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    Deploying A Praxiographic Approach To Higher Education Research

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    Gabriel Menotti
    The document discusses deploying a praxiographic approach to higher education research. It argues that while social practice theory is well developed, the application of it in ethnographic research of higher education, called praxiography, is only partially developed. The document outlines the theoretical perspectives of a praxiographic approach and characteristics of praxiographic research.

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    Deploying A Praxiographic Approach To Higher Education Research

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    Gabriel Menotti
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    The document discusses deploying a praxiographic approach to higher education research. It argues that while social practice theory is well developed, the application of it in ethnographic research of higher education, called praxiography, is only partially developed. The document outlines the theoretical perspectives of a praxiographic approach and characteristics of praxiographic research.

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    The document discusses deploying a praxiographic approach to higher education research. It argues that while social practice theory is well developed, the application of it in ethnographic research of higher education, called praxiography, is only partially developed. The document outlines the theoretical perspectives of a praxiographic approach and characteristics of praxiographic research.

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    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    91 views2 pages

    Deploying A Praxiographic Approach To Higher Education Research

    Uploaded by

    Gabriel Menotti
    The document discusses deploying a praxiographic approach to higher education research. It argues that while social practice theory is well developed, the application of it in ethnographic research of higher education, called praxiography, is only partially developed. The document outlines the theoretical perspectives of a praxiographic approach and characteristics of praxiographic research.

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    Deploying a Praxiographic Approach to Higher Education Research

    Paul Trowler, Lancaster University, UK. In 1992 Martyn Hammersley asked the question "what's wrong with ethnography?" One answer was that ethnographic researchers rarely ground their work in an ontological and epistemological position that is both explicit and stable. They tend to be caught in a bind between social constructionism and realism, sometimes shifting between the two. In 2003 Benfield, asking a similar question, critiqued Hammersley's proposed solution and argued instead for an approach to ethnography based on a critical realist ontological and epistemological perspective, though he gave few details on what that type of research might look like. Building on that debate I argue that while we have a well-developed understanding of social practice theory, a praxiology, we only have a partially developed approach to deploying it in ethnographic-style research into higher education: what we could call (following Moll, 2003) "praxiography". There is however a considerable body of literature which we can draw together to develop frameworks for praxiographic research approaches. In theoretical terms, a praxiological perspective re-centres and re-focuses our attention onto: practices rather than structures/agentic behaviours the mutual inscription operating between artefacts and humans the significance of virtual worlds and their permeability with the physical world, reshaping practices there the significance of situated cognition and situated practices the fundamentally complex nature of explaining the social world, and of the manyfoldedness of objects within it the multiple and contested nature of meanings, discourses and knowledge resources Building on this theoretical underlabouring, praxiography has the following general characteristics: it adopts a level of analysis appropriate to unpicking the intrinsic complexity of objects and of the social world it has two levels of truth claims: one relating to the particulars of the practice performances being researched, the other to more general reservoirs of practice, or practice entities. Its research methods need to be fit for both it pays close attention to situated and contested frames of reference, and their consequences

    it involves an openness within research methods to the multiple ways in which the object of attention is enacted, how it is "done" it uncovers the multiple ways in which virtual and physical realities intertwine it gives attention to how artefacts and human practices shape each other there is an awareness that there are multiple entanglements in every significant action and object, and so the necessity of keeping the situation under scrutiny unbracketed To unpick the last point, which is perhaps obscure, Mol (2003, 157) says that in studying disease, for example, a praxiographic approach encompasses molecules and money, cells and worries, bodies, knives, and smiles, and talks about all of these in a single breath." While ethnography and praxiography are compatible, there is the potential for significant differences between them. Neither is intrinsically superior for all research purposes, and praxiography is only one alternative among several. However, given that ethnography generally has to date paid insufficient attention to ontological and epistemological issues, and so has often occluded implicit assumptions about the nature of the social world and what can be known about it, a praxiographic approach is one significant way of addressing this.

    References
    Banfield, G. (2004) Whats Really Wrong with Ethnography? European Journal of Higher Education, 4, 4, 53-63. Hammersley, M. (1992) Whats Wrong With Ethnography? Methodological Explorations. London: Routledge. Mol, A. (2003). The Body Multiple: Ontology in Medical Practice. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

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