My head is blank - maybe its the weather (its a blue sky day with some warming sun), maybe I'm feeling some inappropriate solidarity with the celebration of a public holiday in South Africa today, maybe its just a blank head day, today. I can't think and I need to think. I'm trying to restructure my HECU paper for journal publication following the feedback I received from my supervisors last week. I've been reading more articles this past week trying to get at some of the 'underdeveloped' areas in the paper, but I had to stop and just put my thoughts to paper. Now I can't see where the hell this paper is going and what the hell I want to say anyway. I'm going home now, maybe some distance will help create some clarity.
I'm going 'on leave' from Wednesday for just under a week so I need to make some serious progress otherwise this incompleteness will threathen to ruin my little bit of holiday. Nothing like a deadline to get the intellectual juices flowing...or not!
Monday, 9 August 2010
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
African blue skies
Walking to the OU this morning I was overcome with the heaviness of the grey cover above me - a small sliver of blue tried hopelessly to make its presence felt. Its been almost four week since the sun and blue sky went away. It hasnt been raining but its just grey, grey, grey. It's the grey skies that's most depressing thing about living in England for me. It forms this oppressive greyness blank that feels like its closing in on you and you can't escape.
Casting aside the depressive clouds - I feel rather light this morning, today. A sense that I can deal with whatever change I encounter. I also accepted today that even when you make a decision, one which you know is the right one, you still get haunted by feelings of doubt and uncertainty - as if your body and soul still need to adjust to the decision your brain has already made. So it takes a while for you - the whole you - to get comfortable and committ to the idea. I often struggle with this liminal period - after I've taken a decision, even when I know its the right one - its like I'm having mini fights inside me, with contesting views and contradictory feelings and actions almost surfacing unconsciously. Why am I saying all of this then? Well things are changing in my life and I'm working through those changes and little by little I'm getting used to a future that is very different than my present.
Blog written, now on to the serious business of the day - discussion about the format of the online post-graduate forum, supervision meeting notes to compile, revisiting my paper for publication (yes this is now firmly on the agenda and my supervisors gave me some insightful feedback and encouragement yesterday) and reading a couple of pages from Multimodality - a social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. Sounds like an exciting day.
Casting aside the depressive clouds - I feel rather light this morning, today. A sense that I can deal with whatever change I encounter. I also accepted today that even when you make a decision, one which you know is the right one, you still get haunted by feelings of doubt and uncertainty - as if your body and soul still need to adjust to the decision your brain has already made. So it takes a while for you - the whole you - to get comfortable and committ to the idea. I often struggle with this liminal period - after I've taken a decision, even when I know its the right one - its like I'm having mini fights inside me, with contesting views and contradictory feelings and actions almost surfacing unconsciously. Why am I saying all of this then? Well things are changing in my life and I'm working through those changes and little by little I'm getting used to a future that is very different than my present.
Blog written, now on to the serious business of the day - discussion about the format of the online post-graduate forum, supervision meeting notes to compile, revisiting my paper for publication (yes this is now firmly on the agenda and my supervisors gave me some insightful feedback and encouragement yesterday) and reading a couple of pages from Multimodality - a social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. Sounds like an exciting day.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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
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
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
Making a strategic choice
I've just sent my HECU paper away for review. I've been scratching my head with it for the past week - fumbling over what to do with the data, how to make the data tell my story, having doubts about the story I wanted to tell, etc, etc, etc...Proves the point that translating research from a dissertation or thesis into a short paper is not as simple as cutting and pasting across documents.
I'm not altogether happy with what I currently have, but its not going to get any better with me fussing over words and sentences. Its time for fresh eyes and experienced insights to provide some direction, that will be helped along with some much needed breathing space, allowing me to think constructively about what exactly I want to say and how I can say it better.
I'm not altogether happy with what I currently have, but its not going to get any better with me fussing over words and sentences. Its time for fresh eyes and experienced insights to provide some direction, that will be helped along with some much needed breathing space, allowing me to think constructively about what exactly I want to say and how I can say it better.
Thursday, 24 June 2010
writing...again
I'm coming to accept that writing is going to be a protracted exercise for me. Its a long, confusing, agonising and frustrating process - until you work out exactly what it is you want to say and how you want to say it. The first draft is the worse part. And in this I am my own worse enemy because I want everything to be right, first time and it can never be.
Everyone has there own way of doing 'it', and I also think you develop strategies to cope with the process when it gets sticky. I need to finish a paper for the Higher Education Close Up 5 conference happening in late July by early next, so I can get some feedback on the paper too. A thought did cross my mind; once I've written this paper I should do something with it - like send it to a journal or something? I'm a bit nervous and scared by that prospect. Let me think about it more and see what my kind reviewers think of the work and then see if I can handle more impersonal critique from the not-so-kind peer journal reviewers.
Everyone has there own way of doing 'it', and I also think you develop strategies to cope with the process when it gets sticky. I need to finish a paper for the Higher Education Close Up 5 conference happening in late July by early next, so I can get some feedback on the paper too. A thought did cross my mind; once I've written this paper I should do something with it - like send it to a journal or something? I'm a bit nervous and scared by that prospect. Let me think about it more and see what my kind reviewers think of the work and then see if I can handle more impersonal critique from the not-so-kind peer journal reviewers.
Tuesday, 22 June 2010
Graduation OU style
My niece Claire and I graduated today. It was a short but interesting ceremony. The doctoral and PhD candidates went first and the person congratulating them (not the Chancellor or Vice Chancellor) spoke to each candidate in turn and they had to point out their supervisors sitting on the stage. The MRes candidates went directly after the MPhil students. Clearly, there is a hierarchy at play at the OU - the more prestigious research focused degrees are given the necessary priority (said with a touch of sarcasm). And because of this hierarchy they read out my dissertation title. Wow! Did I feel special - never happened to me before.
The ceremony proceeded in a very personable manner, almost every candidate who walked the stage was engaged in a small little chat and from time to time the whole audience was told of the special journey the candidate had taken to get their very special OU degree - highlighting the ethos of the OU as a truly open university aimed at recognising these different paths people often take to get a higher education, but emphasising the principle that higher education is open to everyone irrespective who or what you are.
But then reflecting on the various research titles pronounced today, I realised that mine was probably one of maybe two, three, that foregrounded the geographical and therefore contextual location of the research. What does that mean? What am I trying to signal very clearly through the South African in the titling of my research (I'm doing it again for my PhD and for most of my conference presentations this year)?
I have always been clear that I want to make a contribution to South African knowledge building, my work must be recognisable as South African in how it describes the research environment and by its holistic depictions of the South African realities, coming from someone who understands, engages and appreciates the complexities of that context; I don't want to be a researcher that exploits my South African data without being sensitive to the impact and impressions that the data and my interpretations of that data might have on the very real people who are the data.
I am reminded of an almost serendipitous Skype chat I had yesterday where I was made aware, at a more critical and meta-level than I am alluding to above, of the possible double edged sword quality of ethnographic research: While it foregrounds the local contextual realities, it also marks that very localness as something other than normal. So while I might want to clearly distinguish my research for its South Africaness - it might also be marked in ways that aren't necessarily positive or in ways that run counter to what my intentions are. Suggesting quite rightly, that how the contextual realities of my South African research is perceived is completely outside of my control.
The ceremony proceeded in a very personable manner, almost every candidate who walked the stage was engaged in a small little chat and from time to time the whole audience was told of the special journey the candidate had taken to get their very special OU degree - highlighting the ethos of the OU as a truly open university aimed at recognising these different paths people often take to get a higher education, but emphasising the principle that higher education is open to everyone irrespective who or what you are.
But then reflecting on the various research titles pronounced today, I realised that mine was probably one of maybe two, three, that foregrounded the geographical and therefore contextual location of the research. What does that mean? What am I trying to signal very clearly through the South African in the titling of my research (I'm doing it again for my PhD and for most of my conference presentations this year)?
I have always been clear that I want to make a contribution to South African knowledge building, my work must be recognisable as South African in how it describes the research environment and by its holistic depictions of the South African realities, coming from someone who understands, engages and appreciates the complexities of that context; I don't want to be a researcher that exploits my South African data without being sensitive to the impact and impressions that the data and my interpretations of that data might have on the very real people who are the data.
I am reminded of an almost serendipitous Skype chat I had yesterday where I was made aware, at a more critical and meta-level than I am alluding to above, of the possible double edged sword quality of ethnographic research: While it foregrounds the local contextual realities, it also marks that very localness as something other than normal. So while I might want to clearly distinguish my research for its South Africaness - it might also be marked in ways that aren't necessarily positive or in ways that run counter to what my intentions are. Suggesting quite rightly, that how the contextual realities of my South African research is perceived is completely outside of my control.
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