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…

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…

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.

The web is social. Hmmm, well no, because the web is neither subject nor object.

Whilst doing some re-drafting last week I returned to a favourite source of inspiration Lury’s Brands: Logos of the global economy. There is a quote from Bruno Latour on p149 which has been rattling around in my head all week, and I haven’t been able to shake it from my thoughts. I saw him once in the queue for coffee at the British Sociological Association annual meeting and rather embarrassingly was completely star struck. I seem to remember being almost paralyzed on the spot and texted my then partner ” jst sn Bruno Latour. OMG” . There is an interesting irony to this as the ex had absolutely no idea nor wish to know who Latour is. That I’d been meters away from IMHO one of the greatest living philosophers and sociologist was lost. However, later that year at a post-grad conference,I relayed the story to a PhD student, and he clutched chest and shrieked “be still my beating heart – you did not stand next to Bruno Latour SHUT UP!” I was satisfied.

Bruno Latour

Peter Sellers

I just want to add quickly that Latour was wearing a rain mac at the BSA, and what with looking a tiny bit like Peter Sellers and being?fronch and all.. well there was noone aound to make Inspector Cluseo jokeys with, quelle domage.

So, back to the point, the quote

“For the thing we are looking at is not a human thing, nor is it an inhuman thing. It offers, rather a continuous passage, a commerce, an interchange, between what humans inscribe in it and what it prescribes to humans [...] What should it be called neither object nor subject. An instituted object, quasi-object, quasi-subject, a thing that possesses body and soul indissociably”

The quote postulates on the agency of objects. I love the idea of neither subject nor object in relation to the web. I’m sure there is loads of stuff already written on Actor Network theory?and the internet and it’s not a new idea. It’s not my area but I had a quick peek and found Sociology in the Age of the Internet by Allison Cavanagh, but I’m sure there are a wealth of journal articles to choose from if you’re that way inclined. What’s got me excited though is that there has been a lot of chit chat about the web being social, but I think it should be thought of in terms of ?neither object nor subject.

As Latour says it is perhaps quasi-object. Although one can talk of the social lives of things and the sociality of objects, as non-object non-subject the web can not be inherently social, rather social is what we inscribe in it. The social is the human version of the thing. D’ya getme?

For more on Latour here is a cool blog I found by another per her der with an interview from Latour on digital traces.

I’ve been reading Radical Consumption by Jo Littler, which was only published in Jan this year by O.U press.

From the time I began my own research in 2005 this is one of the most engaging titles I’ve read, perhaps since Health and Potters Rebel Sell. I’ve found it very useful in considering the responses to the consumer interviews I conducted and the practice of what I’m calling double distinction, drawing on Bourdieu’s seminal theory. I’m looking at how participants justify their consumption through individual lifestyle practices, and through passing judgement and distancing themselves from other peoples consumption. More of this one day, but lets wait for a successful viva, before I spill.

Not really to do with my research, but I found the discussion of ethical consumption, worthiness and moralizing particularly interesting and loved the case study ?of US clothing label American Apparrel in the book. I’ve been a tentative fan of American Apparel for some time, but being in my 30s I find some of the lines a little bit too nu rave /juvenile for my own taste. However my boyf who I shall refer to as The Italian here on in in this blog is 5 years older than me and he declared it his new favourite shop the other day. American Apparel use non-model models in their campaigns and the images are often sexual in a readers wives, 70 soft porn kind of way. This allows for an ironic consumptionvia the brand, and for them to move away from the stuffy connotations of worthiness and yogurt weaver fashion slow mo remit of most ethical labels. Really interesting to me as I’m often moaning to my fashion friends that most ethical fashion I’ve come across, offends my style sensibilities.

As I’m on a fashion tip today I wanted to share this beautiful print on my new Echo scarf. I was out scouring with my fashion friend The Forbes, last Saturday and we came across a load of gorgeous scarves in local boutique Sirene. Echo are a family company based in NY, and these prints are from their archives from the 1920s.

Accessories are brilliant for updating an outfit without spending very much money, so it’s no surprise given the current climate that scarves are going to be a big thing. Not everyone can afford an Hermes so a find like this ‘lovely’ from Echo makes my day.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I will do when I finally sit my viva and become Dr Peacock. What will life be like post PhD and what is next on my research agenda? 

I went to Cuba in 2007 to stay with a family in a casa particular in Verdado a nice suburb of Havana. It had been a major ambition of mine to visit the country and the trip was fantastic. But ever since I’ve been dying to get back and spend more time there, exploring the rest of the country.

Last  week I went to watch Che: Part I . Mainly because I’m a massive fan of Benicio del Toro. It’s an unusual film, not quite what I was expecting to be honest and if you have little or no prior knowledge of Che Guevara or the Cuban revolution, basically you’re f***ed. Coincidentally I heard  yesterday that one of the artists from Buena Vista Social Club, Eliades Ochoa – the one with the cowboy hat, is coming to

perform in Feb in my home town.

I’m so giddy. All roads are leading to Cuba. I see it in the dregs of my mojito – my future is in Cuba. 

I’ve recently been diagnosed with celiac disease which sounds much more dramatic and serious than it is, but one of the symptoms is an intolerance of wheat and gluten which has been making me feel very tired and nauseous.  This is an extreme blow , as one of my other passions in life is cake. I love it. Lemon drizzle, macaroons, fairy cakes, scones, you name it I can make it and eat it. Yessirree I take cake very seriously indeed. But you’ll know this already if you’re a regular to this blog and all about my future plans for a tea room called the Public Sphere after Habermas’ great work. I envisaged sparknotes on critical theorists and their key works on the menu, and a free weekly salon for debate on culture and life, in the Raymond Williams sense of the word. I suppose I could still do this and make all the cup cakes gluten free – but the wheat free flour doesn’t rise very well. No Cuba is where I’m headed in my dreams.

Since a lot of my research and growing expertise is in the field of identity formation and brands, I have been fantasizing about making an ethnographic film on such things.

One of the things which fascinated me so much during my 2007 trip to Cuba was the almost total lack of  marketing, and miniscule references in popular culture to consumer brands (Cuban or other) that we experience in The West.  Not suprising given  wages average about £15 a month and because of the embargos food and goods are rationed. Literally there isn’t anything to buy.

During my time in Cuba I recall seeing only a few billboards in Havana with government messages and political slogans, but no commercial advertising. I seem to remember there being 3 TV channels – all state owned. My land-lady made me watch universidad para todo every morning, which was on 1 of the 3 an educational channel. I saw one shop in the foyer of the hotel national selling palm olive soaps and some L’Oreal shampoo I think, and just one other store in a very smart touristy area of Havana selling trainers  There were definitely some real or fake Adidas and Nikes in amongst them, and that’s the only form of branded goods I recognized during my stay. However, I found something online which quoted

Business Week (August 6, 2001) ranked the top 100 global brands and stated that of these 64% were available in Cuba

So much of contemporary identity in the UK is signified through our relationship with consumption and engagement with the brands we choose. And yet Cubans have  a strong sense of identity that is both individual and group – national and local .To me a non cuban, this seemed to be in part constructed through music,family, baseball etc.

But Cuba is changing, and especially in light of Obamas’ hint at new policy on Cuba I feel this will alter soon. Who in Cuba will experience an increase in material culture if embargoes are lifted? Will this result in a a semiotic glut and how will this effect class relations?

So now I’m day dreaming about learning ethnographic film making techniques and looking for crash courses in Spanish…

What doing a PhD feels like sometimes.

So I promised an update on the state of the per her der back in October, and so far I’ve managed to avoid following that up, because I HAVEN’T FINISHED.

I have been working on my PhD since April 05 and am grimly aware that I’m approaching the end of 2008 and I HAVEN’T FINISHED. 

Yes, despite having 3 months at the beginning of the year where I holed myself and renounced pretty much every other aspect of my life to write, I HAVEN’T FINISHED.

But why haven’t I finished? I’m really not sure, because I worked all day last Sunday whilst all around me were Christmas shopping, watching football, drinking beer and having fun. I worked until 21:50 last night whilst others watched crap on Living and ate chocolates. At this rate I should’ve finished by now surely?

This is the point where if I were in a film of my life (staring Scarlet Johansson as me) there would be a big focus pull. Spooky voice-over would rasp accusingly  ”where has your life gone?”, as something truly tragic composed specially by Morricone sets the scene, the heroine is finally caught out  by the truth; that she sat around all day, eating chocolate, playing with kittens, reading Vogue and attending light lunches.

But hang on…

A really depressing fact, which I came across today is that 3/4 of PhD students in the UK take 7 years to complete. Man oh man. I started the PhD in April 05, so I’ve been at it a total of 3.5 years and during that time I changed my status from FT to PT. When you’re registered as PT you only received half the supervision hours and are only expected to work about 16 hr p/w on the thesis. So, a year consisting of 2 PT semesters only counts as 0.5 when the trajectory is calculated. Following that logic, if the PhD took me another year I’d still meet the national average, and I could actually take another 2 years to complete it. God forbid.

Mulling all this over, I started to think quite seriously though what have I been doing? So I had an audit of sorts. In 3.5 years of doing a Phd (nearly 4 years in terms of my life, time and commitment)  I’ve presented at 4 conferences (one international)  & attended another international symposium. I went to Cuba, Morroco, Thailand and Vietnam, Spain and Italy. I’ve ended a long-term relationship, started a new one, and moved house. I’ve written 2 papers and had one published, taught for 5 semesters, held a FT position as an analyst for 3 months, followed by another period as an analyst later in the year for 5 months, and this semester I’ve begun supervising  undergraduate dissertations. And yes, I have not missed reading one monthly addition of Vogue. 

Phewee. I feel so much better for this little audit; I’m now able to say I haven’t finished in lower case. So joy to the world, and peace on earth.

I think it is quite common to worry about the big bad deadline, and especially given that people are constantly asking me when I’m going to finish. It’s very hard to impress on people who are not doing a PhD- quite what it is that one does, when doing one, and all the to-ing and fro-ing with supervisors reading drafts, redrafting, progress reviews, transfer vivas, selecting externals.

But I’m rather cheered that I’ve discovered some fantastic PhD blogs recently. It provides a great deal of comfort to know that there are other people out there experiencing similar things.