Hi Teena,
Thanks for drawing attention to this in detail.
Is it a problem?
The way 'gathering/discovering/testing' happens is always by real human
lived experiences as Klaus said.
Sometimes for convenience and reducing the mess and ambiguity of everyday
conversation we use a formal theory language (terms like subordination) but
at heart we create, understand, test and generate knowledge as biological
social animals.
It seems to me to fit well with the axiom: by praxis and intentional action
in design methods we gain information.
Thoughts?
Best wishes,
Terry
____________________
Dr. Terence Love
Praxis Education
PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks
Western Australia 6030
[log in to unmask]
Tel/fax: +61 (0)8 9305 7629
www.praxiseducation.com
____________________
PS Good to find someone else into false consciousness! Illich?
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of teena
clerke
Sent: Wednesday, 24 September 2008 10:23 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: design as research
Dear all,
extending Action Research is Participatory Action Research (PAR),
particularly relevant in education and learning, for example, in researching
and instigating change in specific institutional contexts such as
workplaces, neighbourhoods and other communities whereby the researcher is
also a community member and participant. Appreciative inquiry is an
extension of this, and while optimistic, also a little cosmic despite best
intentions to be 'scientific'.
Further, to complicate the idea that research 'finds' or 'discovers'
knowledge, there is praxis, to quote wikipedia, useful albeit the binaristic
explanations (it is late night in Sydney and I don't have my hard copy
references at hand) 'Praxis is conceptualized in its reflexive as well as
non-reflexive variety in Marx (Gouldner 1980:32, 33). The reflexive praxis
is understood as the moment in the dialectic change, and the non-reflexive
one as the routinising mechanism operating within the ideologies as a
reproductive or status quo maintaining. It is, for Marx, the non-reflexive
habituating praxis, which leads to False consciousness and alienation. To
Markoviç, moments of praxis include creativity instead of sameness, autonomy
instead of subordination, sociality instead of massification, rationality
instead of blind reaction and intentionality rather than compliance
(1974:64).'
Praxis, conceptualised as combining action with research has been advocated
by Paulo Freire in his emancipatory educational work in South America and
taken up by feminist researchers, for example, the collective memory work
devised by Frigga Haug et al. at the intersection of feminism and socialism.
This is far removed from the idea that research 'gathers', 'discovers' or
'tests' knowledge, and is closer to the idea that research 'generates'
knowledge, often arising from personal, lived experience rather than
theoretical constructs. In this way, conflating theory with method, and
sometimes collapsing the distinction between researcher and participant, ie.
researchers research themselves in a group setting.
cheers, teena
Haug, F. 1987, Female sexualization : a collective work of memory, trans. E.
Carter, Verso, London.
Troxel, J. 2002, Appreciative Inquiry: an action research method for
organisational transformation and its implications to the practice of group
process facilitation, Millennia Consulting, Chicago,
http://www.consult.millennia.com/documents/Appreciative%20Inquiry.pdf
Cooperrider, D. and Srivastava, S. (1987) Appreciative Inquiry in
organisational life, Research in Organisational Change and Development,
Vol.1, http://www.appreciative-inquiry.org/AI-life.htm
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