Nov 12th Identity and positioning

A research colleague, Alan Armstrong, couldn’t understand why he was only supposed to do learning disability research. He had no issue with researchers who chose to position themselves in this field. But he had been positioned there by others. 

Alan wanted to research other social topics, such as the lives of working class men. And why not? 

Why not indeed. 

Alan was starting to build an academic profile. However, no-one seemed to expect him to be interested in anything except learning disability research. They just saw someone with learning disabilities. 

I wish he’d lived long enough to challenge this. 

Nov 11th Co-produced BY

One part of my doctoral research was co-produced by five women. One of the women was me. 

We all signed the informed consent pack. We all share ownership of the co-created data. We are all named in that part of the research by our names, even though elsewhere I am not ‘Anne’ but ‘I’. 

I did not co-produce WITH four other women. That part of my research was coproduced BY five women. We knew it was just one jewel that we could co-produce. We recognised it was my research overall. 

Sadly, that was the price for it being a doctorate.

Nov 10th “Co-produced with”

“Co-produced with” is a red flag for me, whether used in a statement like “This leaflet was co-produced with” or “Organisation X co-produced this with”. 

It’s not usually helpful to argue over meanings of words, especially weasel-words like co-production, but here’s my take. 

Co-production happens BY people working together - whether those people are employed by an organisation or volunteers, members or fee-paid experts by experience. Only naming ‘outsiders’ you coproduction WITH perpetuates the power imbalance that is inherent in engagement, the power of one party choose when to invite ‘others’ to help them. 

And for me that is not co-production. 

Nov 9th Research is not my life

Today I listened to Dr Helen Kara on planning research projects.* One of her ten tips is to remember the other parts of your life and plan space for them. 

Some branches of social research treat the whole of life as research and data. For some, being researcher is their core identity. It is their backstage performance not just when they are on display. It cannot be switched off because it is who they are. 

I used to be like that. But I am learning the importance of just being and not continually observing and thinking. My research is richer.  

* https://t.co/dJHid4p6OR?amp=1

Nov 8th Paying to take part in research

There are debates about paying participants to take part in research. There are discussions about reimbursement of expenses. What I tend not to hear are debates about paying to take part in research. 

I am not suggesting that people are paying with cash to take part in research. However cash is not the only currency or price we can be asked to pay. 

Often there’s an emotional price to pay to being a participant. Too often the price goes unacknowledged. Don’t expect people to be grateful for the chance to have a voice. It is researchers who should be grateful.  

Nov 7th Campaign for thinking

I had a university timesheet returned because ‘thinking’ was an inadequate description of my activity. I changed it to ‘cognitive reflective practices’ and my timesheet was accepted. 

This illustrates two aspects of academic life. Firstly, if you dress things up to sound academic, what you say is more likely to be treated with respect. Secondly, time for simply thinking appears undervalued in universities. 

And yet, without time to stare, think about nothing in particular and have no pressure to be productive, where is creativity and inspiration to come from? Perhaps it is time for a campaign for slower deeper thinking. 

Nov 6th Ditch the transcript

I was taught to record and transcribe interviews. All the interpretative power was put in my hands. I decided what words mattered out of the deluge of words I heard and read. I was often explicitly guided by theory and too often unconsciously by what I already knew and how I made sense of the world.

What if we co-construct - mid interview - an agreed set of notes and text fragments, that represents what matters from our conversation? 

The data are suddenly not ‘rich’ but they are deep. Most importantly, my power to interpret is reduced and my interviewee’s power increased.

Nov 5th Research design as shape sorting

There are multiple ways of making sense of the world. There are a myriad of types of research questions. And then there are different methods and very different reasons for doing research. 

Is one way better or right? Not exactly. However it is vital that square pegs are put into square holes. Not all types of question can be answered using all methods. And some reasons for doing research and ways of making sense of the world lend themselves to certain methods and types of question. 

The moral is to know enough to avoid hammering square pegs into round holes.

Nov 4th Equality

If you want a bit of extra reading, you may want to look at the version of my doctoral thesis that is written ‘bilingually’ for readers of ‘Everyday’ and readers of ‘Academic’. It’s just one practice I use to reconcile my non-negotiable beliefs with working in the academic world. I call it the Alongsider Thesis https://research.bangor.ac.uk/portal/files/39200483/Alongsider_Thesis_online_version.pdf

All lives have equal value. That’s my non-negotiable belief even though I don’t always act on it and I haven’t fully thought through its implications. If you look at life in Wales, our mainstream discrimination suggests equality is not a mainstream belief. 

What has this to do with academic life? I believe we carry into our academic work a fundamental belief in inequality when it comes to knowledges and people as knowers, thinkers and sense-makers. 

I see it in our research practices, in our ‘business as usual’. And I have committed to doing things differently, starting with how I write. 

Nov 3rd Who’s the Boss?

My third drabble. Bit of a rant today. But I kept it to 100 words.

Designing research? 

So… 

Who decides what to study? Who decided what data are important enough to collect or co-create? Who decides who should be involved in data collection/co-creation? Who decides how to analyse the data? Who decides what is important in the data? Who decides what is important enough to write into a report? 

Please don’t call it co-design or coproduction or any of the other ‘co’s unless the answer to ‘who?’ includes those whose lives are most affected by the research, the people who know from the insider, as well as people with suitable lived experience as academics. 

Nov 2nd Research or Finding out?

Drabble 2: The difference between research and finding out

Finding out is a human activity. Some of us are more curious than others. Some specialise in searching for information, or working out ways to piece information together. 

Research is like ‘finding out plus’. So what are the pluses? 

Research is finding out that leaves a trail so we can see and show others how we did the finding out. Research needs a good reason why we did what we did. Research needs a convincing argument for how we have interpreted the information. If it’s academic research, it also needs to show how it relates to past theories and academic knowledge. 

November writing challenge

November is AcWriMo - academic writing month. I’m not formally signed up to it. However I’ve seen people talking about producing daily ‘atomic notes’. These are 250-300 word pieces with one idea. I thought I might give that a go. But I find 250-300 words is both too much and too little for many ideas. 

I’ve decided to try a daily ‘drabble’. This is a 100 word short story. I learned about these from the author Hannah Retallick. 

So, belatedly, here is yesterday’s drabble.

Knowing

By habit, I equate ‘know’ with ‘can articulate in words’. I think thoughts in words. I communicate knowledge in words. In other words, I am ‘logo-centric’. 

This is profoundly ableist. When I assume knowing requires words, I diminish people as knowers if they have no words. I falsely equate word skills with value and skill at knowing. I deny their knowledge. 

Equating words with knowing removes my ability to ever claim to ‘know’ anything. Words are fluid. Meanings shape-shift in time, culture and transfer among people. 

This drabble has fixed and shared 100 words. Its meaning is not fixed. 

Discuss! 

Peace

Peace is sitting on driftwood, gazing across the shell-encrusted sand to the far distant sea.

Peace is the free-flowing music from behind the dunes and the sound of toddlers splashing in the distant lido.

Peace is knowing that, right now, all that exists is here and now. 

For a moment, peace infuses me, silences me, requires nothing of me. 

I breathe. As words come I type, elbows on thighs, hands cupping phone, thumbs on keypad. 

I gaze without looking. I feel the breeze. I smell and taste the salty air. I hear without listening. 

I am at peace. I and peace are one.

Layers and webs

After an extended celebration for having submitted a doctoral thesis against the odds, I'm now starting my viva preparation, nobly assisted by George Julian's wonderful Viva Cards.

The 'soft ball' opening question for a viva, so I'm told, is usually something like 'Can you tell us what your thesis is about?'. I am sure it is soft ball to many, possibly even most, doctoral candidates. 

If I'm asked what my thesis is about, I'm still stumped. The story I tell about my thesis depends on who has asked. Sometimes it's a thesis about the epistemic (in)justice of public involvement in policy-making and social research. Sometimes it's a thesis about making sense of complex adaptive systems. Sometimes it's a thesis about social care policy and how for the last 50 years, in Wales at least, it has been failing people with learning disabilities by failing to achieve what it says it is designed to achieve. Sometimes it's a thesis about pushing methodological boundaries. Sometimes it's a thesis about developing a new theoretically informed method for public consultation that doubles as a new social research method. 

I couldn't even answer a question about where the thesis belongs in relation to academic disciplines, as the one that comes to the fore depends on which story I tell. 

Each story forms its own layer. Each layer is its own complex transdisciplinary web. The layers and the stories are interconnected. Working out how needs to be the focus of my viva prep. I trust myself that they do; I just need to make explicit to myself how they do so I can explain it to others. For me, quite literally, this will mean going back to the drawing board. When words fail and knowledge remains tacit, art and creativity take over and bridge the gulf between awareness of 'something' and turning that 'something' into words. 

I wish I could tie the thesis stories all up into a neat single story. 

I can't. Or, perhaps rather, I refuse to. To tie them into a neat single story would require a violent shoe-horning into a simplistic shape. There is a reason that I was so grateful for the metaphor of wrestling an octopus into a box. A thesis must fit in a box. And the image of one tentacle popping out as fast as I squeezed another in certainly resonated. In so far as my thesis has a central co-ordinating 'head', I guess it is the importance of drawing together things that are often held apart, with the intention of making sense of why 50 years of policy isn't delivering what it says it wants to deliver - and then developing a tool to do something about it. 

I can only hope that the 'hard ball' questions are less challenging than the 'soft ball' opener!

‘Hard to reach’

We like some sorts of jargon. ‘Hard to reach’ is the sort of jargon I do not like. 

‘Hard to reach’ does not sum up something that needs a whole page of writing to explain.

‘Hard to reach’ does not have a specialist exact meaning that everyday language can’t provide. 

What does ‘hard to reach’ mean? 

It is jargon used by organisations to talk about people.

It is usually used as shorthand for ‘People who have rights under the Equalities Act’. It is also usually treated as if people with rights under the Equalities Act are a problem that needs fixing. 

‘Hard to reach’ is not Easy Read. When we do Easy Read, we need to know what people were thinking when they used the phrase. Then we can pick the right Easy Read words.

Here are some meanings. Do any of them feel right for how you use the jargon? 

People who have rights under the Equality Act. Say that, not ‘hard to reach’

People we exclude by how we do things. Say ‘people we aren’t reaching’ Get an independent audit to see how ‘business as usual’ affects people. Once you’ve done it, you will be ahead of the game next time you do an equality impact assessment. 

Go talk to organisations that represent people covered by the Act. If you can’t reach people directly right now, pay the organisations to do it for you. 

People who aren’t in contact with us. Say ‘people we aren’t in contact with’. And if you don’t know why because you don’t have a way to find out, talk to us. We can sort finding out, so you at least know what the problems are.

To Alan

In memory of Alan Armstrong

 

Missing you, Alan.

Pioneer. Working class man who made good. Risk taker. Actor. Game to try anything.  

The gift of baseball caps with logos, so we both knew which hat I was wearing when we talked.
The resilience.
The quiet strength.
The solid, thoughtful man.
The sideways look which I knew meant he had seen something I hadn’t.
The silence unless he knew you’d listen, but then the wisdom when you did.
The mad-cap workshop ideas. Alan and the party blowers, charades and jargon busters.

The actor, the willingness to put parts of his life in the public domain while keeping a private self.

His patience with me when I talked over him. My growing respect for his intellectual ability.

Alan the PhD supervisor. It was Alan who suggested asking how people feel when consulted. In the university, we hadn’t thought of that. It was the research’s missing piece.
Alan the co-author.
Alan the idea co-generator - your space, my space, shared space; side by side coproduction.
Alan the trainer of doctoral students and early career researchers
Alan who went from outsider to rubbing shoulders comfortably with professors and students alike. I think Oxford was the turning point. You saw yourself through other eyes, and you saw what others had. And you wanted it. You quietly and doggedly worked for it.
Alan who wanted his next career move to be blazing a trail into academia.


Alan, I wish it was you doing this, submitting a thesis for doctoral examination.
But you knew that me doing this would open more doors for you. You trusted I’d use any extra authority and power in the way I always do - to create space and wedge doors open with your steadying and grounding support and encouragement. Together, we would take on the world. We were both stronger together, and I feel your loss deeply.

We can’t continue this academic journey together now. You’ve left me to carry on alone. And I don’t know anyone quite like you. But one day there will be another 'Alan', and I’ll try to be ready for them so we can both stand on your giant shoulders and take on the world from where you left off.

Reflections as I (finally) finish my thesis on why it took me two decades to start

Retrospective

I wrote this in 2015. I'd not long had my 50th birthday and I'd been invited to swap from a quick 'in and out' one year Masters by Research to a full blown PhD. 

If I'd known what the next six years would hold, I would not have had the courage to take the leap. But I didn't, so I did. 

I stumbled across this tonight. Turns out I still don't know the answer. But at least I have now remembered the question!

I've had people suggesting, encouraging or pushing me towards a PhD for about 20 years.

I have been tempted. But I've always drawn back. It was never that I doubted my ability to produce work to PhD standard, although sometimes I doubted my character and ability to stick to the same thing for three years.

One reason has remained constant. If my main aim is to change the world, is it worth three years of my life to complete a PhD - bearing in mind that "good enough" research to help me and others change the world could be done in a much shorter time, albeit without the academic rigour or standing (but still of more rigour and value than, dare I say, much commissioned research),

The other reasons have changed down the years.

When I was 30, I thought I was too old to do another three years of study.

When I was 40, I rebelled against a society that gave extra value and status to the knowledge of people with a PhD compared to the knowledge of people who were living the lives being researched by those with PhDs. A few people I knew within disabled person led organisations did suggest there was a need for people like me to "infiltrate" academic life and take on the status symbols of that life so I could work from within to change how research happens. But although the idea of infiltration appealed, I lack the skills to be that person. I'm a bit of a bull in a china shop when it comes to politicking. I also know myself, and think if I had chosen this route, I would have "turned native" and begun to believe the myth that my knowledge had greater standing than someone else's because of my PhD.

By the time I was almost 50, I had rebelled against anything that involved bringing together the knowledge, insights, time and effort of many people but crediting only one of them with creating new knowledge. After all, why should only one person get their name on a PhD? Sadly, you can't award a PhD to a collective body, only an individual body. And, anyway, that might not be the full answer because it is important to recognise who has contributed what. While I am adamant that I don't want to take credit that isn't due to me, I am equally adamant that I should get credit that is due to me.

Who does what and who should be credited is something people can get heated about within inclusive research. So here's my position:

·                  there are different kinds of knowledge and skills. We need them all. If we don't need them all, then we shouldn't be working together as a team. So I don't agree with the "everyone does everything" approach. I believe in everyone using their knowledge and skills for a common purpose, and laying their knowledge and skills at the disposal of the rest of the team.

·                  some research-generated new knowledge is a team effort. If it's a team effort, the whole team gets equal status, acknowledgement and should have had equal pay while doing the work.

·                  some research-generated new knowledge depends on the additional work of one member of the team, as they take what the team came up with, re-interpret, add new insights and create something new based on their additional work. That could be someone with a learning difficulty taking the team's report, thinking about the needs of the self-advocacy movement, adding their personal insights to take the ideas of the report further and then presenting the information to the self-advocacy community. This could be someone with a PhD taking the team's report and writing a paper that re-frames the research in the light of a particular social theory. This could be a support worker, producing a training manual based on the research findings. And the person who has put in the additional effort should get the acknowledgement and status for this additional work.

And now I'm 50. 

I no longer think I'm too old to do a PhD. 

I've got to a place, thanks to Barod, where I don't need to worry about getting above my station and believing I'm special because I have a PhD. 

So can a PhD be done that attributes contributions fairly and accurately? Maybe.

Here's what I'm thinking:

Imagine a research team. They work in line with the first two points I made about inclusive research. They co-author a number of publications. Then the third point kicks in. Anyone from the team could then choose to take the publications and use them as they wish, and be credited for that additional work. If anyone chose to do the additional work needed to turn the publications into a PhD by publication, then that person gets named on the PhD for that additional work. 

Could the solution be that simple? Right now, I don't know. But I could be about to find out. 

The sweet shop window: An allegory about the world as lived and the world as socially researched

This morning I decided the world of blogs was a better place for this way of telling a story than my (soon to be written and submitted) doctoral thesis. And so I cut it from there and pasted it here. 

The sweet shop window

I belong in the world where we use everyday reasoning to make sufficient sense of our lives to create adequate social order so we can interact and work together as some kind of society. I do not want to leave that world to join the academic world.

But my everyday reasoning is proving inadequate. I cannot make adequate sense of what I am observing and experiencing in relation to public involvement in policy making. I suspect that the academic world may have more adequate tools for making sense of my observations and experiences.

I stand outside the academic world, looking in like a child looking into an old-fashioned sweetie shop, at the array of theoretical approaches, lenses, perspectives and stances on offer from the academic world.

I enter the shop.

Once inside, I discover I am expected to choose just one jar. I am then expected to stand inside that jar, looking back out at my world through the lens of just that jar. I am expected to become expert at understanding that jar and its contents, and learn to ask questions of my world that are appropriate for sweets in that jar.

Do I want to be on the outside looking in? Or on the inside looking out?

If I am on the outside looking in, I cannot explore the jars.

If I am on the inside looking out, I can only see the outside world through a narrowly focused lens.

     But what if…

What if I ignore the convention, go inside the sweet shop, browed the jars, pick and mix those that look promising and then assemble and reassemble my selection until I find a pattern that makes adequate sense – at least to me – of my observations and experiences of public involvement in policymaking?

Implications of the sweet shop for research design

My purpose for being in the academic world has been to find and create academic tools that can help those in the world beyond academia and those in the academic world to value each other’s knowledges. My territory was public involvement in Welsh Government social care policymaking.

To be led by a set of clearly defined research questions would have meant adopting an academic map of the territory I wanted to explore. Instead, I wanted to embrace what I brought with me into academia as an older, deeply embedded, highly reflexive student. And for me, that meant enquiring how others inside and outside of academia have made sense of the territory as I explored and charted the territory for myself. By meandering and exploring the territory, I believe I have found a destination worth visiting. [Spoiler: you'll have to wait until I've actually written the thesis to know where that destination is!]

One caveat: what I have termed a destination is better considered a scenic resting point at which to break a journey or, in the language of Deleuze and Guattariz, an intermezzo (1987:12).

• Reference
• Deleuze, Gilles, Félix Guattari, and Brian Massumi. 1987. A thousand plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia.