RM-ly work in progress: some current whats and hows from our interdisciplinary, collaborative work to date

RM-ly Work in Progress: Some Current Whats and Hows from Our Interdisciplinary Collaborative Work to Date

Richard Fay (The University of Manchester) Jane Andrews (The University of the West of England)

Prue Holmes (Durham University)Mariam Attia (Durham University)

Bucharest CS3/CATC/RMTC SymposiumBucharest, 4th – 6th November, 2015

Some WHATs and HOWs (and a WHYs) of Our Work in Progress

‘Work in Progress’ + Some … Reflections on/sharing of …. … some (i.e. 2) of our Ways of Working … some (i.e. 2) of the emerging thinking resulting from these WoWs

WHYs – To answer the more philosophical and critical (and less instrumental) question:

“What does it mean to language / be languaged (esp. in contexts of pain and pressure)?”

WHATs & HOWs – two examples of differing WoWs as linked to the insights emerging from them (examples, not models!)

Other Examples – (1) Theory-Work and (2) CATC-led Performance … (1) a HOW (i.e. one way in which we are feeding our conceptualisation remit) and a WHAT (e.g. the potential of translingual practice in a RM-ly conceptualisation) (2) a HOW (i.e. working with the CATC on ‘hotspots’) leading to a WHAT (e.g. the deeper understanding of the image of the ‘well of the researcher’s linguistic resources)

Links between 1 and 2? (Laboratory)

Some Ongoing Ways of Working

• Presentation 1 reviewed this territory

• Reflections on (and for?) researcher practice vis-à-vis RM-ly (reflections in action?) [REFLECTIVE PRACTICE]

• Narratives of researcher development vis-à-vis RM-ly (e.g. researcher profiles/trajectories) [NARRATIVE INQUIRY]

• Accounts of and discussion of specific aspects of RM-ly practice [REFLECTIVE PRACTICE]

• Collaborative, interdisciplinary exploration [EP?]

• HOTSPOTS (in Brussels process and supportive documentation) – more later

Example 1 - overview

• HOW = collaborative (i.e. CS/CA/RM) fieldwork (Uganda)

• WHATs: (1) languaging with LANGO (relational aspects of fieldwork) (2) collaborative discussion re CS1 methodology (DIME) as viewed with a RM-ly lens (3) collaboratively arrived at - and diversely disseminated (Ross’ blog, MAGic conference) - RM-ly methodological and content insights re GMH (medical anthropology) (4) links to the WHAT from Example 2

Example 1 – some specifics

‘Building capacity for culturally appropriate psychosocial interventions in Northern Uganda’•DIME (Design, Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation) developed at John Hopkins University by Applied Mental Health Research Group (AMHR)•A multiphasic approach developed to assist with the development of psychosocial interventions for mental health difficulties in low and middle-income countries (LMIC). •…. the process is based on the principles of community-based participatory research (CBCR)

•Over 40 different languages are spoken in Uganda.•There has been a tendency to translate local language understanding about distress into English (as a step to providing local people with access to pre-existing, or new developed, forms of treatment often offered by international NGOs).•The textbooks used to train mental health professionals in Uganda tend to come from US/UK.•English language descriptions of forms of psychopathology predominate in training.•This has created a context where the global and the local dynamically interact.

https://rosswhiteblog.wordpress.com/2015/03/29/working-multilingually-to-promote-wellbeing-in-northern-uganda/



“Having this focused and dedicated time together has done much to reaffirm my confidence that the work in Uganda is providing rich opportunities for understanding how the languaging of distress can impact on what forms of support and assistance are deemed to be appropriate. Discussions with both Richard and Katja have also allowed me to reflect critically on the methodology that we have been employing and sharpened my awareness around the points in the process where the use of English language training has juxtaposed with the use of Lango in the delivery of interviews and the recording of associated information. I also have to concede that having Richard and Katja in the team has increased the amount of Lango that I have been able to pick up.”

https://rosswhiteblog.wordpress.com/2015/04/03/3rd-april-2015-good-friday/

Example 2 – overview

• HOW – Hotspots, i.e. for me, thinking betwixt and between more predictable encounters and activities

… serendipitous encounter between a) my own thinking about if and how to prepare for the unplanned for trip to Uganda (Lira), b) Julien’s blog posting (about ‘native-like’ language skills, c) Anabel Tremlett’s article

• WHATs – the arena of researcher’s linguistic preparation for fieldwork

• Nettl (2005): “This dissertation fieldwork [for graduate programs in

ethnomusicology], which is preceded by cultural and linguistic preparation, usually involve a year or more of residence in the field venue” (p.6).

• Tremlett (2009): “The experience of researching in a second language is central to the types of ‘claims’ that can be made in ethnographic fieldwork, yet the process of language acquisition is barely explored in anthropological texts” (p.63).

• Beaudry (1997) – language in ethnomusicological fieldwork in which researcher has insufficient linguistic competence to directly undertake research in the local languages (use of interpreters/ translators).

• Kinginger (2011) – preparation prior to a sojourn experience // Language awareness // Computer mediated communication // Activities to support pre-departure proficiency // Jackson (2006) pre-sojourn preparation // Peace-keepers // C-C Counsellors // Business // Diplomacy // ICT (Baxter, 1983)

Linguistic Preparation (1) … for Social Sciences and similar purposes


• Gardner & Martin-Jones (2012) new ethnoscapes, technoscapes, mediascapes

• ESRC RDI researching multilingualism, multilingualism in research practice

• Creese & Blackledge (2010) team working to explore translanguaging in specified contexts e.g. complementary schools

• Heller (2012: 30-31) circulating people, entering a mobile, multilingual global economy

• Multilingualism “not as a property of individuals or of groups, or even as a characteristic of spaces, but rather as sets of circulating, constructible and deconstructible resources”

‘New multilingual realities ’ (1): Insights from sociolinguistics


• Critique of a monolingual orientation to communication e.g. one language maps onto one culture

• Translingual practice as identity expression e.g. lyrics from rap artist MIA

• New theories, not new practices – code-meshing is not new

• “my aim has been to provide new research insights into the ways in which mobile semiotic resources are negotiated for meaning in global contact zones, and also to suggest pedagogical approaches to develop such co-operative dispositions and performative competence for cosmopolitan relationships” (Canagarajah, 2013 p.202)

• Our concern – maybe a translingual mindset could be nurtured in researcher praxis? If so, how?

‘New multilingual realities ’ (2): Insights from Applied Linguistics/Education


• Planning for multilingual research – with a monolingual mindset?

• Monolingual ideologies at play within an education system (Bonacina, 2012)

• Researcher assumptions regarding language use / choice between research participants and interpreter (Andrews, 2013)

• Research context as a translingual space – implications for research planning, linguistic preparation

Illustration 1: Researching learning in multilingual homes


• Case Study 1 (Lira, Uganda): To assist with developing contextually sensitive psychosocial interventions for the Lango-speaking people living in the Lira district

• Linguistic Preparation …. for 2-weeks in Uganda – English? KiSwahili? Luganda? Lango? Acholi?

• Linguistic Preparation …. for relational aspects supporting the research rather than for the research itself

• The DIME research manual is in English; the training for Research Assistants was delivered in English; all data collection was conducted in Lango

• The DIME methodology insists that the research should be conducted in one language …. restrictive & frustrating for participants?

Illustration 2: Researching context-sensitive psycho-social interventions (a)


• Ross’ Blog: “It is important to note that the school that we visited yesterday and the University we visited today only teach students using English. This highlights the challenges that health professionals might have [having been] taught in a language that is not necessarily the first language of the people that they subsequently treat. I think this serves to highlight the ecological validity and potential utility of the research that we are conducting.”

• “Discussions with both Richard and Katja have also allowed me to reflect critically on the methodology that we have been employing and sharpened my awareness around the points in the process where the use of English language training has juxtaposed with the use of Lango in the delivery of interviews and the recording of associated information. I also have to concede that having Richard and Katja in the team has increased the amount of Lango that I have been able to pick up.”

https://rosswhiteblog.wordpress.com/

Illustration 2: Researching context-sensitive psycho-social interventions (b)


• What might usefully be included in the linguistic preparation undertaken/encouraged for researchers (in diverse disciplines) working in the complex ‘scapes’?

• Language learning+

• Language awareness+

• Translingual (practice) mindset+

• ??

Revisiting Linguistic Preparation – some further thoughts (1)


Languaging Languaging“… a way of articulating the full, embodied and engaged interaction with the world that comes when we put the languages we are using into action.”“… being a person in that language in the social and material world of everyday interactions.”

Languagers…“… engage with the world-in-action, … move in the world in a way that allows the risk of stepping out of one’s habitual ways of speaking and attempt to develop different, more relational ways of interacting with the people and phenomena that one encounters in everyday life.”

(Phipps, 2011, p. 365)

Languaging

Languaging is …•relational - about the feelings we experience with others, through place, positioning

– Intercultural, interpersonal, interagentive

•rhizomatic – “the dense tangled cluster of interlaced threads or filaments any point in which can be connected to any other” (Ingold, 2000, p. 140).•involves a language ecology that includes the senses and sensory experience•phenomenological – how people perceive the world

Translation as a languaging response to phenomena “… a way of living in translated worlds, the worlds that meet in relations and that come to make sense through relations” (Phipps, 2011, p. 372).Languaging – not just cultural work, but translation as embodiment of feeling, and ways of relating to place and to words; shared through habitation

Yolland speaks of the land to Marie using the Irish names Maori identity – whakapapa, mihi

How can researchers draw on languaging in their researcher praxis?

Languaging

Translingual practice

“My aim has been to provide new research insights into the ways in which mobile semiotic resources are negotiated for meaning in global contact zones, and also to suggest pedagogical approaches to develop such co-operative dispositions and performative competence for cosmopolitan relationships” (Canagarajah, 2013, p.202).

Our concern – maybe a translingual mindset could be nurtured in researcher praxis? If so, how?

