Visiting Scholar, Dr. Daniel Domínguez, reports on his six-week sojourn to the Centre for Qualitative Research, Summer, 2006
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Domínguez on train to Bournemouth. |
An autoethnographic approach to fieldwork at the "Centre for Qualitative Research", Bournemouth University (England), Summer 2006
By Daniel Domínguez Figaredo
UNED - Facultad de Educación
Madrid, Spain
Scientific motivations
Ever since my time as a doctoral student, I have been very interested in a variety
of forms of scientific research which have in common the questioning of the
merely objective and tangible as applied to the interpretation of social phenomena.
Since then, my interest in qualitative, constructivist, critical and socio-historical
methodologies has increased in tandem with my research into education and cyberspace.
Increasingly, questions on behaviour in virtual space demand answers of a cultural
nature. The analysis of social and educational phenomena leads to a type of
research that focuses on interpreting the attribution of meanings amongst the
individuals who integrate a cultural framework between the local and the global,
and, in my case, also between the physical and the virtual. The reticulated
structure of relations, the assumption of distinctive social practices, groupings
with distinct structural levels, the subject of the links that maintain communal
cohesion, the motivations which incite to action, the logic of virtual, delocalised
and timeless communication, to name but a few, are all levels of analysis which
were of interest - and are of interest - to my line of research centred on cyberspace
and learning.
These questions and research topics have drawn me closer to the ethnographic method in the last few months, in an attempt to investigate more thoroughly the keys of behaviour as integral parts of cultural movements, whether they are susceptible to macro-analysis (the Internet as object of ethnographic study) or micro-analysis (the ethnographic analysis of virtual learning communities).
Scientific motivations?
The Spanish system of evaluation of the work produced by university teachers/researchers
includes a series of guidelines which are necessary in order to evaluate the
competence of their work. Obtaining this evaluation of competence is necessary
in order to gain promotion in the profession of university teacher/researcher.
This evaluation is the responsibility of a nationwide governmental agency which
requires the fulfilment of a series of quality criteria. One of the key criteria
is that of sojourns to research/teaching centres abroad. The person concerned
must be able to prove that he has undertaken sojourns of a minimum duration
of four continuous weeks in a foreign centre as a first step towards obtaining
a positive evaluation of his scientific work. My promotion in the university
teacher/researcher hierarchy required, at the time of my stay in Bournemouth,
this type of sojourn abroad.
The enrichment gained from culture shock, the exchange of ideas, the contrast of theories, the redefinition of concepts or the simple exposure to different points of view, are all reasons which more than justify the the evaluators' demands of internationalisation. Since I have been in the university system, I have, therefore, been greatly surprised by the suspicion with which departments view the trips abroad undertaken by their teachers/researchers. When I told my department of my desire to travel to Bournemouth, circumstances meant that I was only able to go in my own holiday time, that is to say, I couldn't go to a foreign research centre during my work time, even though it was an obligatory part of my work, but I had to comply with the legal demand that was part of my work by using my own holiday time. In my opinion, this is absurd. No doubt there are reasons of a cultural nature behind these practices and an ethnographic study would go a long way towards deciphering the reasons given to justify them. This is not the place for such an analysis, but rather for justifying the reasons for my trip in the summer of 2006 in the month of August and the first days of September.
But where?
For me science has always been a serious matter. Nevertheless, this perception
is contrary to my character. For this reason I have habitually had to resort
to subterfuge in order to adapt to my work. In a certain sense, I have been
subject to this contradiction ever since I first arrived in "academia",
something which has led me to consider the rules and the formalism of the scientific
construction process in a wider context, superimposing methodological freedom
and interpreting concrete arguments in an open way, sometimes even going further
than the meaning which their authors give them. In spite of this inclination
towards banality, however, I had never been able to argue away the 'gravity'
of the principles which govern science. This search, (for reasons which would
not only support my tendency towards demystification, but would also be acceptable
within the academic system), was a key factor in the choice of Bournemouth as
the place of my international research sojourn.
Another important reason was that the destination would be an English-speaking country. My level of English is still not good and a long-term stay might help improve it.
And, how?
Since my time as a doctoral student, I have been collaborating as an editor
for the online journal, "Forum
Qualitative Social Research 
" (FQS). Given my interest in qualitative
methods, I always thought that it would be through the FQS site that I would
obtain travel contacts. My contact with my colleagues on the editorial board
would be vital in this enterprise. All I knew of them, though, was the information
contained in the contact details of the FQS website.
Kip Jones
Well, the object of research during my stay was to be something like the epistemological
foundation (with field work of a theoretical nature) of Internet culture and
socio-cultural phenomena in cyberspace, considering that the latter is a suitable
space for educational interaction. Consequently, the contact person would need
to have a certain interest in cyberspace. Kip Jones was the only one of the
editors of FQS
who included in his personal
profile a web page.
Kip Jones' web page
is not a conventional one. Indeed, Kip himself is not a conventional person.
His is one of the few cases in which a web page reflects the personality of
the author. To enter his site is rather more than just to enter his world: ''Kipworld''.
For me, it was quite an experience of novelty, of freshness, of innovation,
of non-academism (because, at the end of the day it is still the web page of
a scientist). Even now I have this feeling when I visit his page. Even from
the beginning, one easily perceives that Kip Jones has captured the essence
of culture originating from the Internet: the Web as a free space of communication,
as a platform for sharing knowledge, as a collection of people with interests
in common, to do different things which would be impossible without the Internet.
Without a doubt, Kip Jones was the right person, and would be my contact for
the sojourn. Kipworld.net opens with the heading "Narrative Research &
'Performative' Social Science", just below Kip's name. In Spain there is
no tradition of scientific research into performative aspects. There is such
a tradition of research into art and artistic representation, though not so
much about qualitative research or how it can be represented or how it could
be applied in other areas of knowledge. My knowledge of the subject came from
lateral, non-academic areas, such as video art or cyber-performance, after visiting
certain artistic exhibitions in Spain and the Tate
in London. I was also a subscriber to some mailing lists on the Internet, such
as w3art , which deals with aspects
of art on the Web. Subsequently, my interest in this scientific area grew from
my first visits to Kipworld, but I decided not to go any more deeply into the
subject until my visit to Bournemouth (and my capacity of research there). Indeed,
I never got around later to asking Kip about the significance of the area of
study of Performative Social Science; it was only through my own experience
in the area that I began to have an understanding of the subject.
I began to discover Kip's real world in our first e-mail exchanges. Our conversations in these messages rarely touched on academic subjects, but rather were about sensations, images and evocations of places and spaces. Kip's imagination is concerned with image, representation, meaning, figuration, and experimentation and innovation in qualitative methods. He is a keen sea traveller and a lover of marine landscapes and I come from a coastal city in Spain, which meant that during our brief chats we often included photos and Web addresses of the beaches of Bournemouth or the Asturian coast (the region where I am from). This vision of Kip's is especially suitable for carrying out qualitative research.
This accumulation of sensations constituted the baggage with which I arrived in Bournemouth. I already knew then that Kip Jones concentrated on things that were not normal in the scientific milieu which I came from. As I have said, everything around me was characterised by a tendency to seriousness and an absolute lack of risk-taking in research.
''Please, just pay attention and leave your remarks for later…''
This phrase of Kip's condenses everything I learned about 'what qualitative
research is' during those six weeks in Bournemouth.
A few days into my stay, Kip invited me to view his latest work, a performative
representation of an in-depth interview with a woman - interpreted by the voices
of three players - talking about a traumatic event that occurred during her
childhood ("I
Can Remember the Night" ). The work consisted of a video of a few
minutes duration edited in PowerPoint. The presentation was given in his office.
As it happened, Kip shared this space with other colleagues. In order not to
disturb them, Kip offered me a set of headphones to listen to the video. Although
the context was not conducive towards introspection, the video did call for
a certain concentration on my part. The film is striking from the opening shot.
The combination of images, the contrast of dark colours, the surrounding high-pitched
sound, the dripping of the rain… everything is combined to create an atmosphere
where the women's voices conclude with the sentence which evokes the trauma:
'I can remember the night'. The reconstruction of the story and its representation
in Kip's video were perfect. Of course, it is not necessary to know this woman,
nor is it necessary to know the details of her story in order to have a clear
idea of the crossroads in her life or to access the real image and the image
which the spectator can construct with the meanings evoked by the video.
In order for the video to generate these sensations it is necessary first of all to pay attention to the combination of images and sound. That is all that is needed. And that is what I did for only ten seconds. The first images acted upon me like a coiled spring. I wanted to know how Kip had been able to do something like that: --'Wowwww… this is amazing, what programme did you use? Where did you find the images? How did you record the interview? Who are those women? It must have taken you a long time to do it, mustn't it?…'. Kip was always unfailingly polite with me, but, at that moment, his face took on a serious aspect. He turned to me and said in a serious tone, 'Please, for the moment you only have to watch the film. I ask you to forget your views as a researcher and all your technical knowledge and concerns. For the moment they don't matter. Afterwards you can ask me what you want, but for the moment, just pay attention and leave your remarks for later! The important thing is what the images say to you, what you see in them and the sensations they provoke in you.'
In his disinterested way, Kip had given me a magisterial lesson in Performative Social Science and, at the same time, in the goals of qualitative research.
Constructing the field: the thin red line between '(cyber)field…' and
Dani-blog
The focus of my work during my sojourn was not very conventional. My idea was
to carry out theoretical fieldwork. Working in the field and establishing a
theoretical foundation of intervention, which, in principal, is an antithetical
procedure, was to manifest itself in a blog to be called '(cyber)field…' .
The blog would fulfil the function of a conventional field journal and, at the
same time, of a space for theoretical reflection based on my experiences during
the sojourn.
Following the canons of qualitative research, as well as the initial objectives, the idea of keeping a blog was open to being influenced by outside events. Indeed, this degree of uncertainty ended up being its greatest virtuality. By its very nature, employing a blog, whose contents are public on the Internet, is to record fieldwork that entails assuming a level of transparency - and of risk - having various implications in the development of research. Anyone can express an opinion on the text the researcher is writing, thereby altering the original discourse. The individuals who participate in the project also can see themselves in real time, deconstructed and dissected by the researcher who assigns their significations to them in a text which is open to the whole Web surfing community.
This is exactly what happened with Kip. He was an agent in the action and my main source of inspiration for the posts in the blog. In a certain way, when he read my commentaries he was seeing himself reflected on the screen in a new, unexpected light. The interesting thing about the cycle of events was the play of interpretations itself. Kip read the posts in Spanish, a language he does not know. To understand them he used an online translator and the result caused several humorous misunderstandings. Thus there was an initial event, then my interpretation and a reading and reinterpretation on Kip's part with the help of the translator.
Everyone at Bournemouth willingly accepted my field journal on the Web, so
much so that Kip nicknamed me 'Dani-blog'. It had such an impact that the delight
of the Bournemouth researchers marked a new milestone in my learning process.
I remember that I commented to a colleague from my university on my research
proposal and the use of the blog. I
showed him a post where I talked about a meal with researchers in which
we ended up analysing television series, movies, jokes and types of cafés
in the world from scientific viewpoints such as phenomenology, grounded theory
or performance theory. My colleague's first reaction was to warn me of the possible
negative effect on these people. They could take the fact of seeing themselves
quoted in a public blog badly. This warning - which is also at the centre of
an ethical debate in qualitative research on individuals - is symptomatic of
the research culture I come from. A scientific milieu in which certainly and
safety are valued over innovation, experimentation and fun. In Spain we are
supposed to be extroverted and friendly but, nevertheless, I had never seen
so many people laugh while they worked as in the Centre for Qualitative Research
in Bournemouth. It is difficult to imagine a researcher in my university with
the scientific status of Kip referring to a colleague with a nickname similar
to 'Dani-blog', with all the connotations that this involves. Crossing the thin
line which separates both forms of behaviour could explain the differences between
the two scientific models which confronted themselves in my head during the
weeks of my visit.
"Pretty amazing"
In the last part of my report on my visit, I would like to dwell on my participation
in two events which took part at Bournemouth University, organised by the Centre
for Qualitative Research: the "6th
European Qualitative Research Conference in Health and Social Care "
and the Masterclass entitled, "The dialogical research approach: the power
of collaboration and conversation", given by Professor
Steen Halling from the University of Seattle in the USA.
The Bournemouth Qualitative Research Conference takes place every two years and is headed by the staff of the Centre for Qualitative Research of Bournemouth: Immy Holloway, Les Todres, Kathleen Galvin and Kip Jones. The event was dedicated to discussions and applications of qualitative methods in health and social care; many professionals from a variety of disciplines return to Bournemouth every two years for this engaging conference. My own interest in the congress was my curiosity about the methodological and knowledge transferences in the various areas. I was also interested in knowing how the performative (with its own space within the conference) could be applied specifically, for instance, in therapies and the treatment of concrete pathologies. In fact, the main conclusion that I obtained, after the three days of the congress, was how classic qualitative methods and innovations (in this case, in the form of performative methods) are either using analogical or digital tools in order to awaken the interest of service users as well as professionals by investigating the use of multimedia as a dissemination tool.
The conclusion of both these events reinforced and, in practice, contrasted with my former perceptions. It was in the Masterclass, however, that I confirmed my impression that it is also possible to do things differently in regards to conducting group dynamics in a learning session, i.e., in a situation of structured face-to-face learning. Certainly, the topic was conducive to an unconventional teaching approach, but even so, Halling's emphasis managed to disorientate me completely. The method was based on surrendering the initiative to the experiences and impressions of the audience, rather than to the knowledge of the expert who is giving the class this approach is highly unusual for someone of my background. Steen Halling is a renowned expert in the subject, but he hadn't even bothered to make a PowerPoint presentation; he was supposed to have many years of experience in research, but he had only used a couple of generic articles as preparatory material for the session. His procedure was innovative and yet, he did not cite recent advances or the work of other colleagues in the vanguard of knowledge. Something is wrong, I thought. The man is pulling our leg.
Of course, this was not the case. The key seemed to be that Halling had perfectly interiorised the sense of his speech, which was exactly his intention. He needed, therefore, no other material than the learning process which would be generated by the methodological proposal, phenomenological in this case. There was no content which was the 'key' to knowledge on this occasion. The process would be participative and it was the audience who would construct the practices, offer some results and suggest their own conclusions. All this was unique to this occasion. It was localised and contextualised. It is impossible to replicate the process, merely to attempt to do it in a similar way. The content is written in the act, not given beforehand.
Merely by following a basic didactic principle, suiting means (methodologies) to ends (learning), Halling had done something which breaks with the canons followed by these types of sessions in my experience. Naturally, this involves renouncing pre-arranged structures and designing intervention in a specific way for each new framework.
Halling frequently used a catchphrase to stress a relevant fact: 'This is pretty amazing', he would repeat insistently. The same expression was going round in my head when I left the Masterclass. In my case it applied to the experience I had just lived through.
In fact, this catchphrase applied to the entire six weeks I had just lived through too. It was pretty amazing, the whole thing, pretty amazing.
Daniel Domínguez Figaredo
UNED - Facultad de Educación
Dpto. Teoría de la Educación y Pedagogía Social
C/ Senda del Rey, 7; 28040 Madrid, Spain
Tel.: 609862508
E-mail: ddominguez@edu.uned.es
URL: http://cibercampo.blogspot.com/