Mathemagenic

In the core of my PhD research approach is active participation, which brings me somewhere between ethnography and action research. I’m still working on positioning what I do between existing approaches, but some elements and connections are getting clear.

I study my own people. This is something that would fall into auto-ethnography category.

The shared similarities among auto-ethnographies are that, in each case, the researchers posses the qualities of other permanent self-identification with a group and full internal membership, as recognised by themselves and the people of whom they are part. [Hayano, 1979:100]

I study my own people by being engaged in something that I found called thick participation, which

implies apprenticeship and practice, natural conversation and observation, lived experience and sensuous research. [Spittler, 2001: 1]

My study is heavily informed by reflecting on my personal experiences of “participating in the life of my tribe”, so calling is reflexive ethnography is another option.

In reflexive ethnographies, the researcher’s personal experience becomes important primarily in how it illuminates the culture under study. Reflexive ethnographies range along a continuum from starting research from one’s own experience to ethnographies where the researcher’s experience is actually studies along with other participants, to confessional tales where the researcher’s experience of doing the study become the focus of investigation. [Ellis&Bochner, 2000:740]

One day I’ll explain properly why those elements are important, but the short answer is that the focus of my PhD calls for it.

My PhD is focused on understanding personal knowledge management through studying blogging practices. For both personal knowledge management and blogging practices there are a few of things I consider important:

• “actor” perspective and holistic view – I’m interested how different practices are connected at individual level
• invisible and implicit nature – some elements of practices I’m studying either invisible for an outsider or, even worse, implicit

In this respect my PhD is about articulating the invisible from personal perspective, so personal engagement and reflection make a good starting point. Living between others who share similar practices and sometimes even share my research questions provides a space for learning from observing their practices, reflecting on differences, testing emergent interpretations and feedback on my results.

[To be continued. I also promise to be a good girl and add proper references]

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2005/04/13.html#a1547; comments are here.

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