"We have had to ask but little of imagination, for our crucial problem has been a lack of conventional means to render our lives believable. This, my friends, is the crux of our solitude". The Solitude of Latin America. (1982).
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (1986). Decolonizing the mind. This book helped me realize that the role of transformative education is to give people the confidence to change their reality, which really resonated with me. I also gained clarity on my own relationship with when to write in Spanish versus English.
McNiff, J. (2013). Action research: principles and practice. London: Routledge. This was a game-changer. I hadn’t understood what action research was, why reflecting and journaling were relevant, or why it was necessary to act. Acting is necessary because it reveals questions that can’t be answered through reading alone. Also, many important problems aren’t being addressed by academia because it’s often siloed into purely bibliographical research. I only have a background in paper-based research; I’ve never gotten my hands dirty. I want to change that now. I also realized that my perspective on research has been positivist up until now. I thought I couldn’t interact with my research communities because it would bias the research. Now, it seems that interaction isn’t just desirable but necessary. Otherwise, the “object/subject” distinction creates relationships that I’m not interested in.
Rappaport, J. (2020). Cowards don’t make history: Orlando Fals Borda and the origins of participatory action research in Colombia. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press I’m currently reading about how action research was applied in Colombia and transformed into “participatory action research.” This movement is what gave birth to sociology in Colombia, and in it it has been specially relevant. It’s truly surprising that I’ve ended up in an action research master’s program. It almost feels like more than a coincidence.
What I’ve Done So Far
I stopped conducting interviews. I came to a very important conclusion for myself: for now, I need to separate art (storytelling) from my work. My priority is to find a job that doesn’t make me feel alienated and leaves me time to create. In the first semester, I was obsessed with finding a job where I could be creative, but now I’m not sure if that’s what I want. I prefer stability (but not like the one that law can provide me, which is a really high cost, as it offers no peace of mind).
I’ve changed my research question: The subject isn’t storytelling anymore, it is “How can applied rhetoric skills be taught in a personalized, student-led way to historically marginalized communities without imposing a single dominant discourse style?” It’s clear how my readings have pushed me toward education.
I created a survey to start offering rhetoric workshops. This has been discouraging because I was hoping for at least 50-60 responses and so far I only have nine. Perhaps the community I was interested in (international postgraduate students) isn’t interested in studying communication skills during the summer.
I’ve divided my blog into essays and journaling. I want to write more developed ideas, but that is stopping me from journaling, so I decided to divide my blog into two. Essays help me start conversations with others and build a portfolio, while the journal texts are specifically for engaging with UAL tutors.
What’s Next?
Find a community or space where I can apply my workshop/intervention. I’d like to do this in a physical space, not online. I’m honestly anxious and scared about this because I don’t know where to apply it during the summer, and I can’t wait until the semester is over.
Journal more often, now that I understand the point of it. I also didn’t truly understand why iterative interventions were important until I read McNiff’s text.
Improve how I communicate my research. Richie’s tutorial gave me this structure, which I want to practice:
Area of interest
An outline of what I don’t know
An indication of how I plan to intervene
A summary of the question
Struggles
I became overloaded last week and had to stop working on my job and research for a couple of days. I don’t want to take a vacation or travel until I have something more concrete.
I don’t know how to access the communities I want to reach.
