Ethnography, Liminality and the PhD in Australia

Mary-Helen Ward

CoCo, November 2008

Briefly…I am investigating the experience

of doing a PhD at a research intensive university in Australia

My thesis will be a reflexive ethnography

What’s been done?Quality in Postgraduate Research

conferencesAlison Lee (identity; writing process)Angela Brew; Margot Pearson (supervision)Barbara Kamler; Pat Thomson (writing

process; supervision)Ruth Neumann – report to government in

2003 on student experienceARC linkage project between Deakin, ANU

and three postgraduate student associations (student experience) 2005

My data sourcesGovernment documents and

reportsTheoretical perspectives on the

doctorateUniversity documentsUniversity staff (interviews)PhD candidates (blogs)My own experience

Blogging projectAimBlog (technical details)How the blogs workedMy position in the project

Issues relating to ethnographic theoryMy status as a ‘full-member

participant’The mediation of the method I

used to collect personal data (blogs)

The politically charged nature of my material (i.e. the ‘sub-versions’ my participants could potentially construct)

Nature of ethnography…Norman Denzin points out that

“Ethnography, like art, is always political.”

My ThesisOverarching metaphor of liminality

(Turner)◦Communitas

Candidates’ stories from their blogs, and my story as it happened will create a counterpoint to both official and theoretical accounts (sub-versions)

My reflections from a current perspective may also create, intrude into, trouble, obstruct or confirm these accounts

ReferencesKamler, B., & Thomson, P. (2006). Helping Doctoral Students Write: Pedagogies for supervision. New York: Routledge.

Lee, A., & Williams, C. (1999). “'Forged in Fire': Narratives of trauma in PhD supervision pedagogy”. Southern Review, 32(1), 6-26.

Aitchison, C., & Lee, A. (2006). Research writing: problems and pedagogies. Teaching in Higher Education, 11(3), 265-278.

Boud, D., & Lee, A. (2005). "Peer learning" as pedagogic discourse for research education. Studies in Higher Education, 30(5), 501-516.

Boud, D., & Lee, A. (2009). Changing practices of doctoral education. Oxford: Routledge.

Cerwonka, A., & Malkki, L. (2007). Improvising Theory: Process and Temporality in Ethnographic Fieldwork. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Cumming, J., & Ryland, P. (2004). Working Doctoral Students: Challenges and Opportunities. Paper presented at the AARE National Conference.

Denzin, N. K. (1999). Interpretive ethnography for the next century. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 28(5), 510-519.

Hine, C. (Ed.). (2005). Virtual Methods: Issues in Social Research on the Internet. Oxford: Berg.

Hine, C. (2000). Virtual ethnography. London: Sage. Kamler, B., & Thomson, P. (2006). Helping Doctoral Students Write: Pedagogies

for supervision. New York: Routledge. Lee, A., & Williams, C. (1999). 'Forged in Fire': Narratives of trauma in PhD

supervision pedagogy. Southern Review, 32(1), 6-26. Markham, A. (1998). Life Online: Researching real experience in virtual space.

Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press. Markham, A., & Baym, N. (2009). Internet Inquiry: Conversations about method.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Pearson, M., & Brew, A. (2002). Research training and supervision development.

Studies in Higher Education, 27(2), 135-150. Turner, V. W. (1974). Dramas, fields, and metaphors: symbolic action in human

society. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.