Transforming Methodologies: Experimental Multisensorial Ethnography

Grant program: Amundsen Fellowship Program

Grant recipient: Dara Culhane, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Project team: Sarah Louise Turner, Centre for Educational Excellence, Simone Rapisarda, Faculty of Communications, Art and Technology, Cristina Moretti, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, and Ileanna Cheladyn, research assistant

Timeframe: February 2021 to February 2022

Funding: $5000

Courses addressed:            

• 474 - Cultures, Politics and Performances
• CA 131 - Filmmaking I
• CA 339 - Directing and Acting for Film and Video

Description: For this project, we plan to design four interdisciplinary workshops in 2021, which will require building conceptual bridges across faculties. We will consult, by invitation, with colleagues in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS), Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology (FCAT), Faculty of Education, and the Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS). We will hold sessions with these faculty members and ask them to set out their interests in embodied, multisensorial research methodology, and their interests in expanding this area. On the basis of these consultations, we will design and host a series of four workshops appropriate to the needs of faculty members in each of FASS, FCAT, Education, and FHS. These will include active participation in the creation and testing of discipline-appropriate syllabi. Evaluation will be integrated into activities during the workshop. Based on this, and other research, we will hold the workshops, complete online manuals, and launch a website (www.embodiedpedagogy.ca). The manual we publish will be in the form of a multimedia, online, open-source publication to support parents, teachers and community workers adapting “Playing With Worlds” to curriculum projects they wish to carry out. We will also invite colleagues working with the Centre for Imaginative Ethnography (CIE) to participate in a roundtable discussion about transnational teaching during a pandemic

We have been working on cross disciplinary teaching and methodology for a number of years and our project is supported, in part, by a small SSHRC grant held by Drs. Culhane and Rapisarda. In these ways we will reach across faculties at SFU, and transnationally through CIE.

Questions addressed:

• How does available literature inform the manual and workshop development?
  
• How do faculty approach teaching qualitative research now?
• As qualitative research evolves, what directions would they like to take in their classes in the future?
• What feedback do faculty provide on draft manual?
• What is the experience of faculty in the workshops?
• How can the workshops be applied to their own teaching practice?

Knowledge sharing: We plan to publish an online manual, create a website, and conduct in-person workshops to help with distribution. (All materials will be public access.) The team will sponsor a Roundtable discussion to conclude the project. All SFU faculty members, and colleagues at Centre for Imaginative Ethnography will be invited to assess the project, reflect on interdisciplinary methodologies, and consider future directions.