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 or on other RSS podcast apps.

3.2. Teacher-researcher-playwright: Navigating practice as research

A Venn diagram highlighting the three versions of self: teacher, researcher, playwright and how these three areas interact and overlap, with the T-R-P position in the centre. Seminar on the 17 November 2023

Teacher-researcher-playwright: Navigating practice as research

In this seminar, Dr Beth Curtis discusses the use of playwriting as a form of inquiry within qualitative research, and explains how the interweaving of her teacher-researcher-playwright identity informed her practice.

 

Beth’s doctoral research positions drama at its onto-epistemological centre. In a study within which drama is both the subject of exploration and the means through which it is interpreted and understood, playwriting is used as a purposeful form of inquiry to critically and creatively analyse and (re)present the data stories. The creative methodology which frames Beth’s research practice is the nexus between three versions of self: the teacher, the researcher, and the playwright. In her position as ‘Teacher-Researcher-Playwright’ (T-R-P), she is inextricably woven into the fabric of words and images presented in and through the pages of the play as her creative practice responds to what Koro-Ljungberg (2016) describes as ‘data-wants and data entanglements’.

This seminar will discuss the development of a four-stage approach to the T-R-P’s process and considers how playwriting can be used as a robust and reflexive research practice which understands meaning-making as embodied, co-constructed, and perpetually in-motion. The tacit and embodied nature of drama education is explored through an a/r/togrpahic lens which resists formulaic systems and methods and instead embraces ‘the simultaneity, multiplicity and complexity’ (Belliveau, 2015:7) of the ‘lived experiences and evolving identities’ (ibid.) of the T-R-P and the research participants. In doing so, the practicalities and messiness of practice-as-research are considered not as obstacles but as opportunities for diffraction, through which the T-R-P is invited to learn, unlearn and (re)learn what has been illuminated of the data as it is (re)presented in dramatic form.

Download Dr Curtis’s presentation slides.
Access Dr Curtis’s thesis, which includes the play in appendix E.

Beth Curtis has recently completed her doctorate in education with the University of Sunderland, beginning her journey to PhD through a bespoke practitioner research programme designed for teachers in Further Education. Originally trained as a primary school teacher, Beth has worked in Further Education since 2008, teaching across level 3 vocational and A Level drama and performing arts courses. Situated in a large FE college in the SouthWest of England, Beth now works within Teacher Education, tutoring and teaching on the PGCE and Award programmes. Beth holds a first class degree in drama from the University of Exeter and is interested in applied uses of drama and theatre within social, community and education contexts. In her thesis, Beth used playwriting as a creative method of data analysis and (re)presentation to illuminate the stories of A Level Drama students and teachers, with a specific focus on experiences of assessment.

 

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!

 

 

3.1. How do we *do* Practice As Research? A panel discussion

Image of the logo for the Practice As Research PAR networkSeminar on the 18th October 2023

How do we *do* Practice As Research? A panel discussion

As Practice As Research takes many forms, the practicalities and pragmatics of doing Practice As Research also vary greatly. In this online seminar, the panelists draw on their personal research practices to discuss how to engage with and in Practice As Research from and in their own disciplinary conventions.

 

Dr Theo Bryer is a Lecturer for the MA in English Education and the English with Drama PGCE at the Institute of Education at UCL. Theo taught Drama in schools and colleges in Birmingham and London for over twenty years as well as doing youth theatre, Theatre in Education and media production with young people, particularly bilingual and refugee learners. She currently leads the English with Drama PGCE and works on the MA English Education programme. For her doctoral studies Theo researched the affordances of role in teaching and learning, encompassing drama and media production in classroom contexts. Her research involves forms of participant observation.

Annie Davey is a Lecturer in Art Culture and Education at the Institute of Education at UCL. Her research is concerned with the politics and aesthetics of art education and recent work uses archival imagery with situated writing and script writing to explore tensions and contradictions of fine art education within the marketized university. Annie is also engaged in collaborative research that draws on John Berger’s (1972) Ways of Seeing to explore the ways in which digital, dispersed and machine generated images shape new ways of seeing, teaching and learning visual culture. She is currently programme leader of the MA in Art Education, Culture and Practice at IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society.

Chris Rhodes is a Lecturer in Digital Media Production at UCL’s Knowledge Lab and UCL East. With a PhD in Music Composition, his practice-led research delves into the creation of music in both real and virtual spaces, using the human body as an instrument. This innovative approach crafts unique sound experiences for performers, players, and listeners alike. Chris’ compositions have been showcased globally at esteemed venues, including the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME), and Sound and Music Computing (SMC). Through his research, Chris hopes to develop new artistic methods in musical composition and chart paths for the future of music and arts engagement.

 

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!

 

 

2.12. Ethical challenges in researching violence with young people

Source: SDatzberger for CoVAC

Seminar on the 21 June 2023

Ethical challenges in researching violence with young people

In this seminar, Professor Jenny Parkes shares reflections on some of the ethical challenges and dilemmas encountered when researching violence with young people.

While there has been a huge growth in research on violence against children and violence against women, few publications report on the ways in which research teams have addressed ethical issues, though the risks of harm to participants may be high. In this seminar, we draw on experiences in research projects from diverse contexts, mainly in the global south, with varying designs, methodologies, and partnerships. We will explore issues relating to research relationships as ‘safe spaces’ for young people; child protection and safeguarding; researcher safety; and who benefits. Informed by feminist and decolonial critical inquiry, our reflections engage with questions about power, silencing and violence.

Download Prof. Parkes’s presentation slides.

Jenny Parkes is a Professor in Education, Gender and International Development in the Centre for Education and International Development (CEID), at IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society. Her work on young people and violence has involved multiple collaborations, including most recently the Contexts of Violence in Adolescence Cohort Study (CoVAC), a research partnership with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a violence prevention NGO, Raising Voices, in Uganda.

 

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!

 

 

2.11. Ethics with More-Than-Human Participants

A photo of a white woman with blonde hair wearing an off-white top smiling at the viewer.

Source: KSidebottom

Seminar on the 12th June 2023.

Ethics with More-Than-Human Participants

In this seminar, Dr Kay Sidebottom discusses how to ethically account for environment, atmosphere and presence of non/human others in research.

As qualitative researchers, we know (but perhaps don’t always acknowledge) how much the environment, atmosphere and presence of non/human others can affect our enquiries. In our attempts to apply the ‘God-trick’ (Haraway, 1988) of the all-seeing, all-knowing objective observer we are encouraged to mitigate for bias, minimise variables, and account for distractions. However, when we ignore the non-human participants always-already involved in our projects (the bee at the window; the wind in our hair; the cat on our lap) we miss the opportunity to create new meaning and consider research as ‘event’, as human participants entangle with the naturalised others that necessarily shape their experience and understanding.

In this session we will think about the implications of inquiry in a world of multiplicity, which does not situate humans as discrete containers but bodies with the capacity to be affected and affect others. We will also explore what the implications are for considering the role of more-than-humans in our ethical practices. In a world where ethics is often a human-centred, initial tick-box exercise, what might a more expansive and inclusive approach mean for the process of our enquiries?

Download Dr Sidebottom’s presentation slides.

Dr Kay Sidebottom is a Lecturer in Education, and Programme Director for a new MSc Education at the University of Stirling. Her current research explores how teachers can work with posthuman ideas to facilitate meaningful and disruptive education spaces for our complex times. With a background in community and adult education, her pedagogical specialisms include critical, radical and anarchist education, arts-based practice and community philosophy.

 

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!

 

 

2.10. Ethical challenges in The Play Observatory project

Source: ©Play Observatory PL65A-S007-p1

Seminar on the 17th May 2023

Ethical challenges in The Play Observatory project

In this seminar, John Potter and Michelle Cannon discuss how the complex and unprecedented ethical challenges associated with The Play Observatory project were negotiated.

In the middle of the pandemic, a project was conceived to collect and archive instances of children and young people’s play at that particular time of crisis. By means of a carefully designed online survey, members of the public contributed texts to a database by uploading personal photos, anecdotes, jokes, comments, film clips and drawings, and more. Even as experienced researchers in a variety of disciplines, we were faced with constant ethical dilemmas relating to: safe-guarding and privacy, copyright, contributors’ rights and ownership of the donated materials, and the subsequent archiving and dissemination of the data. With multiple research partners and stake holders involved, the moving parts were many and constant. John and Michelle will present some of the ways in which ethical procedures were meticulously problematised and in most cases, resolved.

Download the presentation slides.

John Potter is Professor of Media in Education at University College London Institute of Education. His research, teaching and publications are in the field of: new literacies, media education, play on and offscreen, curation and agency in social media, and the changing nature of teaching and learning in the context of digital media.  He is co-editor of the journal ‘Learning, Media and Technology’. He is a founder member and director of ReMAP (Researching Education, Media, Arts and Play) a research collaborative based at the UCL Knowledge Lab. He has recently directed the ESRC funded ‘National Observatory of Children’s Play Experiences during COVID-19’, a collaboration with colleagues in the School of Education at Sheffield University and the UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis.

Dr Michelle Cannon is Programme Leader of the MA in Digital Media: Education, at the UCL Institute in Education. Her research focusses on film, moving image and creative media production as they relate to new literacies and the media arts in primary and early secondary education. She has worked extensively with the British Film Institute on national and international projects and is interested in the creative and critical learning that occurs in the processes of digital making, through film production, editing and digital animation.

 

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!

 

 

2.9. Ethical guidelines for educational research in a changing world

Photograph of Dr Alison Fox. A white woman wearing a black-and-white striped top, a necklace and a lanyard.

Source: AFox

Seminar on the 3rd May 2023

Ethical guidelines for educational research in a changing world

Drawing on her experience in the recent BERA guidelines review, Dr Alison Fox explores how changes in the world affect ethical guidance in educational research.

In 2021/2022 Dr Alison Fox brought together a diverse group of colleagues to reflect on the question What is changing in the world which should affect our ethical guidance for educational research? as a mechanism for reviewing the 2018, 4th edition, of the British Educational Research Association ethical guidelines for educational research. This session will highlight the key issues considered topical by the group which are now being used to guide the development of a 2024 edition of the BERA guidance. This will be a space to reflect on how these issues are affecting your research and practice, as well as thinking about the how to keep ethical guidance responsive to contemporary times and the unknown challenges for enquiring educators into the future.

Download Dr Fox’s presentation slides.

Dr Alison Fox moved into educational research after starting off as an environmental scientist and then secondary and further education science teacher. Since her Masters in Education in 2000 she has been supporting other researchers through Masters and Doctoral study alongside educational research into professional learning and research ethics. She is currently Associate Head of School for Research and Knowledge Exchange in the School of Education, Childhood, Youth and Sport and Chair of the Human Research Ethics Committee at The Open University and holds a number of roles with BERA (on Council, on the Publications Committee, as a member of the blog editorial team and for 9 years as a special interest group convenor).

 

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!

 

 

2.8. Ethics in practice – a panel discussion

Image of the logo for the Practice As Research PAR networkSeminar on the 26th April 2023

Ethics in practice – a panel discussion

As Practice As Research takes many forms, the practicalities of engaging in research ethically also vary greatly. In this online seminar, the panelists draw on their personal research practices to discuss how to engage with research ethically. Dr Jo Collins focuses on the context of research in counselling and coaching practice, Dr Alison Finch explores participatory, egalitarian research with young adults, and Áine McAllister highlights ethics in the context of Poetic Inquiry with refugees.

Dr Jo Collins is a practicing coach and Senior Lecturer in counselling, coaching and mentoring at the Christ Church Canterbury University.

Dr Alison Finch is a registered nurse and nurse-research-practitioner. She is a cancer nurse, assistant chief nurse at UCLH and a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Academy member.

Áine McAllister is a Lecturer at UCL working in the context of Languages in Education and in Refugee Education. Find Áine on LinkedIn. 

 

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!

 

 

2.7. The intricate ethics of participatory research: issues and challenges

A photo of Prof Banks with her hand on her chin

Source: SBanks

Seminar on the 1st March 2023

The intricate ethics of participatory research: issues and challenges

In this online seminar Professor Sarah Banks reflects on ethical challenges arising in participatory research.

Participatory research is becoming increasingly popular amongst academics, community organisations and research funders. This is research that involves people with direct experience of the issue being studied (e.g. homelessness, domestic violence, asylum seeking) in designing and carrying out the research, often in partnership with academics or other professionals, with the aim of influencing change in policy or practice. This type of research raises distinctive ethical challenges, particularly relating to power dynamics, partnership-working and social activism, and may not always be fully understood by institutional research ethics committees. This presentation will outline some of the main ethical challenges arising in participatory research, arguing for the importance of ‘everyday ethics’ focusing on human relationships and reflexivity as a counter-balance to the ‘regulatory ethics’ of institutional review processes, which emphasise rule-following and impartiality. It will also introduce the revised guidelines for community-based participatory research recently published by the Centre for Social Justice and Community Action, Durham University and the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement,  www.durham.ac.uk/research/institutes-and-centres/social-justice-community-action/research-areas/ethics-consultation/

Click to download Prof Banks’ slides in PDF. 

Sarah Banks is Professor in the Department of Sociology and co-founder of the Centre for Social Justice and Community Action at Durham University, UK.  The Centre promotes participatory action research for social justice in partnership with community-based organisations. With the Centre and members of the International Collaboration for Participatory Health Research (ICPHR), she has developed ethical guidelines for participatory research and offers training/events for academic and community-based researchers. She has coordinated several participatory research projects, including research on debt, poverty and community development, and leads the Ethics Working Group of the ICPHR. She is co-editor of Ethics in Participatory Research for Health and Social Well-Being (Routledge, 2019) and Co-Producing Research: A Community Development Approach (Policy Press, 2019), and co-author of Participatory Research for Health and Social Well-Being (Springer, 2019).

 

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!

 

 

2.6. Hooks and pain: Ethical concerns in practice-based research on body suspensions

Source: FManfredi

Seminar on the 1st February 2023

Hooks and pain: Ethical concerns in practice-based research on body suspensions.

In this online seminar Federica Manfredi reflects on various ethical dilemmas relating to practice-based research on body suspensions.

Body suspensions are a challenging fieldwork of investigation because, according to research partners, “words are not enough” to express such intense experiences.

A body suspension consists in the elevation of a protagonists inserting hooks in the skin as temporary piercings; hooks are connected to an above scaffolding with ropes and pulling the main one, the suspendee leaves the floor for a variable amount of time. Body suspensions are realized in contemporary Europe during festivals and private events by a trans-spatial community of practitioners, that often privilege privacy and online invisibility to prevent stigmatization. Suspension experiences are delegitimized by non-suspendees because of the voluntary pain: it is elected as evidence of mental deviancy, even by a pathologizing bibliography, delegitimating the voices of practitioners.

The anthropological research “Learning to Fly” investigated meanings associated to suspensions by regular practitioners through a tailor-designed experimental methodology to overpass logo-centric logics. In a creative laboratory, participants co-created symbolic objects with metaphorical meanings to express one or more aspects of their hook-experiences. Handcrafts became referents of oral narrative during interviews, being able to express more than what the suspendee (or the ethnographer) pre-established to investigate, and exploring more than what words were allowed to share before. Ethical concerns emerged in several moments of the ethnography, especially concerning the desire to circulate the handcrafts to support the spread of a restored image of body suspension. Illustrating exhibition contexts and the consequences of the handcraft circulation, this presentation aims to discuss the militant use of the ethnography, the limits of the outsider positioning of the ethnographer, and the use of research’s results by epistemic partners.

 

After a Master Degree in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Turin (2009), Federica Manfredi started her militant approach to anthropology in Switzerland working for the visibility of local farmers, the defense of women and children rights, and the prevention of suicides. Upon return to Italy she received a post-master degree in Migration and Psychopathology developing a research on meanings associated to the “good death” among migrants. In 2014 she published her first monograph “I volti celati di Civitavecchia” about the trance experienced by penitents during Holy Friday and, between two kids, she was awarded a grant for her doctoral project on body suspensions in contemporary Europe. During the PhD in Medical Anthropology at the University of Lisbon (2022), she explored experimental methodologies of qualitative investigation, in balance between online and offline interactions, developing the theoretical proposal of the trans-spatiality. As member of the scientific project Excel – The Pursuit of Excellence, Federica investigated body modifications and body hacking, and she worked on the dissemination activities of the project with the workshop series The Hacked Barbie. Part of the organizing committee of the art exposition “Being F**king Perfect – The Pursuit of Excellence” (Lisbon 2022), she engaged for the promotion of the scientific labour in an accessible format for the non-academic public, cooperating with visual facilitators and artists. Federica is currently scientific consultant for private medical companies in Italy and Denmark as behavioral specialist, and she is working on new projects about the anthropology of pain.

 

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!

 

 

2.5. Still Moving – Ethical considerations in embodied practice

Source: SYork-Pryce

Seminar on the 11th January 2023:

Still Moving – Ethical considerations in embodied practice.

In this online seminar Dr Sonia York-Pryce reflects on ethical considerations within embodied practice and dance research.

To reflect on ethical considerations in her work, Sonia will begin with outlining the context of her work and what inspired her research. She will then explore the taboo of ageing and aesthetics and highlight the difference of the older dancer’s body. She will draw on her expertise in ageism and embodiment to talk about Practice As Research, which for her meant the creation of dance films with national and international senior professional dancers, but also with herself as a dancer.

 

Sonia York-Pryce, Dr Visual Arts, (Griffith University, Australia), Ba. Digital Media, (Honours; (Griffith University), Ba. Visual Arts (Southern Cross University, Australia), dancer, photographer, videographer, and interdisciplinary artist. From the 1960s to the present-day Sonia has trained and danced extensively in ballet and contemporary dance, initially in the UK then settling in Australia in 1994. She studied classical ballet at Elmhurst Ballet School, the Royal Ballet School, the London School of Contemporary Dance, and the Laban Centre, in London, UK. Sonia’s doctoral research, “Ageism and the Mature Dancer” examined how senior professional dancers, aged over 40, still performing, navigate the dance-by-date perpetuated within Western dance and consumer culture’s obsession with youth. Across a survey conducted through interviews and by email to over 35 participants, based nationally and internationally, York-Pryce discovered what drives these dancers to continue, and how they maintain their bodies.

Click here to access a PDF with more information about Sonia’s work and career.

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!