The “lived life” in Maxine Greene’s Writings

A dissertation journey through inquiry by Shawn Maureen Powers

It is a conscious experiencing of the self as both inquirer and respondent, as teacher and learner, as the one coming to know the self within the processes of research itself.

Guba & Lincoln, 2005, p. 210…reflecting critically on the self as researcher. Guba & Lincoln, 2005, p. 210

…the continual co-creation of the self and social science; they are known through each other. Knowing the self and knowing about the subject are intertwined, partial, historical, local knowledges.

Richardson, 2005, p. 962

Truth, in other words, is not found in objective reality independent of human life, truth is found in the human heart.

Morris, 1998, p. 126

Researcher as selfIn order to perceive things, we need to live them.

Merleau-Ponty, 1945, p. 379

Researcher as subject

Reflexivity is a process undertaken by researchers that brings self-awareness into the inquiry practice. It takes into account the effect the researcher has on the object under study, and the object’s influence on the researcher (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2000).

It aligns with postmodernist ideas that no theory or method of knowing can assert itself as the only right or true form of knowing (Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005).

Reflexivity also adheres to the poststructuralist view of the “continual co-creation” of self and knowing about the subject (Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005, p. 962).

Researcher as curatorUnderstanding constitutes a creative, re-productive act, in which the researcher appropriates the meaning of the object, rather than mechanically mirroring it.

Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2000, p. 68

[The] artist-researcher will reflect on information gathered so as to review conceptual strategies used and consider other approaches. This reflexive practice is meta-analytic and reveals new views, much in the same way a gallery curator does when reassembling a collection so as to present a different reading of artworks.

Sullivan, 2010, p. 110

…ABER [arts-based educational research] is not aimed toward a quest for certainty. Its purpose may instead be described as the enhancement of perspectives

Barone & Eisner, 2006, p.96

By resonance I mean the power of the displayed object to reach out beyond its formal boundaries to a larger world, to evoke in the viewer the complex, dynamic cultural forces from which it has emerged and for which it may be taken by a viewer to stand. By wonder I mean the power of the displayed object to stop the viewer in his or her tracks, to convey an arresting sense of uniqueness, to evoke an exalted attention.

Greenblatt, 1991, p. 42

The exhibition1973 1978

1988

1995

2001

The interpretationEven though interpretivists follow the post-modern theme of questioning the existence of an objective reality, this does not mean that the practice of interpretation constitutes an “anything-goes relativism” (Smith, 1992, p. 101).

Hermeneutics is the art of understanding and interpreting expression (Gadamer, 1982).

One of the long-discussed problems within hermeneutic inquiry is the circularity that develops in the interaction between the interpretivist and the object under study. Because the interpretivist is making assumptions about the text before launching into the study of it, those assumptions will indeed exist because of confirmation bias.

One way to work around the problem of the hermeneutic circle is through a “fusing of horizons” (Gadamer, 1982, p. 273). Gadamer’s re-conception of the hermeneutic circle as “an alteration between merging into another world and linking back into our own reference system.” It is a constant movement back and forth between the object under study and our own pre-understandings, moods, and personal history.

The exhibition themesThe final form, dimensions, and look of the dissertation/exhibition is still a work in progress. The interpretive process is a creative task. I am entering the data collection and analysis with a framework of situatedness, embodiment and aesthetics to guide me. This framework arose out of my literature review.

Greene contextualized her lectures in the lived-world; she made philosophy come to life…with her own and others' lived experiences” (Kohli in Pinar, 1998, p. 182).

situatedness, embodiment and aestheticssituatedness embodiment

The use of the term “lived body” is suggested by Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s concept of self as being “’le corps vécu’ -- a body that brings together reality as a lived event; thus a lived body” (Baldacchino, 2009, p. 40).

aesthetics

Mary-Ellen Jacobs (in Ayers & Little, 1998) writes how she views Greene’s own writings as a form of poesis where an intersection of language and lived experience occurs. It is in this intersection that “a poetics challenges us to interpret lived experience deeply so that we might realize the multiplicity of possible constructions and the inevitable partiality—and even impermanence—of our own visions” (p. 188).

References

Alvesson, M., & Sköldberg, K. (2000). Reflexive methodology. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Baldacchino, J. (2009). Education beyond education. New York: Peter Lang.

Barone, T., & Eisner, E. (1997). Arts-based educational research. In R. M. Jaeger (Ed.), Complementary methods for research in education (2nd. ed.). Washington: American Educational Research Association.

Gadamer, H.-G. (1982). Truth and method. New York: Crossroad.

Greenblatt, S. (1991). Resonance and wonder. In I. Karp & S. D. Lavine (Eds.), Exhibiting cultures: The poetics and politics of museum display (pp. 42-56). Washington: Smithsonian Institution.

Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2005). Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions, and emerging confluences. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 191-215). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

References

Hancock, M. (Director & Producer). (2001). Exclusions & awakenings: the life of Maxine Greene. [New York]: Hancock Productions, 505 West End Avenue, #7AA, New York, NY 10024.

Jacobs, M.-E. (1998). Living dangerously: toward a poetics for women's lived experience. In W. Ayers & J. L. Miller (Eds.), A light in dark times: Maxine Greene and the unfinished conversation (pp. 180-189). New York: Teachers College Press.

Kohli, W. (1998). A situated philosopher. In W. Pinar (Ed.), The passionate mind of Maxine Greene: "I am...not yet" (pp. 180-189). Bristol, PA: Falmers Press, Taylor & Francis, Inc.

Lesko, N. (1998). Feeling the teacher: a phenomenological reflection on Maxine Greene's pedagogy. In W. Pinar (Ed.), The passionate mind of Maxine Greene: "I am...not yet" (pp. 238-246). Bristol, PA: Falmer Press, Taylor & Francis, Inc.

Merleau-Ponty, M. (2002). Phenomenology of perception. London; New York: Routledge.

References

Morris, M. (1998). Existential and phenomenological influences on Maxine Greene. In W. Pinar (Ed.), The passionate mind of Maxine Greene: "I am...not yet" (pp. 124-136). Bristol, PA: Falmer Press, Taylor & Francis, Inc.

Richardson, L., & St. Pierre, E. A. (2005). Writing: A method of inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 959-978). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Sullivan, G. (2010). Art practice as research: Inquiry in visual arts (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.