Following my initial gathering of data on what my particular group of students thought of as ‘research’, my interventions were to take the students on two of trips to sites outside the university, framing these as ‘research trips’ – places that could provide students with legitimate knowledge in a similar but different way to more traditional modes like a book, or popular modes like the internet might.
A third intervention was to brief the students to go on a research trip of their own, supported, but not limited to, a directory of various interesting and free/ low cost research sites within London.
Interventions 1& 2: Teacher-led research trips
My intervention would be to take the students on a series of trips to sites outside the university, framing these as ‘research trips’ – places that could provide students with legitimate knowledge in a different way to more traditional modes like a book, or popular modes like the internet might
These research trips would be to the National Gallery, and to Bethnal Green Nature Reserve.
The way my contact time with the students and the admin involved with taking students off-site, meant that I had to plan the two research trips ahead of analysing the data that came from them at Point A. This meant that the first ‘research trip’ (to the National Gallery) happened the same day as I collected the first set of data. This wasn’t ideal, as it meant I wasn’t able to design these interventions exactly to the primary data. Instead, I planned them based on secondary data (such as the study of bell hooks’ writing I mentioned in the rationale) and past experience, and then was still able to tailor interventions after analysis with the primary data in mind.
That said, the data I collected at Point A affirmed that I had planned the trips well – ‘Nature’/ ‘plants’ had only two mentions in the whole conversation. No other spaces that exist outside of institutions were mentioned.
A third intervention would be a prompt for students to go on their own research trip. This intervention would be shaped by my analysis of the data I gathered at Point A.
All these interventions were presented as part of the Stage 1 Unit 2 curriculum, which all students were undertaking. This meant there was no requirement for the students to do anything ‘extra’ in order to feel any potential benefit of the interventions.
A trip to the National Gallery
•My first intervention was a trip to the National Gallery where I took students on an alternative tour of the gallery – using the paintings to track a history of black representation in the west, through an oppositional reading of Nativity Paintings, focusing on the character Balthazar.
•This trip actually took place just after the first data collection point. I had done this trip with students in the past, but I was keen to do it again in a context where I would be able to collect data on how the trip was received and shaped students’ understanding of research.
•In the context of the ARP, I was more conscious with my framing of this trip as an example of a research method they might use.
•I was interested in how students could be encouraged to engage in more embodied, personal ways with even ‘white’ institutional research spaces, using them for their own needs. This was something I had learned to do and I shared this research and process with the students.
•To design this intervention, I used bell hooks’ notion of ‘oppositional gaze’ (hooks, 1992): a gaze which empowers black female spectators to look and construct their own dialogue, in resistance to dominant narratives (hooks, 1992).
A trip to Bethnal Green Nature Reserve
•My second intervention took place the following week – a trip to Bethnal Green Nature Reserve, including a tour of the medicine garden there.
•This was a completely new trip planned for the ARP. Even though I only had 4 weeks with the students, I wanted to make sure that I took the students to a wide range of sites in order to break down hegemonic ideas of what research should/ could be.
•After the data point A and before the trip, I spoke to Michael Smythe, who ran the site to see how we might plan the tour to include emboodied forms of research. I shared with them the context in which this trip took place and how I was trying to expand students ideas of research with this trip. In response, they suggested that, as my last trip had involved visual sources, this trip could include multiple other senses, including taste and smell.
On the trip we got students making and drinking tea from plants growing in the medicinal garden, and then to reflect on what the effect was on the body. Michael also held a silent walk around the site where students were asked not to use their phones, but to be fully present in the site for 15 minutes. These were both things that Michael had done before, and I learned a lot from them.
I think the work I did was to put these activities and these visit within a legitimate frame of research for the students. I was interested to see if this encouraged them to see research as embodied, potentially involving multiple senses, and to think about other embodied forms of research that they might do. Also research beyond the university and research that could take place outside, led by and accessible to the local community, as this one was.