Thank you, that is great to hear!!! I got a shock when my own email appeared on my screen and I realised what I had done - a bit like coming out without meaning to. But you are right - these are really hard issues to grapple with and so few to have a good conversation with about it. Like you I am in the wrong part of the world to pop in for seminars that draw like minded people. But this connection already makes it feel different :) !!
>>> Racine Guylaine <[log in to unmask]> 05/31/07 3:01 PM >>>
Hi Yvonne,
I'm sorry that you are sorry for sending your email to the whole list, because reading your mail this morning made me feel less alone in trying to decide what direction to give to our paper. Taking to a friend yesterday, I was telling her how uncertain I was, talking with her about that "scientific gaze" that you've mentioned being over my shoulder, looking at me when I'm writing and making comments all along :) So your email was a blessing for me !
Au plaisir,
Guylaine
Guylaine Racine
Professeure agrégée
École de service social
Université de Montréal
C.P. 6128, Succ. Centre-ville
Montréal, Qc.
H3C 3J7
Tél.: (514) 343-6111, poste 3762
Télécopieur : (514) 343-2493
Courriel : [log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: Performative Social Science on behalf of Yvonne Sliep
Sent: Thu 2007-05-31 08:50
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: A lengthy inspired response
Dear all, I accidently send a response to Kip to the general list - so sorry about that.
Yvonne
Prof. Yvonne Sliep, PhD
School of Psychology
University of Kwa-Zulu Natal
South Africa
ph: 031-2607982
>>> Yvonne Sliep <[log in to unmask]> 05/31/07 2:01 PM >>>
Dear Kip,
I found your introduction and invitation to contribute to the special issue of FQS very inspiring, affirmative and immediately opening spaces in me that help me breathe and work better. I am feeling a bit like a child let loose in a world that only existed in my imagination * not knowing which of the work I want to respond to. Then writing and feeling the "scientific gaze" determine the direction which instinctively I know is wrong.
The attached abstract sounds boring and does not capture the rich context of the work and the challenges we wrestle with in trying to bring to light the effect of the work:
What is the evidence we are talking about - how can it best be taken back to the communities of concern where the practices are developed in?
How do you do what you are doing is good enough * do you listen to how counsellors dealing with war trauma suddenly talk with a different energy and commit themselves far beyond the normal call of duty?
Do you look at whether there is a change in the social web over the time the work has been done in the area * if people have an idea what contributed to these changes if any (try and imagine ways in which this can be done "scientifically" in geographical places where the are no streets and home numbers, where war is now waged over the geographical boundaries that used to help identify boundaries and where Suspicion and Mistrust have become well known neighbours since the war and are managing to perpetuate a war even closer to home.
Or do I take Malawi as an illustration * where HIV counsellors no longer felt like messengers of death but feeling they were making a personal contribution to the sense of a community changing from descriptions of being helpless victims to ones of communities of courage. Communities who have historically overcome many disasters like drought and hunger.
And really interesting is the response of a first world context where the participating group start developing a language of their own like "the shape of listening", 'the image of accountability" and continue to show in very alternative ways what is meant by this.
In South Africa we look at a collectively contributed script, produced by community based health workers that is based on real life experience. It primarily deconstructs notions of Stigma and Discrimination. Then we look at what preferred stories and experiment interactively through drama how you can get these preferred spaces.
Or do you give out hundreds of questionnaires that can help measure change in social capital because that will be seen as more scientific.
Well all of those were done but it would be great to have some feedback on what would be a good approach for the article in this specific issue.
I will talk to some of this work during a presentation which is going to happen during the conference in Bristol in July where I hope to meet you personally and maybe we can continue a conversation from there. Should I submit the abstract as is on-line or adapt it a particular direction?
Warm regards,
Yvonne
>>> Kip Jones <[log in to unmask]> 05/14/07 3:04 PM >>>
A personal invitation to contribute
to the FQS Special Issue on Performative Social
Science
from Kip Jones, co-editor
A while ago, Mary Gergen emailed and asked me to
contribute to a presentation that she was giving by
discussing my experience of "being on the margins",
how this may have affected my career over time, how I
have felt about this status when it is happening,
about how I define marginality at all and changes over
time in my experiences of marginality.
I don't think I ever really answered her question.
When someone brings up a topic, particularly one that
excites me, I tend to think tangentially. That is,
the question leads to other questions, then to other
places, concepts and ideas, spawning creative
connections, reminding me of experiences and stories,
and sending me reeling into the outer spaces of the
unknown. If Mary had been with me in the room, she
might have tried to "reel me in", get me back "on
message" and perhaps extracted a more precise answer
to her question. Left alone, I was left to my own
devices. Instead, I started thinking about "the edge"
and "going to the edge" and what that means to me
tangentially.
Tangential thinking is, in my estimation, the basis
for the development of the World Wide Web and its
popularity. Take a subject, do a search and
eventually you will end up in some interesting place
that you never planned to go in the first place. This
is the nature of scientific discovery (and social
science research would benefit from more of this
approach too). There are people "going to the edge"
on the web without even knowing what is happening to
them, participating in French educator Pierre Lévy's
concept of a web that does not have a unique centre
and no right place to start. The 'web has permanently
various centres that are mobile luminous pointers,
jumping from node to node. Each centre creates an
infinite network around it, defining an instantaneous
map' (Lévy 2003: 6).
What is marginality or the edge? * the cutting edge or
the abyss? It is probably a bit of both, in my
estimation. Having spent my life (creative and
academic) exploring boundaries in order to map new
territory, I am aware that dissatisfaction with the
status quo compels us into unknown territory, which,
in turn, often creates misunderstanding around our
activities*the price we pay for going to the edge.
Much of my work is guided by the principle that
creativity is the uncanny ability to change boundaries
while, at the same time, working with them. Creative
efforts push and shove at the edges. Like a child's
first wonderment at her/his artistic use of excrement,
this creativity needs to be shared. There is a
compulsion to return from the edge or margins and
convince others of our great discoveries/creations.
Often, like the creative child, our efforts are
received with horror or embarrassment.
Thinking about this, I remembered George Kubler and
his Shape of Time (1962), required (suggested?)
reading when I went to art school. Kubler was the art
historian and archaeologist who described the history
of art as a vast mining exercise with innumerable
shafts, most of them closed down long ago. Each
artist works on in the dark, guided only by the
tunnels and shafts of earlier work. We arrive at our
work on the continuum or series of works extending
beyond us in either or both directions. When a
specific temperament (edginess?) interlocks with a
favourable position, the fortunate individual uncovers
forward movement in the field. This achievement is
sometimes denied to others as well as by others.
An artist can not/would not/should not paint the Mona
Lisa in the 21st Century just as, hopefully, social
scientists would not want to retreat to mid-20th
Century "laboratory experiments" and studies that used
college freshmen (sic) as guinea pigs. Both the
artist and the social scientist are, first, recorders
of the time in which they live and must reflect their
place on a historical continuum of work. It may be
painful at times to be where we are, but we cannot go
backwards (and shouldn't want to, either). That's why
I often respond to negativity around or distrust of
the post-modern with, "That is all we have. This is
where we are".
Does it "hurt"*this going to the edge? Being
misunderstood is probably what hurts most. I was part
of a dinner party recently where the participants were
criticising contemporary art (the "a child could do
it"' argument). Because one of the dinner guests was a
former chorister at Convent Garden, I reminded her of
Bizet's experience with the premiere of Carmen and how
reviled this now extremely popular opera was in its
time. In fact, Bizet died six months after the
opening, disappointed in the extreme and exhausted
from his misunderstood efforts to produce a
masterpiece. The chorister seized upon my argument
and followed it with an animated discussion of
Bizet's plight and death. I am still not sure that
she got the connection to the earlier discussion,
however.
As frustrating as these conversations can be, we must
have them. We must come back from "the edge" and
begin to incorporate our "data" from the perimeter
into the fabric of community dialogue. This is where
relational art and relational scholarship begin.
Creativity is a process of invention, but the
knowledge gained from these 'uncovered forward
movements' (Kubler 1962) is a negotiated discursive
construct that is created between people and agreed
locally, opening up one or two obstructed passages
(Bourriaud 2002), and connecting our discoveries from
the margins back to the very community that motivated
us to explore.
Within the recent turn to a performative social
science, surely, our current 'temperaments interlock
with a favourable position' (Kubler 1962). This
position is available to us through the opportunity of
a Special Issue on Performative Social Science for the
online, qualitative journal, FQS. Won't you join us
in our adventure in forward movement at this pivotal
time in social science? The issue promises to be
seminal and foundational, exciting and innovative.
I personally invite you to contribute because of your
current work and interest in this emerging field. To
respond to the Call for Abstracts, please see:
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs/fqs-e/CfP_08-2-e.htm.
The co-editors and I look forward to working with you
on this collaborative effort.
Cheers,
Kip
Bourriaud, Nicolas (2002; English version) Relational
Aesthetics. Dijon, France: Les Presses du Reel.
Kubler, George (1962) The Shape of Time Remarks on
the History of Things. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Lévy, Pierre (2003) 'Education and Cyberspace'.
Available at:
http://www.siliconyogi.com/andreas/2003/doc/2003-1454.htm
Dr Kip Jones
Reader in Qualitative Social Science
Centre for Qualitative Research
Institute of Health & Community Studies
Bournemouth University United Kingdom
*************************
Website: www.kipworld.net
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