title: Performative Methodologies: Geographies of Emotion and Affect in Digital Storytelling Workshops

authors: Bliss, Elaine

subjects: digital storytelling

abstract: This thesis advocates digital storytelling as a geographical methodology to understand how emotion and affect are produced. Digital storytelling is a flexible and workshopped methodology that captures experimental, creative and imaginative performances of emotion and affect. Through digital storytelling geographers may build understandings of how emotion and affect are experienced individually and collectively. I use 11 digital storytelling workshops, with more than 100 participants, as the primary sites for my research. The workshops were conducted in the United States and New Zealand and were modelled on the practice established by the Center for Digital Storytelling in Berkeley, California, United States. It is argued that digital storytelling workshops co-create emotion, affect, people and place.
Individual and group interviews, reflexive autobiographical journal writing, and digital storytelling workshop training, participation, and observing are used to access emotion and affect in digital storytelling workshops. A combination of qualitative research methods and critical social theories are used to highlight embodied, emotional and affectual geographies.
Three findings frame my discussion. First, digital storytelling workshops are performative spaces for the staging and circulation of emotion and affect. The concepts of infrastructure, improvisation, and intimacy are critical for understanding the dynamic nature of emotion and affect in digital storytelling workshops. Second, a focus on relationality allows for an examination of psychotherapeutic practice and the transformative capacity of digital storytelling workshops. Workshop spaces are understood as ‘connective mediums’ in which a third position – the gap between the flow of emotions and the representation of that experience - is possible. Third, voice in digital storytelling is a political process of speaking and listening. A focus on voice permits an exploration of the acoustic politics of emotion and affect at individual and collective spatial scales. Digital storytelling workshops facilitate processes of seeing, hearing and experiencing emotion and affect as a way of interpreting the geographical worlds of research participants. 
The Center for Digital Storytelling’s model incorporates a commitment to social justice that honours and values emotional knowledge. As a practice-based research methodology digital storytelling requires researchers to be reflexive and negotiate their multiply layered ethical positionings. As geographers continue to experiment with innovative ways of conducting research, the messiness of digital storytelling can contribute to methodological debates about the ‘doing’ of emotion and affect in geographical research.

text: Performative Methodologies: Geographies of Emotion and Affect in Digital Storytelling Workshops This thesis advocates digital storytelling as a geographical methodology to understand how emotion and affect are produced. Digital storytelling is a flexible and workshopped methodology that captures experimental, creative and imaginative performances of emotion and affect. Through digital storytelling geographers may build understandings of how emotion and affect are experienced individually and collectively. I use 11 digital storytelling workshops, with more than 100 participants, as the primary sites for my research. The workshops were conducted in the United States and New Zealand and were modelled on the practice established by the Center for Digital Storytelling in Berkeley, California, United States. It is argued that digital storytelling workshops co-create emotion, affect, people and place.
Individual and group interviews, reflexive autobiographical journal writing, and digital storytelling workshop training, participation, and observing are used to access emotion and affect in digital storytelling workshops. A combination of qualitative research methods and critical social theories are used to highlight embodied, emotional and affectual geographies.
Three findings frame my discussion. First, digital storytelling workshops are performative spaces for the staging and circulation of emotion and affect. The concepts of infrastructure, improvisation, and intimacy are critical for understanding the dynamic nature of emotion and affect in digital storytelling workshops. Second, a focus on relationality allows for an examination of psychotherapeutic practice and the transformative capacity of digital storytelling workshops. Workshop spaces are understood as ‘connective mediums’ in which a third position – the gap between the flow of emotions and the representation of that experience - is possible. Third, voice in digital storytelling is a political process of speaking and listening. A focus on voice permits an exploration of the acoustic politics of emotion and affect at individual and collective spatial scales. Digital storytelling workshops facilitate processes of seeing, hearing and experiencing emotion and affect as a way of interpreting the geographical worlds of research participants. 
The Center for Digital Storytelling’s model incorporates a commitment to social justice that honours and values emotional knowledge. As a practice-based research methodology digital storytelling requires researchers to be reflexive and negotiate their multiply layered ethical positionings. As geographers continue to experiment with innovative ways of conducting research, the messiness of digital storytelling can contribute to methodological debates about the ‘doing’ of emotion and affect in geographical research.

year: 2015

title: An exploration of community colleges within Malaysian higher education: Goals, achievements and challenges

authors: A V Muthiah, M Nachiamal

subjects: higher education

abstract: The aim of this study was to explore and construct an in-depth understanding of the work of community colleges as new higher education institutions in the Malaysian context. Attention has been focussed on their goals, achievements and challenges within higher education. Beginning in the new millennium, community colleges started to appear in most higher education systems in Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, following a recommendation of UNESCO and the World Bank. These colleges were established worldwide, strongly in the USA, primarily as short-cycle and two-year institutions for certificate/diploma qualifications and/or as pathways to further education. Community colleges often have been described as the people’s colleges, rural colleges, or an alternative institution, suggesting an educational service for non-regular groups of learners in higher education. Nevertheless, an embedded quality of community colleges is adherence to lifelong learning principles, especially in their new settings in Southeast Asia. 
This qualitative inquiry used a multiple case study approach to examine four community colleges from four different locations in Malaysia. Empirical data were gathered from three levels of these institutions (directors, teachers, and students) via semi-structured interviews, focus group discussion and individually administered questionnaire at each site. Using thematic analysis of data, the researcher discussed the findings grouped under a lifelong learning framework to gain a multi-faceted understanding of community colleges’ provision and functions in Malaysian higher education. 
The conceptual framework that significantly shaped this constructive-interpretive study included discussion of global market developments (human capital, globalisation and neoliberalism, a knowledge economy, and lifelong learning), and of key lifelong learning domains (economic imperatives, social inclusion, active citizenship, and personal fulfilment). 
Findings from this study suggest that goals, achievements and challenges of the community colleges are best understood in terms of serving disadvantaged sub-populations in Malaysian society. Disadvantaged populations constitute “left-out” groups who have been affected adversely by rapid changes in Malaysia’s adoption of global market principles. In turn, these global tendencies have impacted upon policies and practices of Malaysian higher education. Within an uncertain knowledge economy, community colleges highlight a commitment to specific local (mainly rural) communities and especially deprived groups within those communities. Lifelong learning has been shaping the functions and practices of community colleges.
Findings identify that lifelong learning domains and vocational provision are the main components to frame goals, achievements and challenges of the community colleges. Formal credentialed education and non-formal non-credit education provide a wide range of courses to diverse groups of local communities. Curricula include entrepreneurial components to build key traits in students in terms of creativity and practical skills as a way forward to developing successful entrepreneurs for local communities. Community colleges work in both on-campus and off-campus contexts to enable the colleges to meet their goals as the Malaysian government envisaged. A feature of the achievements of community colleges through their flexibility is fostering of social inclusion and active citizenship for participants. In empowering disadvantaged adults with knowledge and skills, teachers are pressurised to diversify their expertise and to engage actively with local communities through service learning. Challenges faced by these community colleges include a gap between central administration’s imperatives and diverse local learning needs, the stigmatisation as lower level institutions, constant recruitment expectations, and on-going requirements for teacher professional development. 
The study led to the understandings that global principles have exerted their influence on local values, and introduced lifelong learning as an answer at least in part to help economically and socially deprived members of society to face work and life challenges. The community colleges appeared as a special set of higher education institutions to serve a distinctive student demographic who may not be a high priority for other higher education institutions. The community-orientated mission appropriately has been adopted in their programmes together with suitable pedagogy to foster inclusive education to respond to the needs of diversified learners from local communities. This study makes an original contribution to the knowledge of community colleges within Malaysian higher education in the context of lifelong learning.

text: An exploration of community colleges within Malaysian higher education: Goals, achievements and challenges The aim of this study was to explore and construct an in-depth understanding of the work of community colleges as new higher education institutions in the Malaysian context. Attention has been focussed on their goals, achievements and challenges within higher education. Beginning in the new millennium, community colleges started to appear in most higher education systems in Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, following a recommendation of UNESCO and the World Bank. These colleges were established worldwide, strongly in the USA, primarily as short-cycle and two-year institutions for certificate/diploma qualifications and/or as pathways to further education. Community colleges often have been described as the people’s colleges, rural colleges, or an alternative institution, suggesting an educational service for non-regular groups of learners in higher education. Nevertheless, an embedded quality of community colleges is adherence to lifelong learning principles, especially in their new settings in Southeast Asia. 
This qualitative inquiry used a multiple case study approach to examine four community colleges from four different locations in Malaysia. Empirical data were gathered from three levels of these institutions (directors, teachers, and students) via semi-structured interviews, focus group discussion and individually administered questionnaire at each site. Using thematic analysis of data, the researcher discussed the findings grouped under a lifelong learning framework to gain a multi-faceted understanding of community colleges’ provision and functions in Malaysian higher education. 
The conceptual framework that significantly shaped this constructive-interpretive study included discussion of global market developments (human capital, globalisation and neoliberalism, a knowledge economy, and lifelong learning), and of key lifelong learning domains (economic imperatives, social inclusion, active citizenship, and personal fulfilment). 
Findings from this study suggest that goals, achievements and challenges of the community colleges are best understood in terms of serving disadvantaged sub-populations in Malaysian society. Disadvantaged populations constitute “left-out” groups who have been affected adversely by rapid changes in Malaysia’s adoption of global market principles. In turn, these global tendencies have impacted upon policies and practices of Malaysian higher education. Within an uncertain knowledge economy, community colleges highlight a commitment to specific local (mainly rural) communities and especially deprived groups within those communities. Lifelong learning has been shaping the functions and practices of community colleges.
Findings identify that lifelong learning domains and vocational provision are the main components to frame goals, achievements and challenges of the community colleges. Formal credentialed education and non-formal non-credit education provide a wide range of courses to diverse groups of local communities. Curricula include entrepreneurial components to build key traits in students in terms of creativity and practical skills as a way forward to developing successful entrepreneurs for local communities. Community colleges work in both on-campus and off-campus contexts to enable the colleges to meet their goals as the Malaysian government envisaged. A feature of the achievements of community colleges through their flexibility is fostering of social inclusion and active citizenship for participants. In empowering disadvantaged adults with knowledge and skills, teachers are pressurised to diversify their expertise and to engage actively with local communities through service learning. Challenges faced by these community colleges include a gap between central administration’s imperatives and diverse local learning needs, the stigmatisation as lower level institutions, constant recruitment expectations, and on-going requirements for teacher professional development. 
The study led to the understandings that global principles have exerted their influence on local values, and introduced lifelong learning as an answer at least in part to help economically and socially deprived members of society to face work and life challenges. The community colleges appeared as a special set of higher education institutions to serve a distinctive student demographic who may not be a high priority for other higher education institutions. The community-orientated mission appropriately has been adopted in their programmes together with suitable pedagogy to foster inclusive education to respond to the needs of diversified learners from local communities. This study makes an original contribution to the knowledge of community colleges within Malaysian higher education in the context of lifelong learning.

year: 2018

title: Survivance as narrative identity: Voices from a Ngāti Tiipa oral history project

authors: Kukutai, Tahu

subjects: oral history

abstract: For Indigenous peoples, and Mäori specifically, storytelling and oral history are crucial to the survival of our collective identities, culture and language. Retold across generations, our stories are often explicit and interwoven narratives of personal and collective memories. Drawing on Native American scholar Gerald Vizenor’s (2009) concept of “survivance stories”, this article explores a set of three oral history narratives of kaumätua from Ngäti Tiipa, one of the 33 iwi and hapü of the Waikato-Tainui confederation. Our analysis reveals how enduring connections to the river and land, the retention of whänau practices and the intergenerational transmission of tüpuna names have shaped contemporary expressions of Ngäti Tiipa identity and belonging. We explore how these testimonies reveal survivance as a repeated theme that has its own nuanced interpretation in individual and collective tribal oral stories.

text: Survivance as narrative identity: Voices from a Ngāti Tiipa oral history project For Indigenous peoples, and Mäori specifically, storytelling and oral history are crucial to the survival of our collective identities, culture and language. Retold across generations, our stories are often explicit and interwoven narratives of personal and collective memories. Drawing on Native American scholar Gerald Vizenor’s (2009) concept of “survivance stories”, this article explores a set of three oral history narratives of kaumätua from Ngäti Tiipa, one of the 33 iwi and hapü of the Waikato-Tainui confederation. Our analysis reveals how enduring connections to the river and land, the retention of whänau practices and the intergenerational transmission of tüpuna names have shaped contemporary expressions of Ngäti Tiipa identity and belonging. We explore how these testimonies reveal survivance as a repeated theme that has its own nuanced interpretation in individual and collective tribal oral stories.

year: 2020