Dialogic Research for Sustainability? Joshua Msika joshua.msika@hutton.ac.uk CECHR Symposium 2016
Reflections on the theory and practice of representing data to participants
“Dialogic Research” / Re-presenting data 1. Some examples to explain what I mean 2. A useful conceptual framework from Paulo Freire’s (1974) Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
1: “Visions of St Andrews”
St Andrews Undergraduate Research Internship, 2013
2: “The Potential of Calais Muir Wood” (BSc Dissertation, 2014)
3: “Mapping the community sector in the Aberdeen region�
CXC work, 2015-16
Open Questions • Why is re-presenting data to participants a good thing to do? • What does it achieve? • How can we do it better? • Having a conceptual framework helps.
Paulo Freire • Brazilian adult literacy teacher. • Wrote Pedagogy of the Oppressed in 1974. • Great influence on education theory and practice. • Also useful for thinking about research.
Why? • “To exist, humanly, is to name the world, to change it. Once named, the world in its turn reappears to the namers as a problem and requires of them a new naming” (Freire, 2000, p. 88). • Dialogue can therefore “[lead] the dialoguers into ever closer partnership in the naming of the world” (Freire, 2000, p. 91) • Shared naming -> shared understanding of problems -> more co-operative action -> which is the aim of most participatory/action/sustainability research.
What? • “The task of the dialogical teacher in an interdisciplinary team working on the thematic universe revealed by their investigation is to ‘re-present’ that universe to the people from whom she or he first received it – and ‘re-present’ it not as a lecture, but as a problem” (Freire, 2000, p. 109). • This re-presentation and problematisation should “require a response – not just at the intellectual level, but at the level of action” (Freire, 2000, pp. 95–96).
How? The “generative thematic code” • “The thematics which have come from the people return to them – not as contents to be deposited, but as problems to be solved.” (Freire, 2000, p. 123) • “A codification may be simple or compound. The former utilizes either the visual (pictorial or graphic), the tactile, or the auditive channel; the latter utilizes various channels.” (p. 121) • “Some themes or nuclei may be presented by means of brief dramatizations, containing the theme only – no ‘solutions’!” (p. 122) • “An equally fundamental requirement for the preparation of the codifications is that their thematic nucleus be neither overly explicit nor overly enigmatic.” (p. 114) • “Let me re-emphasize that posing a reality as a problem does not mean sloganizing: it means critical analysis of a problematic reality.” (p. 168)
Open Questions • Is this just “common sense”, i.e. too generic? • Can/has this type of work been done over the longer term to start a real “dialogue”?
• How useful is this for re-presenting reality to nonparticipants (i.e. policy-makers or other academics)? Thanks for listening, your turn to come and talk to me!
References Msika, J. 2013. Visions of St Andrews: An Action Research Project. St Andrews Undergraduate Research Internship. http://www.transitionsta.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/StAndrews-Poster-final.pdf. Msika, J. 2014. The Potential of Calais Muir Wood: Dialogic Research for Sustainability. BSc dissertation, School of Geography and Geosciences, University of St Andrews. https://www.academia.edu/15842731/The_Potential_of_Calais_ Muir_Wood_Dialogic_Research_for_Sustainability. Msika, J. and Irvine, K. N. 2015. Mapping the community sector in the Aberdeen region. Report for ClimateXChange, in press. Freire, P. 2000. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. (Bergman Ramos, M.,Tran.), Continuum, New York; London, 30th anniv.