Hi Again
I guess I'll return to my initial thread/question and put some meat on it.
I have often wondered how dependent the success of a developmental work
research intervention/research project is on the people who are first points
of contact and sponsors of the project. In the research projects I was
priveleged to participate in, I often marvelled at our luck in meeting up with
certain strong personalities who were also, in a way, gatekeepers of meaning
and of situation definition in a way that probably affected what we were able
to learn, get access to, ask and propose. This fact can cut so many different
ways. The program of research has evolved so much since my time in the
trenches, and maybe processes have been worked out through the development of
the notion of the "change lab" that helps to mitigate this kind of dependence
on a "patron" or on strong personalities who were intrigued by the interest of
researchers and had their own ideas of which way is up. I'id like to hear from
Finnish colleagues at the CDSW on how they deal with the "big dogs" who like to
control access that they meet in their various research settings.
We met quite a few "characters" in legal and medical settings in the late
80's and I remember a few of them very well.
Anyway, this is related in a way to the springboard question--if you have
outlandish ideas about what the "problems" are in a setting, and your
experience of contradiction and distress is not validated or valued by others
in the group, what happens to you? Are you left behind as others "master the
future" and make plans? where do these discordant voices go in the analysis?
Katherine Brown
Judith Diamondstone wrote:
> Going over the comments so far, I realize that I missed diane's point, that
> it's all theatre, which I don't disagree with. I just believe strongly in
> the everyday as a site for intervention. Performance artists 'go there' -
> but the effects they have are contained within the arts/ a critical
> community. Outside the brackets devoted to thinking in terms of artifice,
> we need to do more to intervene in the constructions we live through.
>
> Nate's question re: the different school-university relationship here vs
> finland seems to problematize the question of the researcher's relationship
> to participants in the AS. The change development lab may be able to count
> on participants fully motivated to change the nature of their activity, but
> most of us in the U.S. have reasons to be concerned about phase I of the
> research. Maybe Phase I needs more theorization from AT researchers who
> encounter problems there. Phillip's message was extremely helpful in my
> thinking about these things. 1) with respect to phase 1 and on, for the
> researchers' self-introduction and as a guideline throughout, Phillip's
> team used a metaphor that made ethical issues tool-ish -- The researchers
> are a tool with artificial intelligence for others in the A.S. to use. 2)
> Be explicit throughout and repeatedly about your role, the moves it allows
> you to make, and your reasons for making them. 3) This makes it possible
> for participants to "engage in (the researchers') motivation; address
> expectations, and make adjustments in the terms of research. 4) require
> that p's reflect on why those adjustments were needed. 5). USE AN OUTSIDER
> TEAM
>
> As for different ASs, since the object is itself an AS, I would think that
> in the analysis of the object other actants and ASs emerge. Does that make
> sense to you, Nate? or do you see that as not 'enough'.... It would seem to
> work to elucidate the difference in funder's that Phillip's team is facing
> re: motivation et al.
>
> Personally, I'd like to pursue Katherine's suggestion that we explore the
> metaphor of the springboard (see her appended comments below)
>
> Does anyone have any more to say about these or other issues?
>
> (Katherine's comments):
> >The notable things to me about chapter 5 are the ideas of arriving at a
> point in analysis where participants have a provided language for working
> out a springboard for transformation, and the relationship between an
> individual's personal experience and reflection that may start constructing
> a springboard, and how this related to the overall transformation involving
> others in the system. My question is about how one gets from the experience
> of the individual as he/she looks at the system in a new way, or begins to
> experience/participate in a new way(the personal experience of revelation)
> and how this relates to what happens to the rest of the members of a
> community. How is this experience communicated?
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