Encountering and embracing self in academic inquiry
David Wright, Susanne Gannon & Dorian Stoilescu
School of Education
Western Sydney University, Australia
Paper: 30mins
The research process is constructed systemically, through networks of relationship and commitment.
These can be understood, in social-ecological terms as encounters between the self, society, the physical
world and the world of ideas and imaginings (Wright, Camden-Pratt, Hill, 2011). It is in these inherently
complex encounters, within moments of vulnerability, that potential for ‘perspective transformation’ arises
(Mezirow & Assoc., 2000; Newman 2016). Subject matter, researchers and research subjects are entwined
and co-implicated within such inquiry processes (Van Manen, 1990). This leads to what Capra, drawing on
Maturana and Varela (1987) describes as ‘a continual bringing forth of a world through a process of living’
(Capra, 1996: 260). Instead of the objective documentation of things and people pre-existing in the world,
any such research process becomes a deeply embodied occasion for systemic learning that changes the
ways we reflect upon our selves and our subject matter: perspective transformation (Dirkx, Mezirow &
Cranton, 2006; Pryer, 2011).
In this paper we, the researchers, reflect upon personal learning arrived at during research into the
experience of disadvantaged students. The merits of our learning, as a consequence of this experience,
need to be assessed first and foremost, from the perspective of the participants. Given that others can only
perceive it through their own experience, how do we, as participants in the process, experience anew our
relationships to our subject matter and each other? How can ‘perspective transformation’ be known and, if
it can be known, how can its impact be captured and communicated? How can it be addressed as ‘learning’?
References
Capra, F (1996). The Web of Life. London UK. HarperCollins.
Dirkx, J., Mezirow, J. & Cranton, P. (2006). Musings and Reflections on the Meaning, Context, and Process
of Transformative Learning: A Dialogue Between John M. Dirkx and Jack Mezirow. Journal of
Transformative Education 4(2), 123-139.
Maturana, H. & Varela, F. (1987). The Tree of knowledge. Boston MA: Shambhala.
Mezirow, J. & Associates (2000). Learning as transformation. San Francisco CA: Jossey Bass
Newman, M. (2016). Eloi, Morlocks, Metropolis, and the touch of a sorcerer’s wand: The pleasures and
perils of writing about adult Education. Journal of Transformative Education, 14(1), 3-9.
Pryer, A. (2011). Embodied wisdom. Charlotte, NC. Information Age Publishing.
Van Manen, M. (1990). Researching lived experience. Albany NY. SUNY Press.
Wright, D. Camden-Pratt, C. & Hill, S. (Eds.) (2011). Social Ecology: Applying ecological understanding to our
lives and our planet. Stroud UK. Hawthorn Books
Contact
Email: [email protected]
sydney.edu.au/itl/aic2016
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29 June - 01 July 2016