Visual Memos Again...The Family History Memo

 Visual Memos Again...and again...and again...

As I have been wandering through my stored images, I realized that I had another visual memo to add to the collection I've already put on the blog (at least I think I haven't shared it before).  This one was created early in the work on the Journal Project.  Actually I think it was produced during the Fall 2008 Qualitative Research course where we were all getting on board with autoethnography and arts-based research. 

This memo examines my early life, describing the experience of growing up in the particular household into which I was born.  I'll forgo commentary. 

International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry: 2011!

Image via WikipediaIt's that time again and I am getting ready to head to Champaign, Illinois for the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry. 

I will be taking part in two activities:

1.  An Arts Exhibition!!!   The Exhibition related to my Journal Project will be up for two days (Friday and Saturday, May 20th and May 21st) in Illini Room B.  I will be giving a "gallery talk" on Friday from 3:30 to 5:00 pm. 


2.  A panel organized by Liora Bresler of the University of Illinois:  Saturday, May 21st
134997  Issues in Arts in Qualitative Research
11:00-12:20 131 English
Chair: Liora Bresler, University of Illinois
Conceptualizing Arts-based Research as Relational Practice, Donal O’Donoghue, University of British Columbia

Contact Improvisation and Lingering Caress in Arts Based Research, Liora Bresler, University of Illinois

The Ethics of Self and Other in Arts-Based Research, Petula Ho Sik Ying, The University of Hong Kong

Technology and Arts-based Research: The Question of Aesthetics within Qualitative Research, Judith Davidson, University of Massachusetts-Lowell

Discussant, Johnny Saldana, Arizona State University

Look forward to being there! 

International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry...May at the University of Illinois

Image by Jeffrey Keefer via FlickrI have two program pieces accepted for the Seventh Annual International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry.  It will be held in May at the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois. 

Here is a description of what I will be doing:

7^th Annual International Congress on Qualitative Inquiry

University of Illinois—Champaign, Illinois

Thursday May 19-Saturday May 21, 2011

Friday May 20 and Saturday May 21

Illini Room B: 

Art Exhibition:  The Journal Project:  An Interactive Exhibit Bringing Together Arts, Technology, and Qualitative Research

This exhibit explores the split between technology and the arts in qualitative research.  In this study, 18 months of personal journals were analyzed in qualitative data analysis software and through arts-based approaches.  In the exhibit, social science posters mix with fiber arts (felt and multi-media pieces) to create a multi-dimensional approach to data analysis.  The goal is to demonstrate the strengths of both methods of interpretation and the ways we can learn from their interactions.  

Gallery Talk:  Friday 3:30 pm

Judith Davidson, Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts-Lowell

Issues and Practices in Arts-based Research

Chair: Liora Bresler

Participants: Donal O'Donoghue, Liora Bresler, Petula Ho Sik Ying, Judy Davidson

Discussant: Johnny Saldana

Overview:

Arts-based inquiry is based on the notion that the processes and the products of arts can contribute significantly to research. The concept of arts-based research (ABR) as a methodology, generated in the early 90s, grew and expanded rapidly, spawning distinct genres and communities. This panel examines various approaches under the umbrella of ABR, focusing on the concepts of relational practice, embodied inquiry, and ethics of self and others involved in documentary films. Presentations will also discuss the practices of cultivation of “habits of body/mind” for intensified engagement in conducting the research, and qualitative data analysis software involved in ABR.

Technology and Arts-based Research:  The Question of Aesthetics within Qualitative Research

Judith Davidson, University of Massachusetts-Lowell

One University Avenue . Lowell, MA 01854 .

Qualitative data analysis software (QDAS) has been available to qualitative researchers since the early 1980’s, but few qualitative researchers have made use of it in relationship to arts-based research approaches.  Not only have qualitative researchers using arts-based approaches shunned the use of QDAS tools, but the general consent within the field has been that the use of these technologies for the conduct of qualitative research, would necessarily be an unaesthetic experience.  Drawing upon my Journal Project (a study of my personal journals that employs QDAS and arts-based approaches), the work of Mark Johnson (philosophy of aesthetics) and Liora Bresler (aesthetics of qualitative research), I seek to develop an alternative perspective that joins technology and arts-based research in qualitative research through a grounding in the notion of aesthetics.  In this way I hope to develop a discussion that will allow qualitative researchers to participate more thoroughly in the global research conversation of a digital age. 

You can get to the conference and the program at this url:

http://www.icqi.org/ 

Autoethnography as Method: Heewon Chang

Image by »dolfi« via Flickr

My summer reading continues.  I just finished Heewon Chang's book:  Autoethnography as Method (Left Coast Press, 2008).  It's a wonderful contribution to the literature on qualitative research methodology.  With all of the hoopla about autoethnography over the last decade (and I don't mean that as critical) it was about time for a text like this to be written.  Thank you Dr. Chang for doing so! 

Heewon Chang has taken on the task of translating emergent ideas into concrete methods for the next generation of researchers (or for those in the field who haven't yet investigated these methods).  Her writing is clear, well structured, and easy to follow.  The contents of the book are informative and provide good grounding in the background that has been developing in this area.  Examples and exercises are included that help to make the methods concrete for new learners. 

I was particularly appreciative of her Part I:  Conceptual Framework which provides solid definitions of the topics she will be discussing, and a discussion of the context in which her work is situated vis-a-vis various literatures.  Her list of all the possibilities for terms for this kind of work was astounding.  No wonder it can seem a daunting area to enter!

It gave me good things to think about in regard to my Journal Project, which I am still trying to locate within this literature.  Interestingly, like any book that lays down the law (so to speak), it provides you with a backdrop for thinking about pushing the new boundary.  Personally, I am wondering about the boundary between me and them/self and other.  This will be my challenge, how to position something that is personal but professional within a discipline that is professional, with some hints of personal. 

Discerment continued...

I have continued to think about discernment.  The good thing about a blog is that allows such conversations to continue within and beyond you.  It draws you back to the big idea that is so important to you.  Hence the pensive animal to the right.  Don't you love that fleece!

After the last post on discernment, I began to think about the critical importance of BOUNDARIES to the notion of discernment.  The process of discernment is about the determination and reshaping of boundaries.  Discernment is about the most elemental process of confuration. 

To determine a boundary you must become aware of its size, shape, thickness, and durability.  You must understand what it contains and what is outside of it.  Whether an individual or an organization, in discernment you must develop a sense of inside and outside.

Discernment is also about nourishment, and systems of nourishment--the heating, cooling, plumbing of any organism.  What does it ingest and why?   Where does the nourishment come from?  How does it enter the boundary? If I change the boundaries, what will I eat?  Where will it come from?  Will I like the taste? 

Discernment, then, as this bodily reconfiguration is about the fundamentals of time and space:  the mind-body and the body-mind. Past, present, and future drive discernment.  Abnormalities or injury to the perception of time and space wreck havoc with the ability to discern.  Note:  When Post Traumatic Stress erupts--the past and the present have merged to erase the present.  Note:  Persistent fantasy allows the future to eclipse the present. 

Basic questions abound:  Who am I?  Where do I end and where do I begin? 


Questions of process are critically important:  How did I establish these boundaries?  How have I stabilized them in the past?  If they are reconstituted, will the same processes work? 


Thus, the Journal Project proceeds...