Dear Keith,
I enjoyed reading your post. Unfortunately, I can’t agree with some of your hypotheses. I'm not a junior researcher. I do understand the rhetorical modes, and I don’t take offence with them. What I do take offence with is a mode of interlocution that requires extensive time to defend positions that may be a minor point of the argument, and a mode of interlocution that suggests the author being addressed may not speak from a valid position.
Sometimes I’d like to suggest different ways of viewing the question or different relevant materials or methods. But I often simply don’t have the time to respond to the same extent as some other list members - perhaps because I’m a mid-career researcher who already has publishing commitments, teaching, supervisions and mentoring and administration, in addition to caring responsibilities. The current thread about the history of design research and marketing research is a good example of this. As a social historian who works on design, manufacturing and industry, I’ve lots to say, but simply don’t have the time to formulate the points I’d like to make - and am also scared that someone might attack my points in a way that I don’t have the time to respond to, as I’d like.
So we might consider how the list is experienced by participants like myself - I don’t think I’m alone in this - who appreciate the list’s scholarly explorations and contribute in the small ways we can, but don’t have the time for the kind of rhetorical engagement that the list also endorses. It could be that the list simply continues with both modes running.
But I can say that from my perspective, it would be a more welcoming place if opinions are challenged in a way that encourages dialogue, rather than demanding defensiveness and arguments.
With respect and best wishes,
Sarah
Dr. Sarah Teasley
Head of Programme
V&A/RCA History of Design
School of Humanities
Royal College of Art
Kensington Gore, London
SW7 2EU
[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
+44 (0)20 7590 4481
www.rca.ac.uk <http://www.rca.ac.uk/>
twitter.com/sarah_teasley <http://twitter.com/sarah_teasley>
Applications are currently open for V&A/RCA MA History of Design and for our MPhil/PhD degrees. For further information please see http://www.rca.ac.uk/schools/school-of-humanities/hod/ <http://www.rca.ac.uk/schools/school-of-humanities/hod/>
> On 2 Feb 2017, at 01:05, Keith Russell <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>
> Dear Clive,
>
> Welcome.
> As someone who knows the origins of this list, it is important to listen
> to your insights.
>
> As you know:
> The Ohio conference was the foundation experience that allowed this PhD
> Design group to emerge.
> Sufficient senior researchers were concerned enough about the development
> of junior researchers that this group was established.
> That concern about the development of research through researchers has
> been the entire point of engaging with this list.
>
> It has often been pointed out, over the years, and again recently (on and
> off-list), that very little time is directly spent on this key business.
> Some students post request for information to help them with their
> literature review.
> Some use the list to organise resources - collect published PhDs and MAs -
> point to archives etc.
> Some argue through key points in their developing work (this doesn¹t
> happen very often).
> Some put up lists of upcoming conferences and CFPs.
> Some advocate for radical alternative approaches.
>
> Senior researchers generously respond to these postings as best they are
> able.
> Some senior researchers give access to significant research methods
> materials.
> Some senior researchers engage with off-list mentoring which can help PhD
> candidates get passed the blind spots of their supervisors.
>
> Some senior researchers also engage in extensive back and forth arguments
> with each other.
> How to best approach these on-line disputations and contestations?
> Many aspects of the disputations and contestations fall into rhetorical
> modes that some junior researchers are not familiar with.
> Some junior researchers take offence at certain rhetorical modes and see
> these modes as indicative of power and age and gender and colour.
>
> When I listen to the list, I listen to all the voices on the list.
> As a co-owner it is not my privilege to hear some and not others.
>
> So, I listen to your despair. You write:
>
> "Frankly, in its most conventional modes, 'design research' is of little
> interest, either to thought or practice, and far less so than some here
> seem to imagine.²
>
> I must insist that a conventional sense of purpose and interest is a basic
> requirement of a list-owner.
>
> Should we contest these ideas in public as an exemplar for junior
> researchers?
> Would it be indicative of blind power for a co-owner to ask you to
> elaborate for the sake of this community?
> If a senior researcher, such as yourself, is seriously in despair that
> design research, in its conventional modes, is of ³little interest, either
> to thought or practice² why is there a PhD Design list at all, we might
> ask and discuss?
>
> The list, as I understand it, supports conventions while encouraging
> alternative ways of going.
> This is a pretty standard understanding of institutions that receive
> government support.
> I am paid by the Australian government to spend my days doing this stuff.
> Is this list too conventional?
> Are alternative approaches marginalised on this list?
> It should surprise no-one that dominant modes will dominate conventional
> organisations and cultural groups.
> Intersectionality was pointed to recently on the list.
> This approach arose historically, as I understand it, out of white
> feminists denying other women.
> That is, it was a non-conventional approach to a group of non-conventional
> academics.
> Now it is a conventional way of looking at gender.
>
> So, if this list is conventional in offering junior researchers exposure
> to a range of conventional understandings of knowledge -
> I would see this is a requirement, not as a deficit.
>
> Looking forward to your reply
>
> keith
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 2/2/17, 1:36 am, "PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD
> studies and related research in Design on behalf of Clive Dilnot"
> <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> on behalf of [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>
>> Some who have defensively posted here appear to have the
>> implicit notion that they are the keepers of the sacred flame of
>> ³research.² This is nonsense, both personally and intellectually. The
>> truth
>> is that while ³design research² has globally made great institutional
>> strides since the 1980s (as represented by the number of PhDs and the
>> like)
>> intellectually and especially in terms of the models majorly represented
>> on this list - it has made almost no real advance. Frankly, in its most
>> conventional modes, "design research" is of little interest, either to
>> thought or practice, and far less so than some here seem to imagine.
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
> Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design <https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|