Towards different differences

A nudge from my supervisors has led me to consider my research as an institutional ethnographic study. This appeals to me because it is “about looking out beyond the everyday [practices] to discover how it came to happen as it does” (Smith 2006:3). This approach aims to illuminate organizations and relationships and to understand the “embodied actualities” of the work people do that I can then relate to student learning. Dorothy Smith suggests that we begin with ourselves which is usually something that I tend to avoid.

Taking a selfie on the first day of 2015 (and adding some graphics on Notability) helps me share some thoughts about the data collection that is planned for the next few months. What will the unintended consequences be as I shift into this phase of the PhD? There are likely to be many entanglements through the interactions of different actors and the intra-actions that I am able to identify and discern or possibly miss.

Although like others, I usually choose not to be different, my visual impairment does impact on my research. It is frequently an invisible disability to others only surfacing when I need to read text or reach a destination with assistance. Transport to outlying places is a concern. In terms of my data collection I recognize that in small groups I can miss visual cues. Therefore I need to rely on the transcribed text and on the images I hope to produce as a research product of my own and others. If I asked an observer to be present during my interviews and focus groups, my sense is that it will negatively impact on the rapport between me and my research participants.

More broadly there is recognition that the past plays out in the present. I come from a previous workplace situation where fair labour practices were sometimes questionable. I became conscious of the different value given to truthfulness by different people and the powerlessness of some to promote change. These personal experiences acted as a catalyst to my research trajectory.

Now I am curious, cautious and cognisant of the responsibilities that I carry as a researcher, educator, learner and change agent as the new year unfolds with all its possibilities.

Smith, D. 2006. Institutional ethnography as practice. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers