Me, too, Keith. Many thanks.
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-----Original Message-----
From: BERA Practitioner-Researcher
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of MATTHIAS
MEIERS
Sent: 17 November 2006 01:04
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: How do i~we recognise world leading educational
practitioner-research?
Keith, could you help me find a Foucault quote or two where he states that
idea?
You could write me a note and send it to
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From: BERA Practitioner-Researcher on behalf of Keith Kinsella
Sent: Thu 11/16/2006 3:39 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: How do i~we recognise world leading educational
practitioner-research?
Hi
Sorry I've not had a chance to contribute before - and this is just a short
input - but:
I agree with the sentiment. But paraphrasing a for once very succinct
Foucault: 'people know what they do and they often know why they do it; but
what they don't know is what what they do, does'. In other words, people
don't know the consequences of their actions as they are both mediated by
the originality and critical intelligence of others, and the "does's" of
many others in their networks. Accepting this 'capillary' view of
distributed power (and hence influence - educational or otherwise), and the
essential systemic interconnectedness and emergent nature of outcomes
however we define them, isn't the idea of 'citing evidence' a deeply
problematic notion - even if we broaden and lengthen our judgement horizon
to include many others and over longish periods of time? And once I commit
to the ideas and practice of more 'inclusive and relational' ways of living
how do I go about drawing evidential boundaries around my unit of analysis,
to show that it was 'I' who 'influenced' something, without immediately
being caught up in a living contradiction of claiming an 'I' when I'm
seeking to live a 'we'?
In grappling with this I've been playing around with the idea of 'systemic
accountability' as a way of exploring the 'before', 'during' and 'after' of
any social formation(s) I'm involved with for a specific purpose e.g. a
development assignment of some kind. Using the systemic family therapy
concept of 'problem determined systems' I'm wondering whether it might be
possible to clarify the more limited nature of what we might call
'communities or networks of educational influence' as a way of establishing,
admittedly in a more constrained way, the potential zone of educational
influence of one's thinking and behaviour. And further, to strengthen the
relational nature of this influence, by inquiring not into my influence as
such but the influence of key relationships I'm a part of.
Loos all very complicated now... and I'm sorry I've run on for so long!
Best wishes
Keith Kinsella
Mature (very) PhD student at CARPP, Bath University
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