Past Seminars
Monday, May 3rd 2010, 5:30 - 7pm
Ethnocinema: Representation and Intercultural Collaboration
presented by: Anne Harris and Nyadol Nyuon
This seminar presents and interrogates a series of short films made collaboratively by the researcher and 16 Sudanese Australian young women from refugee backgrounds during 2008-2009, a qualitative doctoral research project entitled Cross-Marked: Sudanese Australian Young Women Talk Education. The films examine the prevailing social conditions for connectedness/ disconnectedness in the context of sometimes-hostile educational contexts. The films utilise the emerging practice of ethnocinema as an arts-based methodology, performative ethnography (Denzin, 2003) which disrupts conventional stories of the pedagogies of belonging and becoming. The films draw upon the co-creators’ social practices of self to trouble gendered, classed and racialised narratives of identity and they offer a territory of possibility for travelling along disorienting lines of flight (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987).
Anne Harris is a Lecturer in Creativity and the Arts in Victoria University’s School of Education. She is also a writer, videographer and Artistic Associate of Pumphouse Theatre (Melbourne). Nyadol Nyuon is a community development worker and activist and has been instrumental in the Lost Boys Association of Australia since arriving in Melbourne in 2005.
VENUE: The Meeting Chamber in John Scott Meeting House @ Latrobe University, Bundoora. Park in Carpark 7. Click here to download a map.
COST: FREE for AQR Members, Non-members - $20 , Non-member students - $10
RSVP & enquiries: anne.harris@vu.edu.au
Monday, August 9th, 5:30 - 7pm
Queering Methodology: An interactive seminar
Dr Mark Vicars
Senior Lecturer, Victoria University.
My research focuses on the ways in which individuals construct, and perform identities in everyday life and within the institutional framework of communities of educational practice. I am interested in how literacy is utilised in young people’s worlds; how the literacy curriculum could be modified so as to make it more relevant and reflective of young people’s textual practices and how literacy becomes inscribed in, by and through identity practices. My research has combined contemporary understandings of literacy with poststructuralist ideas of gender and sexuality and, has harnessed queer and postcolonial theories to conceptualise empowering forms of pedagogy. In my research, I utilise narrative ideas, and experiment with how storytelling to open up a dialogue between biographical sociology and the arts-based (re)presentations in order to facilitate the exchange of ideas and information across professional boundaries.
Seminar
This seminar draws on research that investigated the relatively unchartered terrain of the socio-sexual contexts in which literacy is embedded in adolescence. It has been suggested that the fictional or imaginary are often considered as parasitic on the real work ( Rosenblatt, 1978), however, I argue that it was in and through ludic textual practices, in queerly nuanced re/readings of texts of the 'real' that the logic of (hetero)normative practices in everyday life were able to be displaced and disrupted. Drawing on the reconstructed life histories of the informants, the seminar explores the ways in which a queering approach to methodology can be part of a critical and emancipatory agenda in educational research.
VENUE: Latrobe University, Melbourne CBD, 215 Franklin Street, Melbourne - Room FS G04. Click here to download a map.
COST: FREE for AQR Members, Non-members - $20 , Non-member students - $10
Professor Laurel Richardson - cancelled
Unfortunately Professor Laurel Richardson has had to cancel her trip to Melbourne. We hope to be able to welcome her in the future.
Professor Laurel Richardson (The Ohio State University, Sociology) is an internationally renowned qualitative researcher with specialties in gender, arts-based research, and contemporary theory. Her work crosses the boundaries between the social sciences and the humanities. She is well-grounded in theories of knowledge, and well-practiced in ways of sharing knowledge through alternative formats, such as poetic representation, dialogue, and essay. Her innovative work has brought her, in recent years, to Denmark, Italy, Canada, Finland, France, Iceland and Australia as well as to conferences in the United States and to honors for her books, teaching, and community outreach.
Research using digital stories
Conducted by Liz Dimitriadis & Mark Lyall of the LDC group on Monday 14th July 2008, at RMIT, Melbourne.
The seminar examined the use of digital stories to collect and convey data; and the tensions between the roles of the digital story teller and the researcher. Using examples of recent work Liz and Mark presented their experiences and facilitated discussion about relevant research theory and emerging technologies.
Liz has been consulting to government departments and public service organisations for 14 years and Mark is completing a PhD in media studies at Latrobe University. Liz’s and Mark’s combined experiences have enabled them to explore the use of digital stories in research contexts.
Narrative Inquiry
Sojourn: A Fragment in Time in Image and Text
This seminar was held on Tuesday March 13th 2007 at Swinburne University, Melbourne and conduvted by Dr Adele Flood of Swinburne University. Adele is an experienced educator and researcher and has published widely on aspects of arts learning, narrative and reflective practice. She is also a practicing artist. This presentation explored ways of recording time and place through the journaling in both visual and written texts of one particular fragment in the author's life. Through this, Adele explored the theory and practice of narrative inquiry.
'The journeys that we undertake over this flat earth, these fragments of time, provide the substance from which great stories are made'.
Presenting Qualitative Research to Mixed Audiences
This seminar was held on 22nd November 2006 at ACER, Australian Council for Educational Research, Camberwell, and was presented by Dr Jan Brace Govan, Monash University.
It was about reaching out and giving qualitatively designed research a fair hearing from a range of audiences. Talking amongst ourselves is valuable and reinforcing but, we often need to communicate our ideas and our findings to audiences that are either, less enthused about qualitative methods or, have a relatively narrow view of qualitative research. Jan has worked in a discipline with a preference for 'science' for the last seven years. In this interactive seminar Jan shared that experience and present some approaches to communicating qualitative research.
Analysing Qualitative Data
This seminar was held on Tuesday 22nd August at RMIT Business, Melbourne.
Assoc. Professor Carlene Boucher and Anne Smyth, RMIT University
Carlene and Anne drew on their own experience of wrestling with qualitative data and that of the students they have worked with to explore when and how to use the major choices reflected in the title. They discussed the issues involved in deciding the most appropriate approach, offering what they have learnt from using these approaches.
Meet NVivo 7, the latest qualitative software
This seminar was held on Wednesday 24th May at the Australian Council for Education Research.
Lyn Richards, QSR's founder.
Lyn demonstrated and discussed the recently launched NVivo 7, which she has now taught in 20 events in three countries. The new interface and functions were introduced by setting up a real project.
Researchers Who Have 'Turned':
Shifting Research Frameworks
This seminar was held on Wednesday 26th April at Swinburne University.
Graham O'Neill and Anne Smyth
A conversation between a PhD candidate (Graham O'Neill) and one of his supervisors (Anee Smyth) , exploring the productive struggle involved in moving from a traditional positivist approach to research to a very different way ' not just qualitative but grounded theory too!
Secrets, Lies or Data
The Research Interview Revisited
This seminar was held on 14th March 2006 at the Australian Council for Educational Research in Camberwell, Melbourne.
In this seminar, Dr Jo Reidy from Australian Catholic University introduces and then critiques several important perspectives on research interviewing. She uses transcripts from the data collected for her own book, Learning to work: Students' experiences during work placements, to take up the many issues raised when researchers attempt to gather trustworthy data during face-to-face interactions.
Past Conferences, Events & Newsletters 
