Reflective Journal Entry: Two

Reflective Journal Entry: Two

I have been struck by these words which I have been reading this morning:

'Lee and Williams, in their compelling 1999 article ‘Forged in Fire’, make the point that the PhD process will almost certainly involve ‘distress’ – that is its nature. Most PhD candidates are forced at some point to confront the fact that they are undergoing a life-changing experience – termed by one supervisor as ‘permanent head damage’. Lee and Williams suggest that...Lee and Williams suggest that this ‘distress’ should be recognised, expected and understood as necessary and productive.
Common metaphors for candidature include becoming, baptism of fire, journey of discovery, process and metamorphosis. The process of PhD development should, presumably, be one of growth in intellectual confidence, independence and originality of thinking. It would be fair to expect it to result in empowerment and ultimate entry to an elite community. These attributes – that we presume are valued by all the participants in the process – by definition are not, and should not, be easy to achieve. Our experiences as a researcher in the field and as an experienced supervisor lead us to claim that the process may involve measures of intellectual conflict and uncertainty, doubt, indecisiveness and fear – but also the beginnings of a sophisticated understanding and the pleasure of finding the voice to speak what we have learned. Supervisors (and faculties) can and should take seriously their responsibility to provide the environment where these things can happen, in a way that will assist candidates through a process of learning to claim their own knowledge.'

I have already told my wife to expect me to be a bit of a 'train wreck' at times given that I will, according to Lee and Williams (1999), be experiencing 'permanent head damage' and the like. I of course expect to benefit from this process as they say, it is 'understood as necessary and productive'. The most interesting idea here however is the last one: 'Supervisors (and faculties) can and should take seriously their responsibility to provide the environment where these things can happen, in a way that will assist candidates through a process of learning to claim their own knowledge.'

Claiming my own knowledge? I like the sound of that. This links in what I have been thinking about regarding the breakdown of the grand meta-narratives aka Derrida et al. Also I have read other things recently that have made me realise that we are all constantly at work in narrative production and whilst the grand narratives have ceased to hold their power over us, the new modes of knowledge production aka PLDs are creating now experiences and praxis elements that open up the spaces between the known areas of academic knowledge and the novel narrative structures which will ultimately replace them.