thinking is the new black

At the end of January I can across a great project where the researcher is investigating  the PhD process and I’ve been meaning to post a link for the corresponding blog for a while.

There are useful links to some great reading  and thanks to M-H for putting me on to the Malcolm Aswell book ‘The Reflexive Thesis’ too. The bold foreword from Steve Woolgar has been a tonic. I also love the quote at the beginning

The first task of my Introduction is to introduce my readers into my text: You’re welcome…

Oxford Street Christmas lights 2009

Feeling a bit festive today as I had my first mulled wine and mince pie of the season. Here’s a little snap from my phone. Ho ho ho.

Hellooooo!

OK, so as promised (I’m sorry that this post is so v.v. overdue), but here are some reflections on finishing a PhD and my views on how to approach research in general. I honestly don’t feel it’s too useful to be prescriptive about “how to do a PhD” or how to finish a thesis as it is such a subjective journey, which depends on all sorts, such as your support network, super-supervision, institution, money and of course… your personal dynamo.

Umbrella for sun or rain by Ben

Many moons ago I wrote a post on doing a PhD and the 10 perfections. Now, I want to bring up something called the 5 faculties  which again is based on Buddhist practice. However I think this can be applied to any type of research, not just doctural.

1. Faith / confidence. You need an understanding of what you’re confident in before you begin.  This is linked to the wisdom of learning, reading and listening. You then need to reflect on what you’ve learned and this results in a new wisdom. Finally there is the wisdom of insight, when you are able to directly understand  from your experiences.  This is something you just can’t force. It is a result of practice.
2. Energy. This relates to the ‘right’ type of exertion. That which is skillful, honest and comes from the heart. Follow your nose and be true to your instinct. Don’t get drowned out by others ( but do listen to your supers) then exert yourself. A PhD is a marathon not a sprint, but you need constant spurts of effort.
3. Mindfulness. Become familiar with what’s going on in your head. Stop still and notice your thoughts. This is about being in the present with the research and avoiding thinking about where it’s taking you. Difficult if your doing a PhD I know. But try not to think of your data in terms of future chapters and papers. Stand still with it, this noticing is where authentic analysis begins.
4. Concentration. Sounds obvious dunnit.In Buddhism concentration is in part about understanding or knowing the true nature of things. Think of this in terms of epistemology. Ask yourself what is truly knowable through your research and how can you know what you know?
5. Wisdom. In Buddhism this is achived through understanding experience is characterized by  suffering, impermanence, and not self. I’m not going to get into the theory of not-self here. As an expert on identity theory, even I find it very complicated and I feel a post on identity is imminent any way. But what is useful about this view of wisdom for anyone doing research, is that you need to learn to perceive the world in a new way. Remember it’s not necessary to know everything and that your output is part of a complex system of other ideas and things.

Sunrise in Jodphur by sarah lane

In terms of top tips for people doing a PhD I’ve just 1.Do something else.

Obviously do the per her der, but until you can see the finishing post I suggest make sure you have some other things going on. If you’re lucky enough to be FT and have funding them you’re probably contract bound if not duty bound to make it your be and end all, but personally I recommend a job. Leading a seminar  is not fun-time, and don’t let it get to the stage where a conference seems like the ultimate in leisure. Nooooo!  I had no funding so I had to work and  sometimes  I worked FT  in an office with commercial peoples on businessy things and did the PhD when I got home. For me this was a blessing in disguise. Inspiration comes from the most  unexpected of sources, and in doing one, you get focus and clarity for the other. The main thing is when you do something else – you have to be super disciplined and manage your time,  because it’s precious; there just is no room for procrastination.
I’ll say it again. But this time do something fun or relaxing. Whatever floats your boat: taxidermy, pub, playstation. It’s not the same as procrastination trust me. Allow yourself and your mind ‘other time’.  Yoga and meditation worked for me.  When I was putting in 14hours at  a desk, seeing theories swimming around my head in a savant like manner,  I’d go to a 90 min yoga class, followed by a group meditation session. I forgot about: discourse , Apple Inc, participants, logic,logos, font size and 247 pages and 10 chapters and, and, and….Without wishing to sound too evangelical about mediation and mindfulness practise  - it totally rocks. It’s great for developing your concentration  when you need it and is a total anecdote to  stress. Learning to be in the present moment can really help with the anxieties of the last bit of a PhD. Trust me on this. It doesn’t just rock, it rules.  Imagine being in a nice warm room, maybe with a candle and the sounds of chanting. ahhhh..I feel relaxed even typing about it – you see – rocks.

Gluck to anyone thinking about doing, in the middle of, or finishing a PhD. I wish you the very best. I plan to do a post some-when on viva-prep btw.  Also watch out for changes to TITNB, a bit of a face-lift is planned.

Greetings, after a bit of a hiatus from me may I present a wordle word-cloud of my thesis in its entirety. Woo hoo!

I’ve had a crazy e.o September updating, re-drafting, and proofing, working late into the night most nights. It really brought home the notion that writing a thesis is sometimes an endurance test. By Thursday morning of last week when I was sat with the reprographics guys watching it fly off the press, I felt v wobbley; something close to acute jetlag. ( note to self: don’t try and make an original contribution to knowledge on 4 hours sleep).

And, I was so tired after I signed off all the paper work, I celebrated by going home , eating a take-way curry with the Italian, and sleeping for a gargantuan 14 hours.

Finally 2 bound copies of the actual thesis  are with the academic registry. Yes sireeee! And just in the nick of time with only 3 days off, before teaching started.

Hopefully in the next few weeks or so, I shall post some reflections on the process and the trials and tribulations of submission.

I took some time out from writing last week to run a research workshop with the Brighton team at iCrossing UK and then attended and presented at Transforming Audiences 2.

It is great to see the commercial world taking their research standards so seriously and the experience for me was having the best, most engaged seminar group ever, who responded to questions and discussion really thoughtfully. It’s very refreshing and to their credit that the team want to take the time to get beyond the surface of notions such as culture, community, tribe etc. that get used in quite a casual way in the industry sometimes, but not with these guys. It gives me heart that they’re are genuinely interested in the intellectual origins of such ideas and to use the terms in an appropriate way. As a result we spent a bit of time discussing culture as something we do, material culture and the idea and limitations of subculture. Also taking time to consider the value of the work of people like Foucault and Bourdieu, discourse, taste, agency online and power with a big P. Kudos guys!

so, Transforming Audiences 2

The pre-conference day at Transforming Audiences 2 on the presentation of the self in digital life was perhaps the most stimulating bit for me. I left at the end of the day having met some lovely new peeps engaged in research from all over the world: China, Canada, Australia and with pages of notes plus my brain on overdrive full of thoughts and ideas, which is the sure sign of a good conference.

There’s an excellent over view of the conf here from Britta ( also fyi Mark, David, Caro & co there are nice clean definitions of ontology epistemology etc..in a earlier post.)

There were some cracking presentations and it is clear there is great research being done by Ranjana Das and Sonia Livingstone on facebook at L.S.E. In particular I really liked Mia Lovenhein’s from the University of Oslo talk on blogs self representation and gender.

I asked a question during the discussion on what it means to be ’social’ e.g is logging on and looking at a news feed the same as blogging? Well obviously not..and this troubles me that a lot of what is talked about as social media and participation is not what I would call social. The idea of needing to define ‘participation’ was also raised during the closing session and final panel by others.
For me the technology and the institutional dimension of digital needs to be addressed more explicitly by research. Not to go all techno-determinsim but in my view there needs to be more consideration of how the technology both enables and limits – one might say curates even? Also there was no mention of the spectre of Google and the idea that users only to varying degrees understand their networks, how search engine optimization and digital traces.

In the days when we all used film we knew to a certain extent who and where we presented representations of ourselves, in a picture frame in the home, in a photo album, in a corporate brochure, in a gallery etc So to a certain extent we knew who our audience was and if we were not in total control of the representation we had some comprehension of the institution that was and the power relations that involved. I could go on and on here, so many thoughts…

Music and politics have  a long interesting relationship and it’s pretty normative to argue that there is a political element to subculture and style. When one drills down it is usually a little more complex than politics with a big P. More like music and socio-cultural, political economy, or music and hegemony.  I guess it’s because music is ideological, and genres are discourses.

This year in May I went to The Specials gig in Leeds town square, which was awesome. Not least of which was because there was a great crowd of diverse people and all age groups on a beautiful sunny warm evening, jumping up and down, dancing and singing along. (And I met Terry Hall at Leeds trains station the next day btw). The band have  amazing on stage energy and Terry Halls’ voice is still fantastic. What got me thinking recently is the relationship between the current economic climate and the music. There’s been quite a bit of press about the band reforming, but it is interesting that The Specials are being so well received by new fans and just as their music captured a political mood the first time round it is culturally, socially, so relevant at the moment.  As a Sunday Times review said

 …how fresh and joyful their music sounds — and how vital and relevant their songs’ sociopolitical sentiments, chronicling life amid the racial, economic and class divisions of late-1970s Britain, remain in 2009.Formed in Coventry during the last economic recession to drive a failed Labour government out of power, they blended ska, punk and politics, proving an instant hit with a generation fired up by the Sex Pistols and the Clash

 

Interesting, more in depth discussion here

i’ve been a fan of Ska and TwoTone pretty much since I could hear. As a kid in the late seventies and early eighties it was a sound that was played round the house by my older siblings and parents. Also I was lucky enough to spend a little bit of time in The Caribbean during the eighties so I had a context to some of the rocksteady and reggae influence. I kinda rediscovered the music in my late teens and went to a lot of gigs in pubs. Although I was very much into techno, dance music and free parties and campaigned against the criminal justice bill, I think at the time with Ska I read a lot of antiestablishment sentiment into the lyrics that had escaped 1st time and for me it tied in to my take on life as a young adult in the 90s recession. As a kid I simply loved the upbeat sound but didn’t think much about what it all meant. The sound is so happy, uplifting and energetic, it’s perfect for doing that special kiddie uncoordinated jigging about dance, where you can hear the music but to adult observers you are dancing to a completely different rhythm. Oh and just brilliant memories of moonstomping at house parties and cockney knees ups in East London and seeing some of The Specials perform at an Anti-Nazi gig in Viccy Park. But it is curious to me that the sound raises it’s head again during such times. The cultural effects of the recession are paradoxically rich.

I went to see Malcolm Gladwell “Live!” on Tuesday night and left feeling cross. I’m sure this post is going to make me unpopular as he and his ideas are incredibly successful. I think Malcolm Gladwell needs a large sprinkle of charisma dust. It’s OK to go all humble and low key , if  and only if what you’re saying in knock-out or you’re the Dali Llama say. It was not knock out. As far as I know he’s not taken over as the spiritual leader of Tibet.

Let me explain. My 1st encounter with Malcolm Gladwell’s work was via Heath and Potter’s Rebel Sell , as they quoted an article he wrote for the NY Times about coolhunting in their examination on the ideology of cool. I read the whole article and thought it was interesting, well researched and engaging writing. Based on some of his other pieces there is no doubt in my mind that he’s a talented journalist and he’s probably, or at least hopefully a nice person for all I know, so this is not a personal attack.

But, “The Tipping point”. Urrgh and double yuck. This sort of pop self helpy business manual gets my goat, and I associate it with the mind set of real life Apprentice style vague business rhetoric. There’s so much I could say here about the relationship between self improvement and the political project of New Labour and meritocracy – but that’s for an essay and this is a blog post.  For an excellent, more thoughtful critique of “The Tipping Point” read Duncan Watts.  Anybody who argues that their reader can learn thinking without thinking by reading a paperback –  is naughty.  It’s rude to do away with metaphysics and epistemology  in a byline. (Thinking is the new black, after all). Again, there’s an essay here about how one explores the nature of things at the level of unconscious and how decisions we make in a split second are grounded in  and manifest of our culture, upbringing, and how we come to know the things we think we know . I want to go into onotological security here, but too many ology words so little time.

So you see , I was already pre-deposed not to like Gladwell’s talk because I think his ideas are fluffy, furthermore, I’m jealous he makes a lot of money out of book deals and lectures. But I went out of curiosity and to be proved wrong, even secretly feeling a bit excited that I might be evangelised and touched on the forehead by the hand of knowledge. Really, I was v interested to know what sort of public speaker he is as I’ve heard great things and seeing someone do good public speaking is intoxicating. I’d hoped for multimedia and dry ice – but no, just Malcom and a lectern and a few notes.  This should be impressive right? I mean he barely looked at his notes, he just talked.  

2 mins  he employs ethos to establish credibility. “I’ve written books you know, and done tours before”.

5 mins he tells the audience out right he knows more than us about the subject of the American civil war.( This is the subject on which he costumed the real points.)

Mr, DO NOT subordinate the audience, and do not presume to know all they know. As one of the people I’d gone with said at the time “He’s basically just said we’re all C ***s”.

20 mins  I’m comfortably numb at this point. My seat is soft and spacious, venue warm, and fortunately I’d a glass of white. Thank god for alcohol when am I gonna be hit with his wows?

40 mins I’m brought to by other members of the audience laughing as Mal makes a funny. Then he says something about a Harvard academic, thus lending academic legitimacy to his sphere of reference. I notice a man 2 seats down writing “Harvard” in a note book. 

The end There’s clapping so I think some sort of conclusion has been reached and wisdom imparted. Have I missed it? Will there be a laser show at this late point  in the lecture? People start to form a big queue to get their copies of The Outliners signed, but  I think it’s to touch his hair…

Gladwell’s meader through the American civil war battle strategy drew on the ancient art of ‘argument’, which is Aristole, but perhaps dates backs to Homer. Use logos and deductive reasoning to construct a point, or basically blind the audience with minutia and detail that detracts from actual facts or useful insight. After an hour of  listening all I’d really gleamed from Gladwell was beware of the  authority awarded to expertise.

OK, OK so fare play to Mr G for having such a good grasp on the art of persuasion. It is clever to be able to do this, but the crux of the problem  as far as I’m concerned is the lack of content. I’m keen to know what others thought he actually said?

I’ve found a few blog posts. One here on Mr G & an analogy of link bait

Am I being mean?

I’ve meaning to discuss “The Rise of the Aldirati” for some time.

Alas, alak, been super busy at uni with the 3rd year dissertations, marking, and an in-house post-grad conference so no time for blogging recently. I’ve had a paper accepted for The Transforming Audiences conference in September, at Westminster, and although I was accepted into The Emerging Scholars programme at the IAMCR in July in Mexico City, (and totally stoked about it), after a long, hard think I decided enough is enough, and I’m not going to do anything this summer which deviates from sitting my viva. Even more good news, although I must remain schtum, I think an external examiner has been identified. So watch this space…

A topic which I meant to write something on about 6 weeks ago is an article which appeared in The Sunday Times Style supplement back in April called “The rise of the Aldirati”.

They’re affluent, middle class — and shop in discount stores. Meet the new breed of savvy consumers who are turning belt-tightening into a fine art

I love the word Aldirati and ’The Italian’ told me the other day to update my blog because American Apparel is no longer his favourite shop. Apparently his favourite shop is now Aldi, followed closely by the pound shop.

So taken was I with this word, that I decided to use the article in a discourse analysis workshop I ran the following Tuesday.  My own analysis is that the article is full of brand names and marketing lingo that construct a lifestyle than is quite the opposite to belt tightening and the term actually plays out through the cultural codes of fashion. I’m also fascinated by  how legitimacy is given to the notion of no frills affluence by consistent reference to marketing institutions and consumer experts.Not quite an echo chamber, more a small voice shouting into a bucket. So are the Aldirati just exercising common sense, or is there something more along the lines of ‘ironic consumption’ going on? It is something to do with what Bourdieu calls the ideology of natural taste. Why are the middle classes obtaining gratification in low end consumption habits? Ironic distance allows the Aldirati to buy cheap parma ham whilst avoiding  dirtying themselves with the cheap food = obesity = lazy citizen , helpless poor person who can only be saved by Jamie Oliver or a reality TV program that convinces them towards their better selves, whilst not killing their children sort of thing. 

In 2009 Vogue started up the more dash than cash  feature  again after a break of many years and what with the net-a-porter.com team  launching theoutnet.com (love love love!!!) there is something very interesting going on  with clothing and economics, and  I hope to be examining the relationship between the fashion industry and the more cultural manifestations of the recession soon.

There is a bit of a ‘thing’ going on out there of people creating word clouds of their research.

Good ones to be found on Almost PhD,Media @LSE &social sim

Here’s one from mine. It’s only one chapter, more to come I’m sure.

Love wordle.

I came across tweetminster a couple of days ago, an idea inspired by?tweet congress?and MP Tom Watson?and?Alberto Nardelli.

Follow and Tweet MPs and Parliamentary Candidates, and use the power of Twitter to track UK politics, make your voice heard and conversations more open. You can take a back seat… or you can tweet.

I must say I really like the concept, despite it being a little utopian. A couple of weeks ago I facilitated a 2 hour seminar with 1styear students on Habermas and the concept of the public sphere, and the media. It was very interesting to hear students views on where they feel social media sits with political engagement. The message from the students was “I don’t understand politics”. Whereas I think tweetminster is a hopeful and positive idea, I wonder who it’s audience is at the moment? I fear it may be engaging the already engaged and wonder how it will tackle the disconnect between those it should be targeting and technological adoption rates. It raises all sorts of interesting questions about digital divides, technology and social inclusion.

I also came across?politics and the city?a website that aims to make politics stylish, founded by C4 presenter June Sarpong.

The site places political issues along side more light entertainment news, fashion, lifestyle, and celebrity gossip in order to try and capture it’s audience, young women. The site looks lovely, swish and sleek – but I struggled to find spaces of actual engagement.