I am a late list joiner from the Nelsion Mandela Metropolitan University in
Port Elizabeth, South Africa. My interest in AR is of recent origin but
already becoming an essential, although fragmented, part of my practice and
teaching as a practitioner and lecturer in psychology.
Then on Wednesday, 22 July, I was fortunate to attend an AR workshop with
Jean McNiff. It was wonderful being immersed for a brief time in the
thoughts and actions of AR through Jean’s workshop. She is a warm, friendly
and enthusiastic person and reminded me of my first meeting with Jack in
Bath. I came away from the workshop remotivated and keen to become involved
with other local teachers and researchers interested in AR at our newly
merged Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. I was fortunate enough to
get an individual appointment with Jean to meet with her personally and to
explore and discuss some of my interests in AR.
The meeting with Jean was nourishing, enervating and a real blessing to me
and reawakened the interests and enthusiasm I had for AR but that had
become eroded gradually over the past year or so through the merger process
and the rush to finalise the dissertations of the Masters students I have
been supervising over the past three years. In talking with Jean I came to
realise that many of my AR interests had grown in depth although I was not
really aware of this over the past few months. I still have the strong
desire to conduct AR with local colleagues and students and to maintain and
extend my relationship with other interested international AR practitioners
and researchers.
One of the factors that has inhibited my action has been my anxiety about
not being able to initiate and maintain the high level of conversation in
internet listserves. My interests are also limited by my recent discovery
of and limited involvement in AR and my perception of personal inferiority
in relation to more experienced and knoweledgeable ARs. Not having ongoing
contact and mutually reinforcing relations in the area of AR research and
practice has left me isolated and slow in making any significant progress
in AR activities although I do see some evidence of my interest in AR in my
teaching, research and psychotherapy practice. However, these instances are
largely unexplored, undeveloped and unintegrated due to my isolation from
ongoing and stimulating conversations, collaborative actions and mutual
contact and learning with others interested in AR.
But let me not discount the little growth and development that has taken
place in this context. I have begun introducing more AR ideas, methods and
literature into existing research by students whose dissertations I
supervise, although in a fragmentary and unsystematic way over the past
eighteen months or so. AR ideas and “methods” have also started emerging in
a similar piecemeal way in my teaching and psychotherapy practices. This
essentially unplanned and spontaneous manifestation has sustained my
interest in AR and its diffusion in many of my professional activities.
However, I think that these small random fragments could develop an
increased momentum if I am able to become involved in more systematic,
collaborative research and practice with other ARs.
I touched on these aspects with Jean but I also want to continue and expand
relationships and explore further collaboration and contact between others
interested in AR.
This marginal position in relation to this listerve is not an isolated
experience but has been part of many experiences over the past few years,
which I am sure will become more central and extensive through my
involvement in AR.
I apologise for this late response but trust that it will be received in
the spirit in which it was written.
Kind regards
Chris
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