PhD reflections: what’s in a question?
How I got to find my PhD inquiry question and the productive discomfort I feel towards it
This blog is part of a ‘thinking out loud’ series where I share updates from my PhD inquiry, which focuses on the enabling conditions for rapid urban transitions to sustainability. For the previous post, see here.
As most practitioners and academics across the myriad of fields related to how change happens (such as design, systems change, futures studies, sustainability transitions, to name a few) would know, finding the right question to ask is a key part of the process. If you don’t have the right problem framing, how might you know that your solutions are the right ones — and more importantly, how might you know if they’re systemic and addressing root causes rather than symptoms?
“A paradigm shift occurs when a question is asked inside the current paradigm that can only be answered from outside it.” Marilee Goldberg, The Art of the Question
Iteration 1: putting a marker in the ground
When I was first writing my PhD application back in late 2016, the question I thought I was asking was: How might design futures methods enable place-based systemic change? Sure, it was clunky, it used a lot of jargon and none of my friends understood what I was on about, but it served a ‘good for now’ kind of purpose. Off the back of that research question, I tested the first phrase — design futures—through designing and facilitating a series of immersive workshops with teenagers exploring how they develop images of the future.
The findings and methods are currently submitted to a peer review process (so more on them later), but what I learnt from this experiment was that my main focus wasn’t about design futures and that my main audience wasn’t the design community. As the methodology I’m using in my PhD is action research, these are important pivots to capture, as they depict the messy and non-linear ways in which we develop new insights and knowledge. I didn’t find the solution to my question through these experiments; what I did find, was a better ‘good for now’ question to guide me through my next iteration of experimenting.
Iteration 2: tipping the focus
In the next iteration, the focus of my question tipped towards the urban forms that are already experimenting with ‘place-based systemic change’. I was then asking: What would it take to diffuse the plurality of their approaches and what lessons can be learnt from these examples of communities already practising processes of transition?
This question helped me narrow my literature review in a way that was (a bit) more manageable. Using this question as lens, I started exploring the literature to date on urban transitions (fun fact: the term was first used in 2001) and avidly looking for case studies of cities already far along in the process of experimentation with transitions (spoiler alert: there aren’t that many. Which I guess is why I’m studying this in the first place.)
“By studying life in the natural setting [..], by looking for “patterns in the rug,” and by mulling, contemplating, and closely observing authentic events in […] situations, one can identify a research question that will enlist personal passion and energy.” Gerald Pine, Conducting Teacher Action Research
Iteration 3: Where I’m at now
A couple of years down the line, and my question is currently: What are the enabling conditions for rapid urban transitions for sustainability? Under this umbrella question, I’ve also identified smaller (she says confidently) sub-questions which can also act as guides for my timeline going forward:
- What are the characteristics of rapid urban transitions? (2018–2019)
- What might we learn from the places and communities already prefiguring alternative urban futures? (2019–2020)
- How might learning from these pioneers inform ways to create a tipping point in pluralistic urban transitions for sustainability?(2020–2021)
As you’ll see in the image above, I’m constantly grappling with the individual terms that form my main inquiry question. That’s because they all have their own lineages and are all contested by different fields in different ways, and in many ways, that’s exactly what an inquiry process is about — developing a systemic understanding around an issue, rather than the usual binaries we trap ourselves in.
Resources
Here’s some links to resources I found useful in my process of questioning the questions process:
The Art of Powerful Questions — really great guide that could be applied to anything from personal learning inquiries to team projects and beyond;
Conducting Teacher Action Research—this was developed for an educational audience, but I’ve found it really useful for my own processes;
Action research-Action inquiry — there are many canonical texts about these fields, but I found this one an accessible resource that dispelled some of the myths.
Interested in what I’m up to?
Over the next years I’ll be designing and facilitating a series of experiments, coaching and learning alongside existing initiatives, as well as helping build a global community of practice situated at the interconnection of the topics above. I’d love to hear from you if the topics I’ve talked above resonate.
It might be that you’re a city strategist or urbanist working on socio-environmental resilience, a change maker pursuing different solutions to complex urban challenges, an activist already living the change, or a fellow researcher inquiring into similar topics.
Get in touch at @futuresforensics / corina.angheloiu17@imperial.ac.uk
