Overflows: Flows, Doings, Edges III
An informal workshop on doing a relational PhD
St Hugh’s College, Oxford
31 August 2010
On August 31st, we hosted a workshop entitled Overflows: Flows, Doings, Edges IIIas part of the CRESC Social Life of Methods Conference. This was another great day in the continuing saga of Flows, Doings, Edges. This, our third workshop, brought us to the theme of “overflows” and we had some really inspiring conversations whilst sharing our work and practices.
In a short while we will be posting up notes and more photos from the day, so watch this space.
Following on from this, we are taking the opportunity to reinvigorate this blog. The passcodes will be made available on the front page shortly, so please feel free to post questions, thoughts, upcoming events, etc.
And finally, stay tuned for video clips of Steve Hinchcliffe, Doreen Massey, Nick Bingham, Nigel Clark and John Law speaking at the previous event: Flows, Doings Edges II which was held at the Open University in 2008.
Relational thinking is an attempt to move away from essentialism, determinism and dualism, to understand that whatever exists is necessarily an effect of relations. Doing a PhD informed by this thinking brings about new challenges not only because it pushes against our taken for granted theoretical assumptions, but also because it requires us to rethink the ways in which we relate to academic literature, use methods, write and analyse; that is, to reshape our own research practices.
Previously, these concerns have brought together a small collective of PhD students to organise and attend a series of informal workshops entitled Flows, Doings, Edges I and II. The first of these was held in 2007 at Kings College London and the second in 2008 at The Open University. The immediate aim of these workshops was to provide a safe space to explore and discuss what it means to write a relational PhD. Our long-term aim has been to create and maintain interdisciplinary networks of postgraduate students who are working with and through relational thinking. As a part of this ongoing commitment, we hosted this one day workshop before the official start of this year’s CRESC conference. This session provided an opportunity for postgraduate students to discuss common problems concerned with doing a relational PhD in an informal, discussion-based setting prior to the conference opening.
The organisers:
Uli Beisel (OU), Endre Dányi (Lancaster), Joe Deville (Goldsmiths), Natalie Gill (Lancaster), Bas Hendrikx (Nijmegen), Michaela Spencer (Melbourne), Jennifer Tomomitsu (Lancaster)
