Author Archives: Nicole Brown

Poetic Inquiry: Alone in a group

The Poetry As Research group has submitted the following abstract to the International Symposium on Poetic Inquiry 2022 in Cape Town, South Africa, from the 25th to the 27th of May 2022.

Image with colourful splotches advertising the Poetic Inquiry symposium 2022 in Cape Town, South Africa

Source: https://www.poeticinquiry.ca/ispi-2022.html

Alone in a Group: Silence and Invisibility in the Academy

The power of poetry in/as research and the effectiveness and impact of poetic inquiry, specifically within the scope of exploring marginalisation and resistances are undisputed. As part of the Practice As Research network, Dr Nicole Brown and Áine McAllister have established a “Poetic Inquiry” group that allows for creative exchanges, experimentation with form and content and a forum for exploring Poetry As Research Methodologies.

For the Symposium 2022 the Poetry As Research collective proposes a poetry-reading-cum-panel to present outcomes of the group’s poetic inquiry into “Silence and Invisibility in the Academy”. The presentation begins with group members performing poems that have been collaboratively developed. These are then used to explore and theorise the practicalities of poetic inquiry, and how Poetry As Research may offer opportunities for developing deeper understanding of commonly encountered experiences in particular feeling silenced or invisible in the academy. We specifically focus on how a dialogic process of writing enables us to make sense of experiences and to amplify otherwise silenced and marginalised voices whilst remaining true to our individual and collective selves. We will highlight practical and methodological choices and their effect on the writers and their audiences before concluding the presentation with a reflection on the relationship between and boundaries of poetic inquiry, autoethnographic explorations, Practice As Research and commonalities in our experience(s) of being poetic inquirers in the academy.

Contributors

Nicole Brown (UCL Institute of Education and Director of Social Research & Practice and Education Ltd, UK)
Margaret Buchanan (University of Minnesota, USA)
Mandy Haggith (University of the Highlands and Islands, UK)
Erin Kuri (McMaster University, Canada)
Victoria Lin Peterson-Hilleque (University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, USA)
Aine McAllister (UCL Institute of Education, UK)
Emily Sikora Katt (East Tennessee State University, USA)
Jenny Van der Aa (Universities of Kampen, Netherlands, and Leuven, Belgium)
Laura Warner (University of Exeter, UK)

 

1.5. Jan Blommaert’s powerful voice

Seminar on the 2nd February 2022: Two packs of cigarettes and a working paper: Jan Blommaert’s powerful voice.

In this short 30-minute monologue, Jan Blommaert’s long-time collaborator in different roles (student, colleague and friend) Jenny Van der Aa reflects on the intricacies of mentor-mentee relationships in academia. She crafts a space in which trust, intimacy, role play and generosity are carefully examined. She ultimately wants to lay bare structures of power that enhance and parachute, but that at the same time also restrict and stigmatize.

 

Download Dr Van der Aa’s slides and presentation text.

Dr Jenny Van der Aa is Senior Researcher and linguistic anthropologist at the Universities of Kampen (NL) and Leuven (Belgium), where she is involved with projects covering topics such as informal learning, church practice and the poetics of ‘integration’. Her most recent work deals with ethnographies of poverty and integration and will be published by Palgrave-MacMillan in the Spring.

Subscribe to the recordings:
Video hosted on the PAR YouTube channel.
Audio hosted on the PAR Buzzsprout channel and can be listened to on Spotify, Apple podcasts or on other RSS podcast apps.

The Practice As Research network with its resources is free and always will be, but it does of course incur costs to run and to keep it running. If you use it and benefit, enjoy it and would like to keep it going, please, consider leaving something in the tip jar. Thank you!

1.4. Positionality in PAR Research

Image of presentation slide with name and title of the presentationSeminar on the 5th January 2022: Positionality in PAR Research.

In this presentation, Dr Sara Young explores the question of researcher positionality when working with participants. The talk draws on her interdisciplinary research on identity; moving away from the insider/outsider paradigm, she draws on the theory of positioning (Davies & Harré 1990; Harré & van Langenhove 1991) to examine how her work with Polish migrant teenagers highlights the disconnect between the way the researcher positions herself and how she is positioned by participants. Arguing that this conflict informs and enhances the research, she also problematises the extent to which a researcher is ethically obligated to discuss their own positionality with participants.

Download:
Dr Young’s slides in PDF.

Dr Sara Young is a researcher working within Applied Linguistics and Polish Migration, and teaches primarily on the MA Education and MA Applied Linguistics & TESOL. She is interested in the construction of linguistic and ethnic identity, with a particular interest in young people. Her research work often employs a narrative approach, whereby identity is constructed through story telling. She is also interested in the ethical nature of research, especially in multilingual research.

 

Subscribe to the recordings:
Video hosted on the PAR YouTube channel.
Audio hosted on the PAR Buzzsprout channel and can be listened to on Spotify, Apple podcasts or on other RSS podcast apps.

The Practice As Research network with its resources is free and always will be, but it does of course incur costs to run and to keep it running. If you use it and benefit, enjoy it and would like to keep it going, please, consider leaving something in the tip jar. Thank you!

 

Creative Methods in PAR

Creative methods, art/practice-based research seminar at the University of Staffordshire on the 15th December 2021: Creative Methods in PAR.

This session explores the wide range of creative methods which could be applied to practice-based research. It reflects on the processes to choose the most relevant methodology, practical application of some, processes, and the implications. Drawing on her understanding of and experience with Practice As Research as doing-thinking-being, Dr Nicole Brown presents on using objects and artefacts as creative methods for data collection and analysis. The presentation begins with an outline of methodological, practical and ethical reasons for the employment of object work and metaphorical representations before considering the research questions and foci best suited for these approaches. Nicole concludes with a consideration of the researcher’s role and responsibilities when engaging with participants, stakeholders and the wider scholarly community in Practice As Research.

Dr Nicole Brown is Associate Professor at UCL Institute of Education and Director of Social Research & Practice and Education Ltd. Nicole’s research interests relate to physical and material representations of experiences, the generation of knowledge and use of metaphors to express what is difficult to express, and more generally, research methods and approaches to explore identity and body work. She has edited Lived Experiences of Ableism in Academia: Strategies for Inclusion in Higher Education and Ableism in Academia: Theorising Experiences of Disabilities and Chronic Illnesses in Higher Education, co-authored Embodied Inquiry: Research Methods, and authored Making the Most of Your Research Journal.
She tweets as @ncjbrown and @AbleismAcademia.

 

The Practice As Research network with its resources is free and always will be, but it does of course incur costs to run and to keep it running. If you use it and benefit, enjoy it and would like to keep it going, please, consider leaving something in the tip jar. Thank you!

1.3. Taming Your Inner Artist

Seminar on the 1st December 2021: Taming Your Inner Artist: challenges of creative practice-based research.

In this presentation, Dr Agata Lulkowska looks at the challenges of applying creative and artistic training for research purposes. She assesses aims and objectives which drive creative artistic practice and traditional research. Finally, she explores the variety of interdisciplinary methodologies which make the creative practice research successful.

Dr Agata Lulkowska is Senior Lecturer in Film Production in the Department of Film, Media and Journalism. Agata’s background is in film practice, installations and photography. She is also a prolific interdisciplinary researcher with the main interest in practice-based research, intercultural communication, ethnographic film, experimental film, short fiction, politics of representation and world cinema. Most recently, she has been shortlisted for the for the AHRC Research in Film Award and has taken on the role of Head of the Practice as Research Group at the University of Staffordshire.

Subscribe to the recordings:
Video hosted on the PAR YouTube channel.
Audio hosted on the PAR Buzzsprout channel and can be listened to on Spotify, Apple podcasts or on other RSS podcast apps.

The Practice As Research network with its resources is free and always will be, but it does of course incur costs to run and to keep it running. If you use it and benefit, enjoy it and would like to keep it going, please, consider leaving something in the tip jar. Thank you!

1.2. Voice, Authority and Truth

Seminar on the 3rd November 2021: Voice, Authority and Truth.

Áine McAllister presents a poetic output from a recent poetic inquiry project to frame a discussion on applied ethnopoetic analysis as a means of revealing voice, the ethical considerations of representation and ‘ownership’ and share reflections on the intersection between ethnopoetics as a linguistic analysis technique and the researcher’s poetic representation. She discusses poetry as a viable method of presenting research findings because of its capacity as a form to remain close to or ‘true’ to the voice of research participants and their perspectives.

Download Áine McAllister’s slides and check out the “Seeking Access” pamphlet and  video.

Áine McAllister is a Lecturer at UCL Institute of Education. Her research interests include critical poetic inquiry as a dialogic pedagogical approach, applied ethnopoetic analysis (linguistic ethnography) of conversational narrative to uncover voice and dialogue as a means to elicit poetry to amplify voice. Her work is situated at the intersection of applied linguistics and poetry as research.

 

Subscribe to the recordings:
Video hosted on the PAR YouTube channel.
Audio hosted on the PAR Buzzsprout channel and can be listened to on Spotify, Apple podcasts or on other RSS podcast apps.

The Practice As Research network with its resources is free and always will be, but it does of course incur costs to run and to keep it running. If you use it and benefit, enjoy it and would like to keep it going, please, consider leaving something in the tip jar. Thank you!

1.1. Reflexivity within Practice As Research

Image of presentation slide with name and title of the presentationSeminar on the 6th October 2021: Reflexivity within Practice As Research.

In their presentations Dr Marquard Smith and Dr Bruno de Paula explore what it means to be reflexive within Practice As Research and how reflexivity may be attended to differently, depending on disciplinary conventions and perceptions of what constitutes Practice As Research.

Download Dr Smith’s slides and the case study resource he talks about in his presentation.
Download Dr de Paula’s slides.

Dr Marquard Smith collaborates with cultural organizations as a curator and programmer. He thinks of curating and programming as critical pedagogical practices, and opportunities for “learning in public”, to extend academia’s responsibilities into the public domain, in order to engage publics beyond higher education, and expand the places in which (and thus the ways in which) learning might take place. He is committed to curating/programming as a praxis that’s generative of new ways of thinking, seeing, knowing, and doing.

Dr Bruno de Paula’s work delves into questions of representation, identities and meaning-making in and through digital games. In this talk, he will reflect on his experiences as game designer and facilitator of game-making within cultural organisations and schools, discussing how a reflexive approach to participatory research can support a more critical and less homogenising engagement with these kinds of practices.

Subscribe to all recordings:
Video hosted on the PAR YouTube channel.
Audio hosted on the PAR Buzzsprout channel and can be listened to on Spotify, Apple podcasts or on other RSS podcast apps.

The Practice As Research network with its resources is free and always will be, but it does of course incur costs to run and to keep it running. If you use it and benefit, enjoy it and would like to keep it going, please, consider leaving something in the tip jar. Thank you!