Hi all
In this posting, I'm mainly replying to Brian's challenging statements.  But
first, HERD editor Gerlese Akerlind has come back and said that HERD would
be interested (in theory) in the issue of academic standards and how these
may be framed and extended, but as the editorial board is shortly to change,
we would be best to approach the new editors.  She didn't know of
multi-media journals that might be interested.  If anyone has any other
ideas of journals whom we might approach to publish a series of papers
arising from this discussion, please throw them into the pot.  Je Kan, as
far as I am concerned all participants would be most welcome to contribute
their perspectives to such a theme-related journal.  Whether any or all of
us get published, of course, will be up to the journal editors (with their
own standards of judgment!)  So I guess the way forward would be to
determine (a) whether any of us want to submit 'papers' that contain
multi-media evidence and (b) then to decide which journal we will approach
to pursue this joint endeavour.

Now, I want to engage with Brian's questions.  Mate, if this is you in
post-operative haze, I'd hate to argue with you when you're fully conscious!
But the questions are excellent, and I'll try to engage with at least the
first, concisely.

"How do you approach the issues of:
 
-formulating questions
-the status of evidence, 
-of the coherence of your teachers' writings,
-questions of validity and reliability
-issues of  ethics: privacy versus right to know;
to whom does the data belong; and to whom should it be
released? Respect for other persons involved in the
research?
-on what grounds can we claim "to know"?
-Is what I claim to know intuitively, through
experience, by mystic reflection....perhaps distorted
at best and at worst....self-delusion?"

Probably the most focused endeavour I've been engaged in as we wrestle with
these questions in New Zealand, was when I was at Waikato Polytechnic (now
the Waikato Institute of Technology - Wintec).  I worked under the chairing
of Hera White, HOD Maori Studies, in a mainly Maori (2 pakeha, or non-Maori)
team putting together a policy called "Principles and Procedures: Conducting
Research in a Maori Context."  Maori (and heaps of other indigenous or
marginalised people, I suspect) are sick to death of 'hit and run
researchers' who come in with their own questions and ways of doing things,
use the local community as research fodder, then take off back to their
ivory towers and pontificate, without mutuality or responsibility back to
the group from whom they gathered the data.  An extreme way of expressing
things, perhaps, but it has definitely been the pattern of a lot of past
research.

So Hera and the team actively sought to bring researchers within Wintec to
account, formally, for any activities that involved Maori participants.
After nearly two years of meetings, drafts, critical input from outside etc,
we succeeded in getting the Academic Board to pass our policy.  This is
still in place, although it has been revised several times since.  It
requires researchers to consult with Maori communities, revered elders and
the like, in the early stages of a proposed project, so that those people
can influence the questions being asked, the direction of the investigation,
how data will be gathered (and what data the researchers will have access
to); how the data gathered is interpreted and presented, questions like
these.  There is a strong sense of reciprocity within Maori communities, so
the notion of 'using' people as sources of data when they may never benefit
from the research, is pretty much a no-no.

A prominent Maori academic, Dr Linda Tuhiwai Smith, wrote the following
questions that she believes should be asked by any researcher.

"Who has helped define the research problem? 
For whom is the study worthy and relevant? Who says so? 
Which cultural group will be the one to gain new knowledge from this study? 
To whom is the researcher accountable? 
Who will gain most from this study?"

Her book, "Decolonising Methodologies", is a seminal work in calling for
greater accountability by researchers to those they work with, indigenous or
not.

I also recall having a 'lightbulb' moment when I read Sandra Harding's "The
Science Question and Feminism" many years ago.  Harding is a natural science
researcher who presented compelling arguments about the inherent bias in the
questions that scientists choose to ask, and how they go about their
research, that significantly undermines their claims to neutrality and
objectivity.  As a result, Brian, I now think very carefully about the
questions I find myself investigating.  Indeed, most of my recent
publications have been joint - a way of imposing a critical friend into my
research, and getting a reality check on my own thinking.  It requires
humility and a high level of give-and-take by both or all parties, but I
have found the results far more satisfying in terms of forward movement.  I
wrote a chapter once called "Collaboration for Co-Liberation" (published in
Jean and Jack's "Action Research in Organisations", the title of which
pretty much sums up how I feel about collaborative writing.  It DOES help to
lever off our blinkers, to encourage us when we're running out of steam, to
help us see where we're straying from the path.

Hope that initial response gives you some hope that people DO think about
their questions, Brian - further responses to the other questions that you
raise will have to wait, for now.

I wish us all transcendent moments of great insight! (Sorry, Mohsen, I
cannot reach anywhere near your level of blessings)
Pip Bruce Ferguson