Eggs and the Technology/Aesthetics Divide in Qualitative Research

This morning when I was working on my journal, I came up with an image for how I conceptualize the technology/aesthetics divide in qualitative research history.  This image is tied to the ideas in the Chapter that I've written (with Silvana diGregorio) on the history and future of qualitative computing for the Handbook on Qualitative Research (Denzin and Lincoln, 4th ed.  coming out soon).  This chapter compares Denzin and Lincoln's 8 moments in qualitative research with the stages we identified in the development of qualitative computing. 

I am thinking of the first two moments--emergence of qualitative research and its solidification in the golden age--as the period when the egg was still whole.  Hence this image:

This period makes up about the first 75 years of qualitative research.  It represents the period before computer-based or digital technology use in qualitative research.

Then, in the early 70's...the eggs broke.  Qualitative computing begins AND the reflexive moment, post-modernism, and a new understanding of the social justice issues in qualitative research come to light.

Yep...this represents the last quarter of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century in qualitative research. 

As we move solidly into the 21st century, I am hoping that these broken eggs are going to be cooked, meaning that qualitative research will be able to take advantage of the numerous strands of thought that divided in the last quarter century.  In my talk at Bogazici University I referred to this as the Technology/Aesthetics divide in qualitative research. 

 This is where I hope it is going--the cooked egg, something that causes the cracked egg to cohere and create a new form for itself.  I've been calling this new thing "Transactional Inquiry". 

I'll be talking about issues related to these concerns at the upcoming International Congress on Qualitative Inquiry. 

Brilliant Bruce Retirement Bash

I spent the last few days in Champaign, Illinois partaking in what I will refer to as the Brilliant Bruce Retirement Bash.  This was a gathering of diverse individuals with a common reference point--Bertram (Chip) Bruce.  The actual day of the celebration was Saturday, September 25, 2010. 


There were 12 papers/offerings/poems.  They ranged from Patrick Berry's (English  Dept, University of Illinois) discussion of teaching and learning about writing in prisons to Lisa Boullion Diaz's (Extension, University of Illinois) description of the work Chip did in the Chicago neighborhoods.  Kevin Leander (Vanderbilt University) used "Chipscope" a take off on the inquiry work on chicks for which Chip is known.  Allan Collins (Northwestern University), a long time colleague of Chip's back to the days at Bolt, Baranak, and Newman, shared some research on the processes of experts.




There were eloquent tributes from Ching-Chiu Lin (Teacher Education Office, University of British Columbia)  in Vancouver (connecting by Skype), Leo Casey of the National College of Ireland--who had flown in for the event and talked of Chip's work as a Fulbright Scholar in Dublin, and Geoffrey Bokwer from the University of Pittsburgh.

My talk was titled "Bruce's Magnificent Quartet: Inquiry, Community, Technology, and Literacy--Implications for Renewing Qualitative Research in the 21st century."   A pretty heft title for a paper that is still in evolution.  I appreciated the opportunity to think more with what has been evolving in my mind about the historical reasons for technology resistance in anthropology and sociology.  I feel like I have taken another step forward in my arguments about technology and aesthetics. 

As would be in keeping with any discussion of Chip Bruce, the name "John Dewey" kept arising in different contexts.  There is always so much more one can learn about Dewey!  



There will be a volume coming out of these papers and others written by people who could not attend.  It will  be exciting to see the different links that surround and intersect through this amazing individual--Chip Bruce.  I can only offer my thanks for the opportunity to be part of his scholarly journey.  

Bruce and Bishop: New Literacies and Community Inquiry

I have just had the opportunity to read Bertram (Chip) Bruce and Ann Bishop's chapter for the New Literacies Handbook "New Literacies and Community Inquiry".  Sorry I can't give you a better reference than that. 

It is typical Bruce, in that it, in a careful (and yet seemingly effortless manner) he (and Ann) take the reader on a gentle journey reflecting in great depth upon Dewey's contributions to our world and expanding our understanding about literacy, technology, community and the meaning of inquiry.  I always marvel when I read one of his pieces--How does he do it? 

The opening paragraph really says it all.  Chip and Ann--I have to quote it!

Community inquiry research focuses on people participating with others, on the lived experiences of feel, thinking, acting, and communicating.  It sees literacy as part of living in the world, not simply as a skill to be acquired in the classroom.  Inquiry is central, because as people live, they encounter challenges.  Through inquiry, people recognize a problem, mobilize resources, engage actively to resolve it, collaborate, and reflect on the experience.  Making sense of experience in this way, and doing so in concert with others in embodied historical circumstances, is fundamental to learning.

While Dewey is central to the story, Chip and Ann have also turned to Jane Adams (a contemporary of Dewey) as a complimentary pragmatic voice.  Reading this piece and talking to their colleague Jeanne Connell (also at the University of Illinois) who is doing work in Adams and educational philosophy, I am convinced that I have to read more about Adams soon. 

From a very person perspective, I am asking myself--what are the implications of this piece and its focus on community inquiry for my teaching and my research? 

1.  It takes me back to work I did with Sarah Kuhn on Thinking with Things in Qualitative Research...and the question of:  How do researchers, particularly qualitative researchers, appropriate technologies for their work?
2.   How does apprenticeship in qualitative research serve as a form of technology itself, one that defines the ways technologies of research will be encountered?  How does this apprenticeship establish the rules of technology useage?  As researchers mature, how do they appropriate technology?
3.  How do classes serve as communities of inquiry?  Are we providing good thorny problems of civic value?  How does coursework engage students as democratic communities engaged in understanding problematic concerns?
4.  How might Chip and Ann's discussion of technology as lived experience serve me in thinking about the technologies of qualitative research?

Chip--as always, it's been a good read!

Higher Education Financial Woes

Image via Wikipedia

I received an unsettling email this week.  It was from the Chancellor of the University of Illinois in Champaign-Illinois--directed to University of Illinois alums.  Here's the opening paragraph:

Dear University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Alumni:
Due to an excessive delay in the payment of our appropriation by the State of Illinois and uncertainty over what lies ahead, your university is facing unprecedented fiscal challenges. In the coming weeks and months, we will be taking a critical look at all aspects of our campus operations, re-examining everything from our administration to small academic units assembled years ago to meet specific needs. An extensive review process will underwrite each decision we make, and every decision will be strategic - designed to transform your university to meet the challenges of the future.

I had heard about the Illinois fiscal woes in other news media--the state hadn't paid bills for six months and agencies with shallow pockets were closing down programs  because they couldn't pay for staff and other services.  But this email brought it home.  I had never received a message like this in the years I've been an alum and thought that the circumstances must be dire indeed. 

If I can send one message out to the world, it is:  FUND EDUCATION!!  Give more, not less.  Don't let institutions like this falter.

As I went on to think about this plea, I thought about the concluding phrase "...designed to transform your university to meet the challenges of the future."  My interest in QDAS and QDAS 2.0 has given me opportunity to give a lot of thought to where technology might be taking education.  

The university of the 20th century was a thing of bricks and mortar (note the photo above).  You think back to the grounds, the buildings, and the trees.  The university of the 21st century is going to be much more diffuse, located in multiple virtual settings as well as physical settings. 

I imagine that the 21st century university will include:

• Much more online learning and virtual experiences
• Far more emphasis on personal learning plans; and the individual clustering of personal tool kits for learning
• More individual competency and performance assessments, coupled with group standardized assessment for baseline information

These changes are going to require teachers who are flexible, knowledgeable, and CONSTANTLY retooling.  I think that the spatial and temporal structures of higher education will be significantly restructured.  We see the first stages of this now.  

The struggles of the University of Illinois are going to be the struggles of all in higher education.  I have no idea of how it will come out in the end.