The Personal is Political....

It's one of of those sticky lines I picked up from a seminar course on Gender, Culture and Ideology while doing my Masters in Community Development at my home university.

I've always thought that my writings were personal hidden in the language of 'scholarly' research to be acceptable enough. My papers stemmed basically from that--interest in subject matter which mattered most to me: the small school I'm currently in, the previous schools I've worked with, and my classroom experiments anchored on my interests in education.

While undertaking my doctoral studies, I wrote a paper in the first person for a class under my research adviser. She cautioned against the use of 'I'. I find that troubling as most of the articles I connected with were written in first person. I wondered: howcome they can and I can't?

Towards the tailend of my doctoral coursework, I took a Quali-R methodology course with Ma'am Jean Gray, a colleague at my university of employment.  I chanced upon this article which captured what I really meant. It came from a group of women doing a collaborative auto-ethnography.....yes, there is such a thing!

Ngunjiri, F. W., Hernandez, K. C., & Chang, H. (2010). Living autoethnography: Connecting life and research [Editorial]. Journal of Research Practice, 6(1), Article E1. Retrieved [date of access], from http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/view/241/186

"Research is an extension of researchers’ lives. Although most social scientists have been trained to guard against subjectivity (self-driven perspectives) and to separate self from research activities, it is an impossible task. Scholarship is inextricably connected to self--personal interest, experience, and familiarity. Working together on this special issue provided an opportunity for us to candidly reflect on and dialogue about the motivations behind our scholarship. Not surprisingly, at the very onset our dissertation studies were anchored in our personal interests. Ngunjiri (2007, 2010), a Kenyan woman, studied African women leaders; Hernandez (2005, 2006 ), a Trinidadian who lived and taught in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) prior to coming to the US, studied high school students in the BVI and the US; Chang (1992), a secondary educator, explored the culture of adolescents in a US high school. In spite of this intimate connection with our work, we followed traditional scientific paradigms in conducting and reporting our work." (p.2)

To Pune or not to Pune?

I've been reading mostly about Auto ethno and I wonder if I can do justice to it.
Of course, I know, this is experimental to me...meaning my first time to give it a go. But I'd like to come up with something decent.

If only they can extend the deadline, then it should not be a problem.
What then predisposes me to success?
-I do make sense when it comes to writing from the 'heart' but I have to be in the proper state to do it
-I have not backed out from a paper I'm determined to do
-I can bring myself to accomplish something if I want to
-I would not want to miss out on this opportunity of course.

To do otherwise means:
-less stress
-brain space to do other things
-underachieve and so what?
-more time to read
-use my extra money for other things instead of spending on accommodation

Letting the Mud Settle

I'm still in this pool of self doubt but at least now, I am managing.
Last year was the ulimate pressure to give my theses a go. But a part of me is holding back for the simple reason that I want more experiments with doing quali research. The thing is I'm learning this on my own with help from Doctor X and Jean Gray, 2 people I look up to when it comes to doing research and maybe the most immediate ones I know I can rely on for help. My curiosities now are with the types of quali research methodologies which I'd like to experiment on for the sake of experimenting and not particularly to come up with a decent output. I'd like to just undergo the process of doing things and make the essential mistakes I have to in order to learn.

This gets in conflict with external pressure to acquire a PhD because this is what is acceptable to the academic world. A PhD is a necessity in a higher ed career. Academics and scholars are supposed to generate knowledge. This I question of course. There's just too much knowledge to go around with, right? The greater need for me is to write what I want to write. I thought I could pull it with my first topic presentation but I was not able to in my panel members' view.

So it's still an ongoing battle of wills: a part of me says "Wisen up!", a part of me says "Give it up!" and yet one says "Give it a rest...let things be".

What I Need

Here's what I'm getting so far:
-what it is
-where/how it started
-arguments for it

What I need:
- a good sample of it: like how is it written structurally; what are the parts/portions
- a good sample of how it's used in research in education


A few readings here for me:

Holt, N. L. (2001). Beyond technical reflection: Demonstrating the
modification of teaching behaviors using three levels of reflection.
Avante, 7(2), 66-76.

Holt, N. L. (2003). Representation, legitimation, and
autoethnography: An autoethnographic writing story. International
Journal of Qualitative Methods, 2(1), Article 2. Retrieved
June 20, 2005, from http://www.ualberta.ca/~iiqm/backissues/
2_1/html/holt.html

Muncey, T. (2005). Doing autoethnography. International Journal
of Qualitative Methods, 4(3), Article 5. Retrieved April 7, 2006,
from
http://www.ualberta.ca/~iiqm/backissues/4_1/pdf/muncey.pdf

Pelias, R. J. (2003). The academic tourist: An autoethnography.
Qualitative Inquiry, 9(3), 369-373.

Pillow, W. S. (2003). Confession, catharsis, or cure? Rethinking
the uses of reflexivity as methodological power in qualitative research.
Qualitative Studies in Education, 16(2), 175-196.


Delamont, S., A. Coffey, and P. A. Atkinson. 2000. The twilight years? Educational ethnography and the five moments model. Qualitative Studies in Education 13:223-38.

Ellis, C., and A. P. Bochner. 2000. Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity: Researcher
as subject. In Handbook of qualitative research, 2nd ed., edited by N. K. Denzin and Y. S.
Lincoln, 733-68. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Gergen, K., and M. M. Gergen. 1991. Toward reflexive methodologies. In Research and reflexivity,
edited by F. Steier, 76-95. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.


Hayano, D. 1979. Auto-ethnography: Paradigms, problems, and prospects. Human Organization
38:99-104.

Mitchell, R. G., Jr., and K. Charmaz. 1996. Telling tales, writing stories: Postmodernist visions
and realist images in ethnographic writing. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 25:144-66.

Auto-ethno

One feedback Mam Jean of my EDDE 206 is this: that I could have made an autoethnographic research out the Comm site paper. How could she have known what I was trying to do which I didn't know I was doing? In other words, I knew that I can do that paper on my own but I wasn't sure I was doing the right thing. For one, it bothered me ab it to have to write something about a VC which I didn't start out nor authored in the first place so I wanted to give credit to that. So I felt that the right thing to do was to get the site author as my co writer. Then in the midst of writing the paper, I was torn between writing about my experiences (or should I say using my own voice to speak up) and instead went for the voices of other members of the community site. I also wanted to find out how the site author viewed my usage of the site hence I went for his perspective of looking at the VC when what I could have done is to go with my instincts to critically analyze my lived experiences as an active site member with an online identity and shared connection equally evolving alongside others' members and it just so happened that I was the one in the position to look at our experiences in that way.

Hence the purposes of autoethnography. I think it does not deny the presence of the self as it is too important to deny in the first place. The researcher cannot be faulted at that. In the case of an autoethnographic researcher, it acknowledges the researcher as community member=CMR=community/complete member researcher (Anderson, 2006)

Did I give birth to a Donkey? or hwhaat?

Around the same time last month, we had our LOTR rerun. This time you were paying attention. Ate Da, Tatay and I totally get the movie since we've seen this for the nth time. So we just watch in silence. But you, Mauro boy, now at 6.9 yrs old, have all these questions for every scene. You throw a question then end it consistently this way: "....ha? ha? ha Tatay? ha?" At first, it's kinda amusing, but it's getting quite irritating cuz now I'm wondering whether I gave birth to a mouse or to a donkey cuz I'm feeling like a Shrek with all your questions.

Then again, you never cease to amuse me. Even with your mood swings, I still feel like the luckiest nanay alive cuz I get to hug you anytime, tease you anytime, smell you anytime, make gigil you anytime. I see how you make Annika smile with your jokes in class. I see how you get excited over school. I see how you can be driven to make things and how you seek Ate Da's help when frustrated. I see you get your way with this and that. I witness how you instantly call the attention of older children, teachers and parents over at Tatay's reading clinic. You do engage them in good conversation. Your latest fan is a 6'4 hunk of a Teacher Andrew. You got him to give you his basketball jersey and he's been saving your pics in his cellphone. You've been entertaining each other by playing 'monsters' on a sheet of paper. You've charmed him enough to make him stay fulltime with us. He's a good teacher find, as good as Teacher Chella and I really am hoping they stick around. Because if so, this tells me that I can give a fews things a GO, no more excuses. It's either I take things slow or I'm in for a major decision next year.

I can let go of other stuff I simply do not have the energy for so I can get to do what I've been postponing to do for the nth time--decluttering, letting go, cleaning up. There's a pile of stuff in one room I need to fix. Bags of toys and clothes to be sorted out, etc etc etc. I need to get back to stuff-ies I've postponed for 2 years since I broke a plate. I thought I'd throw it all away just like that. But then I found the pieces and glued it all up.

I can now live with myself again..... only because you, Ate Da and Tatay are the way you are. In case you'd turn out to be a donkey and not a mouse, or become an illustrator-dentist-diver-soccer player (that's according to your proclamations since the age of 4), I sure hope you can live with yourself as well. If not, I'll try to return the favor.

From a Dear Colleague :)

A good advise from a dear colleague....

On a personal note, I feel that you need to take a breather from your PhD. Para yang puddle, pag umulan ng umulan, nagkakaron ng tubig sa daan. You've been reading and reading ang writing and writing for the past five years, andami nang tubig na nakolekta ng container mo, pero sa lakas ng ulan, naging masyadong maputik. you might need to let the waters sit still so that the muck will go down and the clear water will remain. Masyadong murky ang tubig mo ngayon, mahirapan ka mag-synthesize. First let the waters still, the wait for it to clear, and then take a good look at yourself in it. :) Sapul ka pag nakita mo yan.

Take care,

Sol