Reflection: A Conversation Between Kip Jones and Patricia Leavy: Arts-Based Research, Performative Social Science and Working on the Margins

Source: https://uwaterloo.ca/murray-alzheimer-research-and-education-program/research/projects

This is a reflection of the article "A Conversation Between Kip Jones and Patricia Leavy:
Arts-Based Research, Performative Social Science and Working
on the Margins". As the title implies, this article is an interview with Kip Jones and Patricia Leavy who are arts-based researchers.

The articles starts off with defining what arts-based research is. It is defined as "as the use of tools from the Arts (and Humanities) in carrying out Social Science research and/or disseminating its findings" (page 1). As the interview continues, they talk about the benefits of arts-based research and in particular the importance of  making research more accessible to the "lay person".

As I read this article, I thought about the work of MAREP (Murray Alzheimer Research Education Program). MAREP conducts psycho-social research related to dementia and quite often their research is arts-based.

While there are many of examples of the work of MAREP, a very simple and practical example that comes to my mind is the "A Meaningful Life" photo exhibit that they supported through the "Journey through Dementia with Photography Project". Through this project the life of a man living with dementia was captured through photographs. The photos are displayed through the Alzheimer Day Program in Cambridge. To me, this is an excellent opportunity to share information about what it is like to live with a dementia and do it in a way that is accessible to people -an excellent example of arts-based research.

As I turn a chapter in my own life and am about to embark on grad school, I hope that the research that I conduct has impact on other people's lives. I don't want to conduct research that ultimately "collects dust" because the only people who read it are other people in the academic community. I think that using art within research is very important because it is a way to make research accessible to everyone in the community.

Post-Class Reflection

photo source: http://mashable.com/2012/03/02/twitter-bird-name/

Over the past two weeks, we have had the opportunity to present the findings of our research from Night\Shift 2014 and also listen to the presentations of the rest of the class on the research that they did for the event.

Of all of the presentations that I watched, the ones that really "stuck out" for me were the ones on the use of social media. This is not an area that I am very familiar with. I  have little experience with social media in my personal life and definitely not in doing research. I suppose it is one of those "generation gap" issues. While most of my family/friends use Facebook, very few people in my own "social circles" use Twitter or Instagram. I just have no reason to use it as I don't know anyone that I would use it with.

As I reflected on this leisure behaviour, I thought it was interesting how people tweet about their experiences during leisure. Then there is a secondary leisure experience as they talk about it through social media. I suppose there would be a third experience which is when all of the people who did not actually attend Night\Shift are living vicariously through their friends and family who attended and reported about the event.

What strange times we live in.

Yes, I know....I am dating myself.

The other thing that I reflected on was the fact that I need learn more in terms of understanding social media and the opportunities to conduct research through this medium. As my fellow classmates seemed to effortlessly talk about hashtags and doing searches for different types of tweets, it occurred to me how skilled they were with this AND how unskilled I am at this! There seemed to be a lot of information generated from social media and it seems like the research was very easily attainable. I really can see the benefit of becoming more "social media literate" . Watching their presentations really piqued my interest in the subject and I have added it to my "list" of things to learn more about in 2015.

Post Event Reflection

As part of our evaluation, students in this course are evaluating an event. Below is a reflection of this event. Since this is a public blog, I have intentionally left some details out to try and keep my comments relatively anonymous (knowing that the TA/Faculty who are evaluating this blog are aware of the contextual details).......

One of the things that we learned in class is the importance of also keeping a journal of our own observations as we are conducting research. The idea is that the journal would help to add another "layer" to our evaluation and therefore deepen our understanding of the findings and also evaluate the research methodology.

With that in mind, I am going to reflect on my experiences at the as I was administering the survey to volunteers. Here are some random observations:

Thoughts about Event Leadership

"John" the event coordinator arrived about 1.5 hours after our agreed upon meeting time because he had accidentally locked his keys in his car. Naturally, when I saw him, he was "frazzled" and stressed...as would anyone be who found themselves in this situation.

As I reflected on this occurrence further, one of the things that I also observed is that there did not seem to be anyone else from the agency that was organizing this event (staff or volunteer). There should have been other people at the event other than John who were leadership.  In my opinion, John needed to have a volunteer committee to help him to plan and implement the event and there should have been other staff available to provide another level of leadership. I realize that the organizing agency is very small but when it comes to special events, the expectation in the agency should be that "all hands are on deck".

Occurrences like locking your keys in the car, getting sick or having a death in the family "happen" and that is why it is important to have more than one person in charge (so that other people can provide leadership in the absence of the main leader). Further more, if the goal of this event is community development, one of the most effective ways to have the community be engaged is for the community to be part of the planning and development of the event. Not only does a committee provide input into the planning and delivery of an event, leadership volunteers informally help wipth marketing the event to the larger community by spreading the word through their personal contacts. They also can help with volunteer recruitment (by recruiting volunteers through their own personal "pool" of friends and family).

Observations about the Survey
In addition to the main observation above, I did have a couple of observations about the survey itself:
-I forgot to include "retired" as an option under the question that I asked them if they were working full-time, part-time, a student etc.
-Under the same section that I asked about their highest level of education, some people were confused about the wording of this section.

In hindsight, I wish that I had given the survey to some of my friends and family to review for their feedback. What seemed obvious to me was not always clear to others and getting a different perspective when writing the survey would have helped to troubleshoot that.

Lonely Volunteer

One final observation that I had mentioned in class is that I also experienced one volunteer who seemed to be quite lonely and I wondered if that is the reason why he/she was volunteering. This volunteer had a self-described long and detailed history of volunteering in the community and appeared to have some health issues (was older and had a cane).

As I was talking with this person, it seemed to me that the person may have felt marginalized because of these disabilities and also because of ageism. The person seemed to have a need to be validated for all of the contributions that the person had made in the community which I tried to do as I was engaging in the conversation. The conversation continued for quite a long time and I felt that the volunteer was "hanging on" to the conversation longer than what is typical.

The survey was made anonymously and therefore I do not know which specific survey was completed by the person. However, I suspect that the reasons that I observed regarding why this person was possibly volunteering would not have been captured on the person's survey because the person may not even be aware that he/she has these needs.

At the same time, these are only my observations. Maybe I have misinterpreted the person's motivations....I have worked with many lonely older adults throughout the years and am aware of my own personal bias about this.