Beyond Product: Prismatic Affect in the Dialogic

• In Event: Cultivating Transdisciplinary Educational Research Through Dialogic Reflexivity: Facets of Theory and Practice

Abstract

Objectives
The objective of this piece is to (re)consider ideas of productivity. As a society we tend to hold notions of productivity up as one of the more important characteristics that define perceptions of professional success. However, productivity is a rarely defined and multifaceted term. Generally defined by the relation of output to input and resolutely bound to the creation of value, perceptions of productivity vary by context (Tangen, 2005). In academia conceptions of productivity are often tied to the products of intellectual work like publications, and more specifically the right kind of publications (Altbach, 2015). But what if we stopped looking for products and focused more on processes. How might this change the ways in which we consider what it means to be productive in education?

Theoretical Framework
I reflect on this question using Bakhtin and Deleuze & Guattari. Informed by Bakhtin, I contemplate the relationship between productivity and dialogue with the goal of understanding the “product” of reflection that is done in tandem with others. I also look to rhizomatics (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) in an effort to move away from ingrained understandings of “organized” and hierarchical academic processes and products.

Methods of Inquiry
I do this primarily through my reflections on the transdisciplinary dialogic reflexivity workshop that I participated in. In thinking about what it means to participate in a workshop the question of “what do I get from this” is often one of the first questions asked. We are driven to assign particular value to our time, perhaps even more so when that time may be considered “professional”. I reflect on this question in an attempt to tease apart the more impactful moments of contribution and connection that occurred during the workshop as I consider what this time spent with others produced.

Data sources, evidence, and warrants
The primary data source to consider here is perhaps not the workshop itself, but its affective products. If we are to (re)consider what it means to be productive, then the products we must consider are well beyond any measured outcome. In this sense, productivity itself is rhizomatic, able to be accessed and experienced in different ways depending on the sundry assemblages of lens and cohort.

Significance
The need to quantify and qualify the value of time spent is an institution that I struggle with, and one that I believe deprives us of the opportunity to (re)imagine what it means to do meaningful work as individuals, but perhaps more importantly, as groups. Dialogic reflexivity requires this connection to others and transdisciplinary work asks that we step away from the reflex that urges us to mark our academic territory, so to speak, in favor of offering work that is prismatic. (Re)considering productivity in this context may make space for not only new and exciting work to be done, but perhaps new perspectives on old problems.

Author

• Elena H. Silverman, Indiana University - Purdue University at Indianapolis
  Presenting Author