Critical Research

Critical Research

What is ‘critical’ in critical research paradigm? • Critique • Criticism • Critical analysis • Critical evaluation • Critical thinking ?

Glossary • Exclusion/ inclusion • Ethical/fair • Social justice • Interests • Sustainability • Non-violence/peace • Hegemony • Structure • Power • Emancipation/ Empowerment • Voice • Self Reflection • Praxis

Critical Research Paradigm Goal: • To foster democracyby transforming unjust social structures, policies, beliefs, values & practices Principles • Universal Declaration of Human Rights http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ • freedom (from fear, to speak out) • inclusiveness (non-discrimination) • equity (fair share) • individual agency (free will) • sustainability (future generations) • peace

CriticalResearch Paradigm Focus: to identify & counteract . . . • social disadvantage/inequity/injustice/oppression (capitalism, feudalism, dictatorships, …) • loss/distortion of cultural capital & identity (Western imperialism, colonialism) • unfair/unjust power relations (exploitation of workers, women) • disempowering hegemonies (cultural myths, distorting discourses, false consciousness, naïve romance, enslaved imagination…advertising, childhood stories)

Ontology • Historical • Power relationship • Oppressor-oppressed • Hierarchy ----- Researcher as activist Researcher as questioner Researcher as dreamer

Epistemology • Knowing as critiquing • Knowing as critical self-reflection • Knowing as praxis • Knowing as freeing from false consciousness

Axiology • Fairness • Justice-oriented • Ethics of empowerment

Your quick ideas: Reflection • What do you mean by critical? • How can you be critical? • What is critical research?

Marxian idea The idea is not to interpret or describe, but it is to change the world.

Critical Research Paradigm What is it? • Critical theory research tends to emphasize relationships that involve inequities and power, and a desirable aspect of critical research involves helping those without power to acquire it. (Willis, 2007, p.82) • Leading proponents of critical theory as a philosophy include JurgenHabermas…a contemporary advocate of…a movement that goes back to the Frankfurt School…in 1929. (Willis, 2007, p. 81)

Being Critical • Commenting on something in terms of strengths and weaknesses (it is a basic level) • Speaking dialectically (Yep, this is a sophisticated level) • Developing critical consciousness (indeed, this is a necessary condition to be critical) • Questioning unjust social practices even embedded in one’s own lived reality • ...

What is to counteract? • Perpetual normalcy • Hegemony (fish in the water) • Ideological embeddings • False consciousness • Asymmetrical power relations • Perpetual inequities: Status Quo • Social injustices • Exclusion and monopoly Are these not colonizing/constraining our ways of acting in the world?

Basic concepts • Fair share (equitable practices) • Egalitarian social practices (equality) • Active citizenry • Empowerment of disadvantaged- women and minorities • Preservation of cultural capital

Knowledge constitutive interest • Technical interest • Practical interest • Emancipatory interest

Critical Research Paradigm Research Methods: • Writing for/as critical inquiry • critical analysis (policy & practice) • critical reflection => a conscience • dialectical thinking (ethical dilemmas) • envisioningalternatives (utopic imagination) • Researcher as change agent (praxis) • advocate, resistor, liberator, jester, magician, alchemist, healer

Critical Research Paradigm Quality Standards: • social complexity recognised? • socio/cultural/political critique? • critical self-reflection? • ethics of entitlement & responsibility? • standpoint of emancipation? Limitations: • where is the love & spirituality (ie, non-materialism)? • self-righteousness & intolerance • researcher hubris or arrogant pride (cf, humility)

Objectivity, subjectivity and standpoints • Both types of knowledge • Materialistic worldview; thus knowledge is external to human mind; but emphasis is given to the subjective and objective experiences of the external world • standpoints: empowerment, transformation... • Socio-historical dimensions

Examples of popular methodologies • Feminist inquiry • Women’s ways of knowing, gendered identities • Autoethnography • Critical self-inquiry of a cultural insider • Critical Ethnography • Critical study of a particular cultural/social/professional group • Decolonising Methodologies • Indigenous methods (e.g. Vedic hermeneutics, ...) • Participatory research • Research for transforming certain social conditions

Feminist Inquiry • Research as empathic knowing • Research as deconstructing patriarchy/Research as critiquing • Research as critical self-reflection • Research as storytelling • Research as constructing • Research as holistic meaning making • Research as utopic imagination

Research as empathic knowing • How do men, women and children survive in extreme conditions, such as war, terrorism, and abject poverty? • What is the nature of suffering for those who were blamed for being ‘witch’?

Research as deconstructing patriarchy/Research as critiquing • How do elderly women interpret systematic distortions of their identities ( as someone’s wife, sister and daughter)? • In what ways are the existing social policies (maximum three) promote gender inequality?

Research as critical self-reflection • How am I contributing to the reproduction of unjust practices in relation to gender equality? • ...

Research as storytelling • How do people recount their stories of suffering...? • How do retiring women professors make meaning of their life?

Research as constructing • How do women in the bureaucracy make meaning of gender equality? • How do female head teachers understand the notion of power?

Research as holistic meaning making • Any research questions? • Consider every possible aspect of issues under consideration • Presences and absences • Dialectical approaches • Example: Gender issue

Research as envisioning • How can the everyday problems of residents living nearby ‘dashgaja’ be addressed ? • How can the exploitation of women in workplace be minimised? • In what ways are the … policies formulated in accordance with the principles of social justice? • How can teachers be made aware and cognisant of the notion of climate change?

Critical Ethnography • What is ‘Ethnography’? • Ethnographic methods enable us to stand in the shoes of the other, to generate mutual understanding and appreciation of the differences that define us and the common humanity that unites us.

Critical Ethnography • And Critical Methods? • Critical methods give us the conceptual (and moral) tools for exposing ingrained social injustice, for identifying the source (often hidden in our cultural history), and for reflecting critically on our own part in (unwittingly) turning a blind eye to those in need of being treated more fairly.

Auto/ethnography Autobiography • Autobiographical narrative methods honour the authority of our own experience and provide us with rich means for communicating so that our readers can better understand and be influenced by us, especially when we write in ways that are educationally thoughtful.

Auto/ethnography • Ethnographic methods enable us to stand in the shoes of the other, to generate mutual understanding and appreciation of the differences that define us and the common humanity that unites us.

Auto/ethnography • And from the Arts we have new ways of thinking (such as metaphor) and new means of expression (such as poetry and plays) with which to conduct, portray and perform our research as active agents of social change.

Example Auto/Ethnography Self ------------------------------------------------------- Other Autobiography Ethnography

Task for next week • Download one paper from the internet on any of the following topics: • Feminist inquiry • Auto/ethnography • Critical Ethnography

Critical Research