Notes from meeting number three

The third meeting, the first one I’ve been to so far. This time the group included myself, Heather, Richard, Justin, Ian, Hatti, a green teapot, Kerry, Debs, Huw, Lynne and a bit later on David. We had mostly read some of the readings – Susanne Gannon’s paper, Laurel Richardson’s book chapter, or shorter paper – though none of the readings had been read by everyone. Anyway, we began altogether and here is my impression of some of what came out, in no particular order …

We were, through the readings, mainly talking about writing and the concerns surrounding how we write about the other, how or can we represent an out-there, returning to the politics of writing and for what and who we are writing anyway? Maybe we’ve turned, or are turning, into a writing group?

May be that’s what much of it is about anyway? The struggle to write. To make sense of and choose a position within the endless circle we find ourselves in when writing about the other, or the ‘out-there’, which is also always a writing of self, which is also always a writing of other, or ‘out-there’. We cannot pull apart the self and other or the in-here and the out-there, and we can only ever partially write it.

Writing is then always a translation or mediation, it is another reality. Richard told us of writing about viewing an artist’s installation and the impossibility of representing what it was he saw, may be, Ian suggested, the writing should be understood as another installation, an installation of an installation.

Writing creates the out-there and other through ourselves. What we write cannot say ‘the out-there is like THIS’ but only this is what I understand it to be. And as Susanne Gannon highlights in her paper, the I understanding and the me-stories need also to be unsettled with the uncertainties and multiplicities of the I and me. But then will we not just end up in a mess, lost in a fragmentary writing? Do we risk losing coherence, authority or politics in what we communicate?

Hatti suggested a paper that talks about how to write the mess – not John Law, something else – I think she’s mentioned it earlier in this blog.

We’ve returned again to the politics of it all – how different regimes constrain our writing and the choices we make to work within them or outside of them, perhaps challenging them to shift their boundaries. Who are these people we’re writing for anyway and how are they involved in our work in the first place?

We talked often of writing for academic audiences, but some of us are also writing for policy makers and other audiences. Our work is often caught up in powerful relationships – the funder and fundee, the host and guest. How is it affecting what we do and write? How does it situate our ethics? How similar are the relationships we are each in and are these replicated for those people who may be our ‘hosts’?

I’ve scribbled a lot of questions. We each may have quite different answers and ways of doing. We each take particular positions, adopt particular and partial I’s or me’s. No position is right or better. Our positions are not static or singular we may shift around through our texts, we may be in the foreground and in the background – both and neither. Wait a minute you bunch of hypocrites – didn’t you say last time that it’s better to be consistent or something like that? I don’t know I wasn’t even there.

Sometimes it’s worth just writing – just starting and letting the writing form itself – go for it – write – write yourself an email – then once it’s out there it can be played around with and justified, if justification is necessary.

So what next …
Heather suggests reading Heartful Autoethnography by Caroline Ellis – she will add a link

Maybe we should also read something about different audiences – linking back to the politics of ethnography – let’s look at the blog that Huw has already suggested dealing with how anthropological work is being misused by government and military

Ian suggests we all try to read that Richardson book chapter, then we can really talk through some of her ideas on writing.

And don’t we need to have something real to talk about – some of our own writing? Yes, we have agreed to share 2 pages of our own existing, or made to measure text before we next meet (like Heather has already done) – writing which might raise some of the issues that have come up so far, something to talk through - of course in a constructive and supportive way – that goes without saying we hope.

We meet next in just over a month – Wednesday 30th April 3-5pm.

Hope this has done the trick.

See you all soon
Emma