EDDE806 Winter 2024

Athabasca University

I think this page will only temporarily be housed here. I expect it will end up in the dissertation itself as I suspect that is where it belongs. I will leave it here for now as I write leaving space to invite your feedback. 

Today I invite you into into a project I completed for 802 -- another example of ePortfolio pedagogy although feedback took place in different digital space. An example of my autoethnographic data. 

When I read words from January 16, 2019 I find myself again reflecting on the fickle nature of time. My friend Benita is now gone of this world and her legacy lives on . 

I was re-visiting the above project [that I now realize is my first ePortfolio] yesterday after recording my proposal presentation as an artifact for my digital dissertation. I had a small (six) person audience, and stimulating conversation afterward. 

When I read my reflections on ontology, epistemology, methodology and axiology I have only moved deeper into that relational and interconnected space. By doing critical autoethnography, the researcher is the researched. I do not pretend to stand behind the wall of false objectivity of western research methods (Bohm, 1980), this in stark contrast to our class guest who was very specific about how she bracketed herself in her application of Giorgi's descriptive phenomenology -- putting her bias' to the side. So interesting! We are both approaching our research in valid ways, just really different yet similar, centering the experience of the one researched. It just happens in my case I am the researched. When I saw my comparison of Wilson's (2008) relational Indigenous research paradigm to the water cycle in my edde802 portfolio --all relational and interdependent -- and I wondered what that might look like graphically. 

I started with a Canva template:

I began to think about Wilson's (2008, p. 70) image which is a flat circle where the words ontology, epistemology, methodology and axiology are connect by bi-directional arrows along the interior circumference. Wilson, writing in the days before graphic tools such as Canva were widely available, did well by bending the letters to fit the circle! I don't know that I could do that in Microsoft Word today as he likely did back in the day. Regardless, this two dimensional figure only begins to represent the layers of relationship that inform a multi-modal relational research paradigm or maybe what I am thinking about is conciliation pedagogy. It's still brewing.  

It is all so complex, nuanced, and when it comes down to it -- it is simple. Everything is connected. Once one begins to wraps ones head around that truth, it becomes obvious current ways of being in the world are not working out so well except for the privileged few. We are rapidly approaching environmental tipping points.

In nursing, as in many other professions in many parts of the world, nothing is simple as social constructions of race, class, and gender play out in different yet similar ways. In an increasing migratory and geopolitically uncertain world, as a species we seem to be proving ourselves as parasites treating the planet and each other as disposable. From where I stand, the future for the humans looks uncertain yet somehow I remain hopeful that love will prevail. I know there are others working toward a more sustainable and just future. We can all look for those small opportunities to bring a little love to the table. 

Love. Simplified, kind of like how a drop of water moves through the water cycle, as part of an interconnected planetary system.  

I am on team critical hope and remain convinced that we can move forward in right relationship with all of our relatives who share the planet. In my February 8, 2019 entry, I ask myself about goals or outcomes of this program. I find my goal unchanged:  "advance knowledge in my field in a way that ultimately supports the health of vulnerable populations by supporting excellence in online nursing education" (Rauliuk, 2019, edde802blog). 

Here is my attempt to bring research into the natural world through the water cycle, research cycle, critical conciliation paradigm.   [It occurs to me there are multiple places I could have started and the content would have still flowed well together. I am thinking about water this week because it has been a pretty warm, dry winter on the 'wet' coast. We are facing drought this summer. I'm thinking it might be a good year to grow some food.]

What do you think?

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