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
[log in to unmask]
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
|