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.