[Xmca-l] Re: (non)grieving scholarship

[Greg Thompson]

With regard to Mike's question about (I'm paraphrasing) What is to be
done?, I'll confess to being too caught up (i.e., "invested" (often
literally) and thus "implicated) in things-as-they-currently are to be able
to be properly critical. But I will say that even within the limited scope
of action dictated by these implications, there may still be room for
meaningful action. (or so I'd like to think).

As one small example, I am rather fond of Martin Packer's book Science of
Qualitative Research. In it, he sets out an agenda for qualitative research
as "emancipatory." This isn't to say that all qualitative research IS this,
but rather that this is what qualitative research CAN be.

Below are some quotes that help to give some sense of the argument (these
are taken from the introductory chapter to the book). Better to quote here
than to paraphrase (quotes are below).

I find this vision to be inspiring and challenging. Inspiring because of
the possibilities that it promises. Challenging because, as Packer notes
later in the book in the chapter on the crisis in ethnography, it forces me
(qua researcher) to recognize how my interests can be at cross purposes
with those of my informants simply because my life/work is situated
differently from theirs.

QUOTES FROM PACKER'S INTRO CHAPTER:

"Attention to human forms of life, to the subtle details of people’s talk
and actions, to human bodies in material surroundings, can open our eyes to
unnoticed aspects of human life and learning, unexplored characteristics of
the relationship between humans and the world we inhabit, and unsuspected
ways in which we could improve our lives on this planet." (p. 3).

Qualitative research is: "the basis for a radical reconceptualization of
the social sciences as forms of inquiry in which we work to transform our
forms of life." (p. 3).

"qualitative research has the potential to change our attitude of
domination because it is sensitive to human forms of life in a way that
traditional research cannot be." (p. 4).

And here is his description of what qualitative research could be:

"“a historical ontology of ourselves” that, [Foucault] proposed, would
involve “a critique of what we are saying, thinking, and doing.” It would
attend to the complex interrelations of knowledge, politics, and ethics. It
would foster personal and political transformation without resorting to
violence. It would be an investigation that could create new ways of
being." and further, "it would include a historical dimension, attentive to
genesis and transformation without reducing them to the linear unfolding of
a unidimensional “progress.” It would include an ethnographic dimension
that would be sensitive to power and resistance. It would carefully examine
practical activities – “discourse” – to discover how we human beings are
made and how we make ourselves. And it would foster social change not
through violent revolt but by promoting “a patient labor giving form to our
impatience for liberty” (Foucault, 1975/ 1977, p. 319), working to change
who we are."

And:

"The traditional social sciences have investigated how humans operate as
information-processing organisms and have helped design better manipulation
in the form of advertising and spin. We desperately need a program of
inquiry that can ask questions whose answers would empower us to transform
our forms of life, our moral paradigms, and our discursive practices for
the better." (p. 7).


And reading Martin's project within the limits that I have placed on
myself, this orientation make me look for possible ways that I can
involve/implicate this kind of project with other interests, both locally
and globally, in order to get beyond thinking of what we are doing in
academia as merely a matter of unthinking, hedonistic rational
self-interest (e.g., helping people to "make money" so that they can
maximize their personal utility). In this current context in which we live
(esp. in the U.S), it isn't easy to find these sites of possibility where
one might consider studying transformations of human possibility
(individual and collective), but I think that there are some out there...

-greg


On Sat, Mar 3, 2018 at 10:09 AM, Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com>
wrote:

> I’m late in adding to this discussion, but I don’t think anyone else has
> responded to MIke’s question directly.  What can the collective experience
> of xmca come up with? Maybe it’s so obvious it doesn’t need saying. The
> dscussion itself is collective, along with the ISCAR conferences, the MCA
> journal, the openness of participants to share resources, review, comment
> and criticize — sending around whole books when possible. It’s an ongoing
> colletive experience. An occasional  reference to the academic labor market
> is a healthy and welcome reality check but the discussion itself is the
> collective resoruce.
>
>
> Helena Worthen
> helenaworthen@gmail.com
> Berkeley, CA 94707 510-828-2745
> Blog US/ Viet Nam:
> helenaworthen.wordpress.com
> skype: helena.worthen1
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Feb 17, 2018, at 5:07 PM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Yours is a quandary shared by your generation, Alfredo.
> > Being allowed to teach and conduct research in a quality institution is a
> > great privilege and an
> > increasingly rarer possibility.
> >
> > There are several people on this list who have organized their lives to
> be
> > independent scholars
> > while staying connected to the core institutions of disciplinary
> training.
> > It might be nice to hear
> > the variety out there.
> >
> > It appears pretty certain that the situation is going to get worse
> > before/if it gets better.
> >
> > What can the collective experience of xmca come up with that would be
> > useful to the many
> > of you caught in this meat grinder?
> >
> > mike
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Feb 17, 2018 at 4:49 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no
> >
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Good luck then, Wagner!
> >> A
> >> ________________________________________
> >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> >> on behalf of Wagner Luiz Schmit <wagner.schmit@gmail.com>
> >> Sent: 18 February 2018 01:07
> >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture Activity
> >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: (non)grieving scholarship
> >>
> >> This just hit me in the spot...
> >>
> >> Wagner
> >>
> >> On Feb 17, 2018 9:48 PM, "Alfredo Jornet Gil" <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>> I have not been able to contribute to this list as much as I'd like to
> >>> lately, among other things, because I need to find a job, and I need to
> >>> make sure that I have checked all those boxes that selection committees
> >>> will check (enough first-authored publications? in good enough
> journals?
> >>> enough leadership in projects? teaching? supervising? acquiring funds?
> >> more
> >>> than all others candidates? and more than favoured-for-whatever-other-
> >> reasons
> >>> candidates?). So I have been doing all I can these weeks to fill up a
> >>> competitive CV, for my contract is about to expire.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> And, although I did not think that it was particularly well written, it
> >>> was both relieving and discouraging to read this article (see link
> below,
> >>> which I take from the facebook wall of a colleague who I think also
> >>> subscribes this list). The article makes visible the pain scholars go
> >>> through when, after so many years of digging and digging and digging a
> >>> little (but deep!) hole, may after all have to leave it and find some
> >> other
> >>> thing to do. In Canada, I met a French astronomer who was moving
> through
> >>> the world with his lovely family, short-term project after short-term
> >>> project, getting better and better at what he worked on (apparently he
> >> was
> >>> among the few who had expertise in computer modeling simulating some
> >>> astronomic events) , and finally having to step out academia last year
> to
> >>> find something else to do, for his family no longer could stand the
> >>> constant uncertainty and travelling. It could be me soon. And that may
> >> not
> >>> be a bad thing, or even a thing in itself, but the story seems to be
> >> quite
> >>> endemic to academia and may be interesting to some of you:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> https://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-Everybody-Loses-When/242560
> >>>
> >>> Alfredo
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
>
>
>


-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson