

But the beginning of the end has also brought up thoughts about...so what then? What will happen when I finish this thing? Where will I be and who will I be? At the moment I feel as if I have no identify - everyone around seems so clear about who they are and what they are doing. Me...well its seems I am just open, open to whatever might come my way. Really? No, not really.