As somebody who was born and brought up in a developing country, but who has had
the opportunity to closely learn about various other more and less developed
situations in relation to design, I SO agree with Richard in what he has just
said. I can't understand how anyone can conduct a thesis about something happening
in a context they have never experienced for themselves ( I many times hear people
in USA or Europe say so many things about Latin America with such certainty but...
they've never being here, and I can obviously tell, cause what some say doesn't
make any sense to me in my context). I have had to realise this for myself, and I
didn't use to think the same way before being exposed to the various realities
involved.
Maria Camacho
Richard Buchanan wrote:
> Rosan,
>
> I don't know if you want to refer to yourself as institutionalized these days!
>
> There is no particular problem with what you brought up. If you are
> investigating a problem in the area of poverty, it is a pretty good idea
> to talk with people in poverty. With anything you are studying at the
> doctoral level, it is important to bypass the literature that seeks to
> interpret and explain phenomena and go directly to the phenomena. If
> you stayed only with the literature, you would not be a doctoral
> student. In short, doctoral study is all about Inquiry. It is not
> about the interpretation of texts--what I call Semantics. The latter is
> important for knowing what others have found, but that is never a
> substitute for direct encounter with phenomena. Experiencing phenomena
> gives one data, and it is actually very hard to find data in the
> literature. The literature is about Interpreting data, not presenting
> it in its most concrete form.
>
> This holds, I believe, for the actual work on a dissertation. The
> preliminary and comprehensive phases of doctoral study of course look at
> the literature--which one learns to read very very carefully.
>
> Dick
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