[csaa-forum] "Unsettling Pedagogical Spaces" – seeking your participation in an interview

Fri Mar 18 08:26:17 CST 2011

Dear
colleagues,

I’m
currently conducting my PhD research at the Centre for Peace and Social
Justice and School of Arts and Social Sciences, Southern Cross University, Australia. My thesis aims to understand
what motivates university educators (Indigenous
and non-Indigenous) in so-called ‘settler states’ such as Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand
and Canada to engage in processes of intellectual decolonisation, how they
understand, theorise and conceptualise these processes, and how they pursue and
apply them in their pedagogical practice.

In
the current stage of my research project, I would like to conduct dialogical,
semi-structured interviews with interested academics at Australian universities
to explore their own ideas about decolonisation, their pedagogical praxis and
the interaction with their institutional contexts. I plan to interview
academics at universities in Aotearoa/New Zealand and Canada at a later stage.

Right now, I
would love to hear from academics working at Australian universities of any background, at any stage of their
career, in any discipline, in any form of employment, with an interest in
decolonisation and pedagogy. This interest could be related to your research
concerns, your own university teaching practice or be a personal, ethical
and/or philosophical matter. If this is you and you can volunteer a couple of
hours of your time for this project some time in the next few months at a
convenient location near you, I’d love to hear from you.

If
you are interested, please send a brief email expressing your interest to Soenke Biermann at soenke.biermann at scu.edu.au.
In that email, please tell me:

your name;your university;your location; andany other things you think might be
     relevant.

Further
detailed information on my research project is provided at the end of this email.Thank you so
much for your time and please feel free to forward this email to your networks.

Kind
regards,Soenke
Biermann

PhD
Candidate

Centre
for Peace and Social Justice/

School
of Arts and Social Sciences

Southern
Cross University

Lismore,
NSW, Australia

Phone:
(02) 6620 3936

Email:
soenke.biermann at scu.edu.au

------------------------

FURTHER INFORMATION FOR INTERVIEW PARTICIPANTS 

Name of PhD
research project: Unsettling Pedagogical
Spaces: Decolonisation and Social Justice in Higher Education

I (Soenke
Biermann) am a PhD student and casual lecturer at Southern Cross University,
Lismore NSW. I am conducting research on what
motivates university educators in ‘settler states’ such as Australia,
Aotearoa/New Zealand and Canada to engage in processes of intellectual
decolonisation, how they understand, theorise and conceptualise these
processes, and how they pursue and apply them in their pedagogical practice. In
order to realise these aims, I am using a phased, iterative research approach.

Phase 1 consists of a review of the relevant literature as
well as an auto-ethnographic account of my own practice and thinking on decolonisation.
Using the results as a design input, Phase
2 of the project will involve interviewing academics at Australian
universities about their thoughts, ideas and experiences of decolonising their
pedagogical practice. The results will inform Phase 3 of the project which will engage with academics in
Aotearoa/New Zealand and Canada.

Although
the interest of my project lies in the concept of intellectual decolonisation
and its implications for higher education pedagogy generally, a particular
interest will be to see how non-Indigenous university educators might conceptualise
decolonisation. This is particularly important since ‘settler’ decolonisation,
especially in higher education context, has not been the subject of sustained
scholarly scrutiny. This research project thus represents a timely, relevant
and significant contribution to understanding what an inclusive twenty-first
century ‘settler’ university might look like.

So far in
this research project, I have conducted a literature review of intellectual
decolonisation and pedagogy in ‘settler state’ universities and an
auto-ethnographic study of my own pedagogical praxis and institutional context.

In the
current phase 2, I would now like to meet with and interview academics at
Australian universities with an interest in decolonisation and pedagogy to
discuss their ideas and practices. I want to conduct the interviews in a
dialogical, semi-structured and collegial manner that allows them to be
flexible and open enough to explore all aspects which are relevant to both the
participant and myself as the researcher.

If you would like to be part of this phase of the research project,
please email soenke.biermann at scu.edu.au with:

your name;your university;your location; andanything else you think might be relevant.

I have put in
place a number of measures to ensure your privacy is protected in this research
project. While arranging the interviews, any information you send me will be
kept on a password protected computer. This information will be deleted at the
close of the project. During the interview session only first names or, if you
prefer, pseudonyms will be used. To collect data from the interview, each
session will be recorded and transcribed. During transcription of the audio
recording all identifying information will be removed. You will receive a copy
of the transcription of your interview. The results of this research project
will form part of my PhD thesis and may also be included in future scholarly
publications. If you choose to participate in an interview, you will be asked
to sign a consent form outlining my undertakings to you and your consent for me
to use the written and spoken data from the research project for reporting and
publication. Should you wish to, you will also be able to obtain the results of
the research project after its completion in the form of an electronic copy of
my PhD thesis. There will be a relevant box on the interview consent form which
you can tick if you would like to obtain the results.

If you would
like to make further inquiries about this research project please contact
Soenke Biermann on 02 6620 3936, or by email to soenke.biermann at scu.edu.au. The
supervisor of this project is Associate Professor Baden Offord who may be
contacted on 02 6620 3163 or by email to baden.offord at scu.edu.au. My Co-Supervisor is Dr Adele Wessell, who may be contacted on 02 6620 3946 or by email to adele.wessell at scu.edu.au.

This research
has been approved by the Southern Cross University Human Research Ethics
Committee. The approval number is: ECN-11-005

If you have
concerns about the ethical conduct of the research, you should write to:

The Ethics
Complaints Officer

Southern
Cross University

PO Box 157

Lismore  NSW 
2480

sue.kelly at scu.edu.au

All complaints information is confidential and will
be handled as soon as possible.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Soenke Biermann
School of Arts and Social Sciences
Southern Cross University
PO Box 157 
Lismore NSW 2480
Australia

Phone: (02) 6620 3936
Email: soenke.biermann at scu.edu.au
Web: http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/sass

CRICOS Provider Codes: NSW 01241G, QLD 03135E, WA 02621K

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