Working the ruins of… yourself?
Finding creative form and movement within a poststructurally-induced academic-paralysis
By: Mollie Baker — first year PhD student, University of Cambridge Contact: mlb60@cam.ac.uk
When writing my MPhil thesis for the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Education in 2018 I came a cropper to an unforeseen onto-epistemological crisis.
Sounds overly dramatic, I know, but bear with me.
Though whether you can bear with the narcissistic undertone of this blog is another matter entirely.
My thesis, titled, ‘Is there a future for Oxbridge?’, sought to explore the extent to which underrepresented students at Cambridge accept, question and resist the university’s competitive status. The project responded to an unwavering academic interest with feelings of ‘belonging’ among ‘working class’, ‘disadvantaged’, ‘first generation’, ‘non-traditional’ student groups. The issue I had, and still have, with such work is that the relating of social background to educational experience frames social background as the problem. It insinuates that the problem lies with the individual, with their experiences, with their inability to belong- not with institutional inequalities or fundamentally unjust policy structures. I therefore wanted to turn this perspective on its head and interrogate how educational structures influence educational experience, and to subvert the power dynamics of previous research by exploring the way those who have been undervalued by educational systems and institutions perceive the legitimacy of those systems.
Inherent to the project was the belief that Oxbridge is not inherently superior to other universities. Methodologically, this position aligns with the poststructural belief that there is no one single way that ‘things should be’. Indeed, postructuralists, sceptical of all forms of knowing, seek to subvert that which preserves inequalities by opposing the humanist desire for “binaries, hierarchies, grids of intelligibility based on essences — that reward identity and punish difference”. This is thus an anti-foundationalist stance in the sense that it assumes nothing is, or should be perceived as, innocent. It might help to think of humanism as a strict parent figure- relaying onto their offspring taken-for-granted and assumed correct rules of the world. In contrast, poststructuralism is the (admittedly annoying but) inquiring child who responds to all commands with an indignant: ‘why?’ Essentially, poststructuralists interrogate, disrupt and disengage with forms of onto-epistemological authority.
Through adopting this methodological position, I sought not only to ask ‘why?’ of Oxbridge, but of myself and my research-related intentions. And this was where the crisis started. At first I problematised my recruiting of self-identifying ‘underrepresented’ students. As a woman from a working-class background whose schooling had been heavily disrupted, I immediately felt out of place upon arriving at Cambridge in 2017, feelings I so obviously channelled into the project. Yet my participants included students with disabilities, and students from racial backgrounds different to my white-privileged one. The poststructural problematisation of the power dynamics that arise in attempting to know then developed my thought from ‘how should I represent the experiences of my participants?’ to ‘why should I represent their experiences?’ to ‘I shouldn’t’. In questioning the legitimacy of the ‘elite’ institution I was also required to interrogate the history between knowledge production, Oxbridge and colonialism. This then problematised the written progress I had made, in which I tried hard to be ‘objective’ while demonstrating validity and reflexivity (albeit in a way that accords with the problematic approach critiqued by Pillow, 2003). In recognising the cognitive dissonance present in the recruiting students from backgrounds I couldn’t relate to for the sake of a degree from the same institution I was hoping to critique, I began questioning the moral and ethical value in writing or submitting anything.
But this is where the feminist poststructural notion of ‘working the ruins’ allowed for some form of progress. ‘Working the ruins’ requires researchers and readers to ‘seek and dwell in the gaps, cracks, and spaces rather than stable, reliable, objective spaces. However, the challenge is to do so with an ever-suspicious eye for the humanist fiction that it is possible to ‘“get it right” once and for all’. Having ‘ruined’ my project, I began to navigate the uncomfortable implications of my critique by valuing, above all else, the deconstruction of unjust spaces and approaches- including those present in the power relations between the ‘knowing’ researcher and the ‘unknowing’ researched, and, moreover, the historically problematic means of knowledge production.
To achieve this, I experimented with forms of creative non-fiction. As argued by Caulley and Richardson, such writing can unsettle the traditions of modernity and humanism by producing honest accounts of the nonlinear and contradictory nature of research. One form that I settled on was the written screenplay. Through being multi-voiced and multi-layered in nature, the screenplay structure supported the complex articulation of the project’s development, philosophical stance and limitations. And it did so without me having to fully resolve the tensions and apprehensions described above. Kohn, for example, states: ‘even when reading a screenplay for a movie already produced and distributed, one still feels the urge to add a word, change a character, construct a subplot’.
Because of this, all methodological elements of my thesis were written in screenplay form. This particular screenplay featured three characters: Student-Mollie, Humanist-Mollie and ‘Post’-Mollie. Though this perhaps seems uncreative, the characters were named as such so to highlight the manner in which a researcher’s context and interpretation of methodological debate can influence research direction. The ideas deliberated in the screenplay do not represent the truth of things- instead, they represent my way of perceiving and negotiating different positions. On this page is Act 1 of the screenplay. As this Act demonstrates, the adoption of a poststructural stance was fraught. Certainly, my onto-epistemological crisis was uncomfortable, inconvenient, troublesome and seemingly never-ending. However, having acted as a researcher in response to work that misappropriates the experiences and voices of a community I identify with, this ‘crisis’ was still more comfortable and convenient than uninterrogated misrepresentation.
A Poststructuralist, a humanist and a nonconventional student write a methodology chapter.
Characters
‘Post’-Mollie — Works within the ‘ruins of humanism’ (St. Pierre and Pillow, 2000).
Humanist-Mollie — Believes that reason can produce objective knowledge of the world and encourage societal progression (Flax, 1990).
Student-Mollie — She has designed and is conducting the research project that the characters are discussing. She juggles full time study at the University of Cambridge with the demands of being a part time carer.
ACT ONE: THE DILEMMA
Setting: St Catharine’s College Sherlock library. It is summer and the library is empty. The college grounds are not empty, though, as there is a constant stream of conference attendees and summer schools.
Humanist-Mollie and student-Mollie are sitting around a table littered with journal articles and books. Humanist-Mollie is attempting to rearrange the articles in a logical manner. Student-Mollie is reading. She looks confused. ‘Post’-Mollie is lurking in a corner. There is an air of mischief about her.
Student-Mollie
[Closes Working the Ruins (St. Pierre and Pillow, 2000) and sets the book down on the table] You know… I think my work adopts a poststructural orientation.
Humanist-Mollie
[Glances up]
Don’t be ridiculous.
‘Post’-Mollie
[Bounds over to the table. Humanist-Mollie and student-Mollie look up, shocked.]
FINALLY.
[pushes some of the arranged articles to the floor and sits on the table. Humanist-Mollie is visibly irritated.]
Yes, I see! Poststructuralists seek to unsettle, disrupt and open up taken for granted humanist assumptions about the world (Lather, 1991; Petersen, 2015). While humanism is concerned with understanding, defining and categorising the ‘essence of things’ (St. Pierre, 2000, p.482), poststructuralists assert that no knowable social reality exists; grand narratives are neither attainable nor desirable (Humes and Bryce, 2003). In educational research, poststructuralists challenge educational practices in an attempt to bring forward new ways of teaching, learning and experiencing (Ball, 1995; Featherstone and Fawcett, 1995).
Humanist-Mollie
What nonsense! Despite their warnings against totalising theories, poststructuralists can only convey scepticism towards these things by participating in narratives against truth and through using reason and logic to demonstrate a rejection of humanism!
[Picks up the articles from the floor and places them in-front of Student-Mollie]
Also, Mollie, you cannot be authentically poststructural with this project. Onto-epistemologically speaking, the marking-scheme supports the assumption that some methodologies are more appropriate than others. The scheme repeatedly refers to coherent arguments, justifications and a sophisticated understanding of any theoretical perspectives. Given that poststructuralism is, if anything, a denunciation of labels (Alvesson, 1995), by simply calling your work ‘poststructural’ you are demonstrating the opposite of sophisticated understanding.
Student-Mollie
I think, though, that through questioning the use of and shedding light on the harms perpetuated by educational hierarchies, my research adopts the postmodern position that: ‘eliminating ambivalence — typified by the establishment of seemingly well-defined rules and procedures… is not just self-defeating but fundamentally dis-abling’ (Willmott 1992, p.60). This project is not about sitting comfortably within the confines of set rules and marking schemes, it is about questioning those things and requires a methodology that supports this aim.
Humanist Mollie
Wait… why are you now citing postmodernism?!
Student Mollie
Well, poststructuralism’s relationship to postmodernism isn’t very clear. In the postmodern, as with poststructuralism, there is a ‘complexity, a myriad of meanings, rather than profundity, the one deep meaning, which is the norm’ (Usher and Edwards, 1994, p.10). Hence, some authors use the terms interchangeably (e.g. Constas, 1998). However, others argue that postmodernism represents a cultural shift towards fabillist beliefs while poststructuralists go further, challenging taken for granted structures that continue to work against this cultural shift. Rhedding-Jones (1995), for instance, maintains that poststructuralism is the ability to theorise postmodernism…
‘Post’-Mollie
[Slams fist on the table. Humanist-Mollie stands up an indignant manner]
Stop!!! Say no more!!! You should be dwelling in the cracks opened by the ‘post’ perspectives. Quit trying to fulfil the humanist demand for easy-to-locate boundaries.
[Student-Mollie considers this]
Humanist-Mollie
OH PLEASE. If she can’t defend her position without entering humanist territory, then how is she going to decide what methods to use? And if she can’t define and rationalise the parameters of her methodological stance then her work will represent nothing more than guess work.
[points to student-Mollie]
You would do well to ignore her [referring to ‘post’-Mollie]. She’s just here to cause trouble.
Post-Mollie
That’s rich. Look at all that you’ve done, oh humanist-one. Unlike you, I’m not advocating a ‘way of being’ that values progress at all costs!
[Humanist-Mollie rolls her eyes at this criticism]
Anyway, what I was saying is that examining the ‘posts’ and their different orientations is a circular and disappointing activity. There are many authors working within the ‘post’ paradigms who provide definitions of their chosen methodologies and who give reasons for choices they make (Stronach and MacLure, 1997). BUT, those who do not- those who dwell in ‘getting it right’- experience a kind of academic paralysis in which they feel unable to move forward with their projects due to seeing too many philosophical barriers in their way (as with Francis, 1999; Hoff, 1994; Lather, 1991; Rhedding-Jones, 1995).
Those barriers can be avoided, though. St. Pierre (2000) stresses that humanism ‘is the air we breathe, the language we speak’ (P. 479). As you hint at, Mollie has- like many other graduate students- taken an educational research course that favours academic convention and rationality (Weaver and snaza, 2016). Humanism really IS everywhere for her and so she is going to be tasked with ‘‘doing it’ and ‘troubling it’ simultaneously’ (cited in St.Pierre, 2000, p.480). That said, this need not undermine her work and the most appropriate and even poststructual approach would be for Mollie to adopt a space in between not only the varying ‘posts’, but also between the posts and humanism. Afterall, because of the far-reaching clutches of humanism, simply attempting to be poststructural is a form of rebellion (Lather, 2004).
Humanist-Mollie
Your advice is to accept that she will never get it right?! [‘post’-Mollie nods and student-Mollie puts her head in her hands]
She wants to interrogate the position of structures which, for hundreds of years now, have supported Oxbridge universities. She cannot just ‘disrupt’ that and ‘open up’ discussions about Oxbridge’s status with a haphazard project that skims over the difficult questions about methodology.
Even those within the post paradigms advocate for authors to read closely should they wish to demonstrate a congruence with the perspective they are working with (Butler, 1992). Tell me, Mollie, how is your project going to avoid being undermined by the described ‘humanist’ ideals? How are you going to incite change when the only constant in poststructuralism is ‘groundlessness’? (Francis, 1999) Why are you using a methodology that, according to Giddens (2004) resembles:
‘Deads tradition of thought. Nothwithstanding the promise they [it] held in the fresh bloom of youth, they have ultimately failed to generate a revolution in philosophical understanding and social theory that was once their pledge’ (p.139)?
Student-Mollie
[Looks up from her hands]
Okay, let’s forget I said anything.
[Shifts through the articles in-front of her and starts rearranging them in a similar manner to humanist-Mollie did at the beginning of the act]
Humanist-Mollie
Bye!
[waves ‘post’-Mollie away with the flick of her hand. Student-Mollie looks apologetic]
‘Post’-Mollie
[Reaches across and throws the articles on the floor again. Humanist-Mollie is shocked and begins trying to push ‘post’-Mollie away from the table. ‘Post’-Mollie cannot be moved; she makes humanist-Mollie look weak]
Perhaps Giddens suggested as such because the changes that arise from poststructural work can not be easily categorised. Poststructural authors not only use a wide range of methods and writing forms, but are reluctant to label themselves and their work in such a way. Hence, ‘post’ work is hard to draw connections between (Stronach and MacLure, 1997).
Furthermore, in educational research there has been an ongoing concern for maintaining the relationship between research, policy and practice (Weaver and Snaza, 2016). Discussions about what, if anything, can be found are pushed down in a funding climate that favours ‘reliable’, ‘reflexive’ and ‘valid’ research which can make sound contributions to the running of education systems and classrooms (Atkinson, 2011). That does not mean that the post positions have failed, but that researchers- looking to get funding- have perhaps failed to give ‘post’ work a good go.
Humanist-Mollie
[exasperatedly shouts]
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH IF NOT TO CHANGE THE RUNNING OF SYSTEMS AND CLASSROOMS?
YOU MAKE NO SENSE. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.
[The pair descend into incoherent bickering. Student-Mollie becomes increasingly stressed but continues shifting through the now-muddled papers]
Student-Mollie
[Stands up and speaks with authority]
SHUT THE FUCK UP. We’re losing track of the project’s purpose.
[Humanist-Mollie and ‘post’-Mollie look embarrassed]
I can’t treat each turn, with its humanist or poststructural implications, as something bad. I’ve made a decision and it’s a compromise- if anything. I’m going to take influence from Foucault (1997), who suggested that:
‘My point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous … If everything is dangerous, then we always have something to do … [the] choice we have to make every day is to determine which is the main danger’ (p.258).
From here-on-in, I will be judging my project-related decisions based on their potential to bring about or defend against a ‘main danger’- that which undermines the study’s purpose- then I can differentiate between a humanist trap, needless poststructural ambiguity and a necessary humanist evil.
As Butler (1992) said: ‘the question of whether our position is right, coherent, or interesting is, in this case, less informative than why it is we come to occupy and defend the territory we do’ (p.127). I’m interested in exploring why we keep Oxbridge at the top and why the institution may be structured towards the needs of particular social groups- not why poststructuralism is so hard to employ or why humanism is so hard to avoid. This is an empirical piece of work and not methodological critique.
‘Post’-Mollie
[Everybody looks tense]
Why it can it not be both? There’s a reason we’re having this discussion now- just as you’re about to write your literature review. The poststructural worldview will undoubtedly influence the way you draw connections between the literature and develop speculations.
Humanist-Mollie
Don’t you know when to quit?
‘Post’-Mollie
I am constantly inspired by your stubbornness.
Student-Mollie
I need to write. Can you both leave?
Humanist-Mollie and ‘Post’-Mollie in unison
NO!
[End of act]
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