Emergent Theory Making With Community-Based Design (Poster 1)

• In Event: Educational Partnerships as Collective Resistance: Perspectives From Emerging Scholars and Collaborators

Abstract

Collaborative education research is inherently dynamic and heteroglossic. In bringing together a variety of stakeholders across social and organizational boundaries, the nature and purposes of a given collaboration are continuously the subject of negotiation. Extant scholarship has advocated for embracing the tensions that arise in this process, noting that “(d)ifferences and boundaries should become genuine objects of curiosity for partners to learn about…”; by creating practices for crossing boundaries, stakeholders may become better equipped to develop shared meanings around their joint work (Penuel et al., 2015, p. 192). In fact, these shared meanings are crucial for developing relevant educational theories.
Community-based design research offers a methodological framework for embracing the “felt theories” (Million, 2011) of people’s lives by rejecting artificial distinctions between researchers and participants (Bang et al., 2016). This orientation recognizes that “theories are affective entities within reality rather than passive representations of reality” (Osberg & Biesta, 2021, p. 59; emphasis added). In other words, educational theories emerge within practice, with their own axiological, historical, and aesthetic qualities. Because collaborative education researchers are interested in “support(ing) the agency of participants” and “provid(ing) something of practical value,” (Penuel et al., 2020, p. 19), those operating within various methodological paradigms should consider how theories emerge and become embodied in their work.
In this poster, I examine “emergent theory making” (Osberg & Biesta, 2021) within the context of a community-based design project, in which a Seattle neighborhood created a documentary film about itself to critically examine its relationship with lands and waters. Community members were involved in every step of the process, including: leading and filming public walking tours; content logging footage; negotiating the narrative of the film; and leading discussions and collecting data at film screenings. Over the course of the project, a wide variety of individuals and institutions engaged in this creative collaboration, each with their own sets of axiologies and motivations. For example, members of a local historic preservation group wanted to showcase the architectural styles within the neighborhood, while members of a local housing justice group were advocating for legislation which would permit more diverse housing typologies.
Using a mediated discourse analytic approach (Jones & Norris, 2005) that attends to both microgenetic interactions (Jordan & Henderson, 1995) and infrastructure (Marin et al., 2023), I found that theories about “what is good, right, true, and beautiful” (Bang et al., 2016, p. 29) were informed by the interplay of physical and social positioning. Individuals led, followed, and walked beside each other on the tours; showed up at meetings for local organizations they had not before been to; and began to form partially shared idea(l)s of what their neighborhood is and could be. Throughout the process, theory making emerged as a coordinated, if contested (cf. Matusov, 1996), practice, rather than solely a post hoc account by a disconnected analyst. This study encourages education researchers to similarly consider theorizing as an ongoing, collaborative aspect of their work, rather than a purely “academic” activity.

Author

• Ari Hock, University at Buffalo - SUNY