As we conclude our block on community cultures, and I post my micro-ethnography artefact Entangled Communities, many questions/issues have been raised.
Inspired by David Yeats’ artefact grappling with a community apparently “present” but “hidden”, I pondered on how/whether this might be tracked and issues of surveillance that link to our next algorithmic cultures block. His artefact also asks ‘what is community?‘, and I wondered how we might define it…
- a ‘creative “gathering”‘ (Bayne 2015b: 456) around a ‘shared domain of interest’ (Wenger 1998; Lave and Wenger 1991)?
- a feeling ‘produced by more-than-human assemblages’ (Hickey and Moody 2019: 2)?
While researching, should we focus on a network of ‘connections between entities’ (Siemens 2005) or on agential relations and ‘intra-actions’ where agency is co-constitued (Barad 2007;
As I constructed/traversed a network of connections (Downes 2017) in the connectivist-informed ds106, “I” and “my study” (including my field notes) became “entangled” in the course/community I was studying and my artefact itself appeared increasingly like a tangled network map of connections. I noted the course/community boundaries blurring and the traditional MOOC form questioned.
Questioning my research methods, I explored various approaches including the speculative method (Ross 2017)…
Would it be considered messing with my own data if I went into my MOOC to purposefully go against the norm of everyone else's behavior? I didn't but it was just a thought I had. What if I intentionally "stirred the pot"? #mscedc
— Monica Siegenthaler (@harMonica1) February 27, 2020
Great point, Monica! I think it’s a contrasting approach and no less valid if acknowledged as such. I had similar issues but concluded that from the moment I announced myself (as a researcher) I (and the study) became entangled in the course/community I was studying… #mscedc
— Michael Wolfindale (@mwolfindale) February 29, 2020
…plus when listening to the course’s radio station for my study, my “prescence” (albeit anonymously) was logged and viewable by other listeners #mscedc
— Michael Wolfindale (@mwolfindale) February 29, 2020
…rather than an “observer” collecting data about something “out there”, are researchers entangled with the “object” of research where data generated/collected ‘is co-created by the fieldwork assemblage’ (Hickey-Moody and Willcox 2019: 5)?
Finally, as I listened to ds106 radio, is sound a ‘vibrational event’, and listening an embodied experience (Ceraso 2018)?
On that note, I’m experimenting with a short audio snippet to conclude: