On New Directions

New Directions: The Blog

A while back, I posted about my first academic review (which, it turns out, was not the first - more later).  The post is indicative of the new direction this blog will take over the next few years.  Instead of focusing exclusively on formal education and my current employment, the Teaching Consultant will shift towards personal reflections on the educational journey.  I considered beginning a new blog, but like the idea of being able to review my work in one place.  Criticality will continue to be a mainstay.  Accordingly, I continue:

an effort to work within educational institutions and other media to raise questions about inequalities of power, about the false myths of opportunity and merit for many students, and about the way belief systems become internalized to the point where individuals and groups abandon the very aspiration to question or change their lot in life. (Burbles & Berk, 1999, ¶ 16)

My other social media profiles have been less focused on the formal.  They have also been more successful at supporting my efforts to unravel the hegemonic discourses I note in my head.  I hope to find similar success in this, a new direction for the blog.

Fighting Fear

A few days after the last post, I realised that I had eschewed a slightly earlier review.  I tweeted a link about Cavino (2013) on 31 May, and then totally forgot about it.  I am still a little unsure about why I forgot, although reflection notes an element of embarrassment.  Cavino's commentary about my work is significantly more substantial than Belgrave's.  Further, Cavino's article is published in a top 15 international journal.  The impact of my academic work is improved by Cavino's publication.  Yet, despite the bravado suggested by my last post, I am actually a little scared of being visible.

 

My fear of visibility has made this post appear, only to have it returned to draft.  Followers of my Twitter posts will know that, subsequent to my husband's death, I have avoided interaction.  Even Tweets from users I know personally rarely receive response.  

 

I was raised to believe in collectivity and the value of quiet background work.  Interaction in social media is a pathway to individual influence.  I find emphasis on the individual difficult, an inclination reinforced by bereavement and a tendency towards introversion.  However, I am aware that this position offers justice to neither the work I tend nor its audience.  It excludes where my role is to welcome.

This post, therefore, marks not just a new direction for the blog, but for me more generally.  I can guarantee that I will not be responding to every Tweet sent my way.  But it is time for a change.  Let's see where this leads...

CITATION
Cavino, H. M. (2013). Across the colonial divide. American Journal of Evaluation, 34(3), 339-355.

 

The First Review of My Work

Someone has finally reviewed something I wrote.  Although there have been general reviews of Always Speaking (e.g. the post by Dr Matthew Palmer in the Maori Law Review), this is the first time someone has actually engaged with my writing specifically.  In academia, reviews of your work are an indicator of its influence.  Like politicians and celebrities, if nobody's talking about you, you're not really working.

The reviewer, Prof Michael Belgrave, is an historian here at Massey.  I learnt he was doing a review of some Huia books, including Always Speaking, last year during a video conference.  His face appeared to squish uncomfortably when he realised I was in the audience.  I was a little worried that the result would be bad (like REALLY bad), but the result wasn't too terrible. 

Here's the one sentence:

"In one of the few debates between authors in these collections, and almost at a footnote level, Gray-Sharp in Always Speaking, explores different interpretations of sovereignty and rangatiratanga and distinguishes herself from Mutu in seeing self-determination and rangatiratanga as claims for shared sovereignty with the Crown or self-determination against the Crown."

I do not actually distinguish myself at all, because I take no specific conception of tino rangatiratanga as primary.  But Prof Belgrave flatters me no end by putting me in the same sentence as Prof Margaret Mutu.  And finally somebody is talking!

CITATION
Belgrave, M. P.  (2013). Review article. Journal of New Zealand & Pacific Studies, 1(2), 203-211.