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1 – 10 of 91Robert E. Rinehart and Kerry Earl
– The purpose of this paper is to make a case for the strength of qualitative work, but more specifically for various kinds of ethnographies.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to make a case for the strength of qualitative work, but more specifically for various kinds of ethnographies.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors argue that global neoliberal and audit culture policies have crept into academic research, tertiary education practice, and research culture.
Findings
The authors then discuss major tenets of and make the case for the use of auto-, duo-, and collaborative-ethnographies as caring practices and research method(ologies) that may in fact push back against such hegemonic neoliberal practices in the academy. Finally, the authors link these caring types of ethnographies to the papers within this special issue.
Originality/value
This is an original look at the concepts of auto-, duo-, and collaborative-ethnographies with relation to caring practices.
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Kimberley Holmes and Kara Sealock
The purpose of this paper is to explore storytelling in post-secondary instruction and to reflect upon the authors’ experiences as instructors in two diverse areas of study. Both…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore storytelling in post-secondary instruction and to reflect upon the authors’ experiences as instructors in two diverse areas of study. Both nursing and education promote a theory-based approach that is disconnected from the practical application of skills required.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors propose that using storytelling in the undergraduate classroom promotes an emotional engagement with the material, creates authentic human connections and demonstrates a practical application of content. The sharing of personal narratives creates a portal through which we understand the meaningful human element of the work, and the collective essence of our world. The authors believe that these outcomes are essential for the development of an empathetic and compassionate professional who understands the significance of the emotional, social and cognitive component of holistic learning that is required for the eventual acquisition of mastery in our disciplines.
Findings
Based on the authors’ experiences, the authors have found that storytelling creates a bridge between the curriculum theory and the implementation of that theory in the living world within the respective disciplines.
Practical implications
As instructors at the University of Calgary, in the Faculty of Education and Nursing, the authors see many intersections in the work and the instructional methodologies that the authors implement in the undergraduate classrooms to allow for authentic learning experiences. These cross-curricular connections have caused us to reflect on the use of storytelling in the humanities to promote emotions, create connections and demonstrate a practical and authentic application of theoretic concepts in both the undergraduate education and nursing programs.
Originality/value
This is an original piece of duo-ethnographic work composed by two researchers who were reflecting on praxis.
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Katharina C. Husemann, Anica Zeyen and Leighanne Higgins
This study aims to explore the strategies that service providers use to facilitate marketplace accessibility, and identify the key challenges in that process. The authors do so to…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the strategies that service providers use to facilitate marketplace accessibility, and identify the key challenges in that process. The authors do so to develop a roadmap towards improved accessibility and disability inclusion in the marketplace.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted eight semi-structured interviews with service providers (curators, visitor service coordinators and access managers) at museums who run access programmes for customers with visual impairment (VI), along with an embodied duo-ethnography of those programmes.
Findings
Service providers foster autonomous, embodied and social access. Resource constraints, safety concerns and exposed differences between customers compromise access. To overcome these challenges, service providers engage in three inclusionary strategies – informing, extending and sensitizing.
Research limitations/implications
This service provider- and VI-focus present limitations. Future research should consider a poly-vocal approach that includes the experiences of numerous stakeholders to holistically advance marketplace accessibility; and apply the marketplace accessibility findings upon different disabilities in other marketplace contexts.
Practical implications
This study offers a roadmap for policymakers and service providers on: which types of access should and can be created; what challenges may be encountered; how to manage these challenges; and, thus, how to advance accessibility beyond regulations.
Originality/value
This study contributes a service provider perspective on marketplace accessibility that goes beyond removing “disabling” barriers towards creating opportunities for co-creation; an approach towards marketplace accessibility that fosters inclusiveness while considering the inherent challenges of that process; and an illustration of posthumanism’s empirical value in addressing issues of accessibility in the marketplace.
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John P. McAvoy Jr and Russell Thacker
Within the USA, current trends in higher education show more women than men achieving graduate degrees. Among the potential reasons for this disparity is that fathers are…
Abstract
Purpose
Within the USA, current trends in higher education show more women than men achieving graduate degrees. Among the potential reasons for this disparity is that fathers are reporting challenges in balancing their additional responsibilities while increasing their housework and childcare investment. Many fathers are turning to online graduate education to more effectively balance home and school responsibilities. However, limited portrayals of fathers' experiences in online education exist.
Design/methodology/approach
In this duoethnography of two online doctoral student fathers, the authors add to the limited literature on both fathers and online students in navigating home, school and work responsibilities. The authors use Goode’s role strain theory to examine the challenges to achieving a balance between each sphere of responsibility and explore strategies for managing these tensions.
Findings
The authors discuss the need for ongoing flexibility and change, the process of navigating feelings of guilt and self-doubt and the ability to engage in daily role bargains. They argue that online education is generally not a panacea for easing role conflict and find that integration is an effective strategy to aid online students' persistence in their programs.
Practical implications
The authors conclude with policy and practice recommendations for future online doctoral student fathers and doctoral program designers.
Originality/value
Little research has been conducted from the online doctoral student father lens. This research fills in this gap and lends a voice to fathers who are navigating the doctoral journey.
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Ethnography produces accounts; the critical reflection of accounts produces accountability. Ethnography requires accountability if meaningful conclusions and/or observations are…
Abstract
Purpose
Ethnography produces accounts; the critical reflection of accounts produces accountability. Ethnography requires accountability if meaningful conclusions and/or observations are to be made. Accountability requires ethnography if is to address lived experiences. Virno argues that the principles of “languaging” make ethnographies and accountability possible. This papers aims to describe an instance of the circularity of accountability and use this to explore Virno’s insights. Doing this helps us to see the connections between accountability and ethnography, and reflect on the nature of these interconnections.
Design/methodology/approach
Inspired by Paulo Virno’s philosophy, the authors assert that an ethnographer typically produces an account of a chosen “Other” in which this “Other” is held to account. But at the same time, the ethnographer needs to be held to account by the very same “Other” and by the “Other” of the (research) community. Furthermore, ethnographers are accountable to themselves. All these moments of accountability can endlessly circle, as responsibilization of the researchers by their Other(s) continues. For ethnography to function, this must be tamed as a (research) account ultimately has to be produced for an academic project to be considered complete. Drawing on Virno’s principle of the “negation of the negation” by the “katechon,” by the “katechon,” the authors propose a potentially valuable intervention that would enable ethnography – and by extension, ethnographers – to prosper.
Findings
The authors apply Virno’s philosophical reflections to propose a positive feedback cycle between ethnography and accountability. Virno’s ideation centers on two key concepts: (i) the multitude of social relatedness and (ii) the ontology of the languaging of individuation. Hereby, a positive circle of causality between ethnography and accountability can be realized, whereby the authors can respect but also break the causal circle(s) of ethnography and accountability. This might be achieved via a reflection on Virno’s concept of the “katechon.”
Originality/value
The authors illuminate the accountability–ethnography dynamic, providing an illustration of the circularity of ethnography and accountability and showing how Virno provides us with tools to help us deal with it. Hence, ultimately, the paper focuses on the accountability as ethnographers.
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Margarietha de Villiers Scheepers, Paul Williams, Vikki Schaffer, Anthony Grace, Carl Walling, Jenna Campton, Karen Hands, Deborah Fisher, Hannah Banks, Jo Loth and Aurora Scheelings
In contrast to prior studies examining burnout in academic employees, this paper explores how academic employee agency mitigates burnout risks in the context of the coronavirus…
Abstract
Purpose
In contrast to prior studies examining burnout in academic employees, this paper explores how academic employee agency mitigates burnout risks in the context of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) and how this agency facilitates research productivity and influences well-being in the face of changes in learning and teaching practices.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use collaborative auto-ethnography (CAE) in the higher education (HE) sector to probe how an employee productivity group supported the group's members during the pandemic.
Findings
Thematic analysis revealed four emerging themes: burnout, beneficial habits for research productivity, blocking-out-time and belonging. The authors' findings suggest that by acknowledging and legitimising employee-initiated groups, feelings of neglect can be combatted. Purposeful employee groups have the potential to create a therapeutic, safe space and, in addition to the groups' productivity intent, diminish the negative effects of a crisis on organisational effectiveness.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the literature by utilising a CAE approach to provide greater insight into how academics enact agency by creating digital research workspaces, attending to the spatial dimensions of well-being especially during turbulent times.
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Miriam Snellgrove and Samantha Punch
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the ways in which reactive researcher collaboration helps to manage some of the challenges present in insider research.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the ways in which reactive researcher collaboration helps to manage some of the challenges present in insider research.
Design/methodology/approach
Employing (auto)biographical reflections from across two different case-studies, the authors explore the ways in which reactive collaboration is enmeshed with issues associated with researching the familiar in a marketized university environment.
Findings
The authors develop the term “reactive collaboration” to explore the ways in which insider research projects have to deal with a range of challenges from within their own research community. Reactive collaboration is as much about insider research solidarity as it is with reacting to anticipated and unanticipated events during the research process (and how inside researchers do and do not deal with them). Reactive collaboration highlights the successes as well as the failures of insider researchers negotiating complex research situations.
Originality/value
The authors show how reactive collaboration occurs in challenging research environments, including the joys, sorrows and failures. The authors argue that the challenges and benefits of insider research can be helpfully crystalised through reactive collaboration.
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Vuong Tran, Giang Nguyen Hoang Le and Trang Le Thuy
In response to COVID-19 global outbreaks, Canada, and Australia, two favored destinations by international students, as the contexts of this essay, have enacted different…
Abstract
In response to COVID-19 global outbreaks, Canada, and Australia, two favored destinations by international students, as the contexts of this essay, have enacted different international education policies, which will be investigated through the narratives. The authors discuss transnationality and mobility as key terms in the internationalization of higher education (HE) studies through their experiences as three Vietnamese doctoral students in Canada and Australia. Transnationality is attended through a narrative of a Vietnamese returnee struggling with bringing unfamiliar knowledge of gender and sex education from the West into a Vietnamese HE context. Mobility is unpacked through stories of a Vietnamese doctoral student in Canada stuck in Vietnam due to the COVID-19 despite inviting policies from the Canadian government to international students. This experience is connected to another Vietnamese student’s experience in Australia about a controversial act to discourage international students from staying in Australia if they cannot support themselves during the pandemic. The authors’ stories are created and retold personally for introspective and contemplative reflections on what the authors have experienced and offer considerations for how transnationality and mobility in international and comparative education could be understood through education, equity, and inclusion.
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