Campus Session 2 Positionality

It was great to feel like a proper University student at this campus session, as Alan gave us a proper lecture about ‘Positionality’. I kept some notes on the lecture so if anyone wants to know what we discussed during the session please see my notes below:

What is Positionality?

Positionality is thinking about yourself on where you are and the content. To source something it has to come from somewhere. Alan described positionality as;

 

‘How we come to make sense of things depends on where we are coming from.’

(Alan Durrant)

 

You can observe other people’s positionality, by doing this you discover that people’s position depends on their opinion and perspective.

 

Different accounts of knowledge

Metaphysics

·         Believe that existence can be explained through ideas separate from our everyday experiences so beyond our physical experiences e.g. religion.

 

Rationalism

·         Believe that knowledge can be derived from rational and logical thought based on deductive argument.

 

Empiricism

·         Believe that knowledge derives from processing our sensory experiences e.g. scientific method. Empiricism makes sense of the world through observations of the world and experiences.

 

Pragmatism

·         Believe that we can understand the features of the world by what things do, rather than an imposed meaning. E.g. what’s a cup? Think if you were an alien or explaining it to someone not from Earth. Knowledge is built on scientific method.

 

Embodied Knowledge

·         We understand the world in all the ways we experience it.

 

Why are the theories of philosophers important to us?

We can use the theories of philosophers in today’s society by adopting a position in what matters to you e.g. scientific point of view looking at sensory experiences of a situation e.g. teaching a dance class.

 

Alan emphasised about looking at your ‘practice’ and step out of your normal position to assess and get an idea and different perspective.

 

Didacticism – Constructivism

·         Can knowledge be ‘transmitted’? or is it ‘constructed’?

 

Knowledge Landscape

·         Theology (super natural)

·         Humanities (analytical, critical, speculative)

·         Natural Sciences (demonstrate qualities)



•    Social Sciences ( demonstrate qualities)

The Experiencing self and the remembering self

·         All of our experiences pass away forever only the memories that we make remain. Alan suggested looking at Daniel Kahneman’s research based on Experience V Memory.

·         We make our own sense of the world.

 

To finish off the lecture Alan explained ‘How does these theories relate to BAPP arts?’

·         Inquiry is the making sense of something from a particular position.

·         Ethics is the account we give of our interactions with other people shaped by our positionality.

·         Reflection is a process by which we make sense of our positionality.

 

Ethics links to positionality by revisting practice with theory. Think about what you do practically with theories.

 

Second part of the campus session we split up into module groups. Module 2 discussed Module 5 Ethics with Alan. We discussed steps to take in order to protect those people involved within our research. Alan emphasised we cannot conduct inquiry unless we have ethical approval from authority of setting/company/individual and the university.

 

We all took turns in discussing our ideas of questions of inquiry it was great to bounce ideas around and help each other to move forward with our inquiries.

 

We also run over the summary of assessment what we need to do for module 2 and what is expected of us.

 

I hope some of these notes have helped Alan said he would put his power point slides on moodle/blog so please visit for more details.