What dances am i invited into?

" Effective therapy often seems magical."
So begins Kenneth Gergen in unpacking the therapeutic relationship in an article on therapeutic relationships reconsidered. In 'quiet recesses' far removed from the site of turmoil with questions, answers, silences, stories, possibly tears... and then, as if by miraculous intervention, there is change. But what configuration of events brought about change? The problem brought to therapy is transformed, seen as less severe, or dissolved. He then focuses on the relationship generated; that there is something about the nature of the communicative interchange and asks what then might occur that facilitates or blocks or enhances such relationships. How might we be (more, or less) effective?

He then argues the relational character of communication.
In communicating, utterances acquire meaning when others coordinate themselves to the utterance. Talking without a listener, writing without a reader; the potential for meaning is realized through supplementary action. Utterance's of themselves have no meaning, a morpheme only has meaning when others coordinate themselves around the offering. We bring to any exchange, a preparedness to make meaning of the interaction based on prior exchanges. As stated by Gergen,
"In effect, meaningful communication in any given exchange ultimately depends on a protracted array of relationships, not only "right here, right now," but how is it that that you and I are related to a variety of others, and they still to others- and ultimately, one may say, to the, to the relational conditions of society as a whole."

In accepting such a proposition, he argues that there is profound implication: language is constitutive of relationships. While we frequently treat language as if it were describing reality, such a treatment is of itself a relational performance. His focus is on the interchange and its use of words, phrases, language used. He then asks, "What follows in a relationship when self or world is framed in just this way; what dances am I invited into when you use these phrases as opposed to others?"

I intend to take this relational stance on therapeutic communications further within my own study. With the use of computer and communication technologies in the form of text, email and Internet message board posting for counselling purposes, how is the 'dance' performed?

Dont be polite, bite it.

Prelude: this blog is impolite, at least in academia.
I practice my writing style as if i were another.
I fully acknowledge that I lean heavily on the writing of Anne Marie Mol for providing ideas and structure as i explore the use of her writing as if it were to apply to text, email, or the Internet for counselling.
All errors of understanding are my own.

Section title: Telling it like it is.
This is a social science exploration of a network, one involved in youth oriented counselling. However before proceeding too far, the use of the word network needs to be clarified. the meaning called on here is less about "the net" or the links between people. The emphasis is instead on the network . That is, the work entailed in how counselling is shaped, what work goes into configuring counselling when the medium shifts: when it involves text, email and Internet for counselling. this is a story less about connecting wires or even wireless connections, it is instead a story about work practices. And one might not even want to call it a story for there is no smooth narrative, there is no one tangent of beginning to end, instead I present a juxtaposition of many stories, snapshots on a theme showing contrasts and performances of counselling.


Who is at work also needs unbundling. For counselling does not happen in a vacuum. 'Counsellor and counsellee' coexist in relationship and the 'work' is a dynamic that occurs in relationship. Contributing to this work are the participants, but also computer and communication technologies. In the use of such technologies, participants engage differently. Whether talking and listening, or by hand and type, reading and sight. The heterogeneous factors involved are further unbundled, the work involves more than the obvious players of counselor and counsellee, there is also the work involved in making the media available for using for counselling, the cellphones, the PCs. It is this unbundling of the work involved in supporting the counselling moment that the fuller picture of what it is to provide counselling using new media is able to be discerned. This matters because how counselling occurs is changing. And the changes are not always anticipated or known.

Discerning the heterogenous factors allows me to tell about counselling. The stories told will not be about social causes resulting in social needs, or about pathology, diseases or disabilities as requiring healthcare. Nor about any specific form of counselling having precedence over another. There are those who have gone to a lot of trouble in arguing the supremacy of one over another. This thesis will not contribute to such debate of domains conquered or of forms of counselling deemed to be holding supermacy. Instead i will talk of practice. Practice as it is experienced.

This shift to praxiology is not a naive abandonment of epistemology but is an appreciation of reality; "telling it like it is". Telling it like it is, is situated. I do not talk of what counselling is by nature, nor what form it could or should take. I will not bracket what is counselling from what is not, nor focus on the counselling skills. For in practice what is counselling shifts. In practice 'what is' is altered. The ontological genre of 'what is' shape shifts. In part this is altered in response to the media utilized. It is this shapeshifting that is therefore explored.

The praxiographic 'is' is not universal, it is situated, it is local, and it requires spatial specification. What is empathy when it is experienced face to face is different to when conveyed audibly by phone and different again when conveyed by text. How do I experience being heard or listened to when the conversation is inaudible, when the conversation only occurs in text? the trouble taken by counselling texts and authors is not wasted but is absorbed into enactments. The enactment of counselling practice via phone, text and Internet is then explored as situated relationships. What the is the art of the spoken or written form, the act of counselling when it is shaped by the media used and the actors involved? This is the substance explored in this thesis.

The gift relationship

If I give you something are you better or worse for it?
In part this is decided by what the gift entails, is it wanted, needed, adventitious ... but another aspect is that in giving and receiving the process brings its own costs.

Rather than debating the goodness or badness of such cost, arguably the most wicked problem of left vs right politics, I intend to stay within an actor-network approach in describing the relationship. I will use the language of actor-network theory in describing what occurs, hence participants will be referred to as actors. This is not to imply any pretence or staged performance, simply put actors refer to participants with agency. This discussion is also informed by my reading of Titmuss' 'The gift relationship'.

The gift takes place with no ongoing relationship between the actors.
The norm in this voluntary telephone counselling relationship is that the actors have no prior and no ongoing relationship. The actors do not personally know each other and have never, and will never, meet. The policy of the organisation is to to maintain the confidential nature of the service and not establish dependent ongoing relationships.
However, exceptions might occur; by chance a caller and a counsellor may know each other; by chance a repeat call is made when the same counsellor is on; or if the caller is a longtime caller there may be a limited prior relationship where conversations have occurred previously or there have been notes made of the call. With email, txt and Internet postings there may be artefacts, transcripts, of prior conversations.

There is no reciprocity; there is no certainty of a gift in return, present or in the future. The counsellor neither requires or wishes for a gift in return. There is no obligation on the recipient to provide a gift in return. It may be that there is some expectation of the time spent having been worthwhile, but this is not a requirement for the gift given. And, remains unknown unless a caller expresses thanks.

The nature of the gift, whether beneficial to the recipient actor, is unknown. The presumption on the part of the counselling actor is that being heard and listened to has value. There may be information, even advice suggested. Whether this is of benefit or harm is unclear and may be considered a contested notion; counselling forms are themselves subject to being contested. Inside of a Rogerian counselling approach, giving advice that fosters dependency may be considered unhelpful. However, raising awareness of options, and assisting in clarifying are seen as useful strategies.
At its best, to the receiver the gift could be life itself. There are some experiences disclosed by recipients of telephone counselling that support this. However, the feedback for those for whom the service has been unhelpful, harmful, fatal even, remains unknown.

In analysing some of the roles gifts play in society Titmuss looks at aspects to do with the social psychology of gift giving. He discusses the gift relationship as a generator of identity, gifts being one of the ways an image of self can be generated in both one's own mind and in that of others. Gifts are also tools of aspiration for and protection of status and control. For example, gifts as 'conspicuous waste shaming recipients'. The gift may also create a gratitude imperative in compelling recipricosity or controlling the behaviour of the recipient. The gift exchange being a technique for the regulation of shared guilt.

However, in the gift of time evident in voluntary counselling such issues have limited relevance. Anonymity in the counselling relationship, created by conditions which do not support ongoing relationship or knowledge of counselling having been given or recieved by any person external to the event destroys the arguments regarding shared guilt, control, shame or imperatives. What may still hold relevance is that gift giving by the counsellor actor may in that person's mind support a sense of self as generous and or helpful to others. It is also possible that listing such community volunteerism in one's cv may also create a favourable impression and imagined advantage.

A typology of those who donate counselling time at this agency.
1. Paid , counselling time sold for what the market will bear. Counselling not percieved as a gift.
2. Paid professional, who provides counselling time to sustain income on regular basis.
3. Pay induced volunteer, expect payment for volunteering, a form of profit or disturbance money. Individual sponteneity not a dominant characteristic eg employer requiring time that the employer pays for time be donated to a voluntary organisation of the actors choosing. This seems to meet a collective target of such an employer ; a "greening" of the company".
4. Responsibility donor (recipient pays before or after having received counselling by 'giving in kind' out of a sense of obligation).
5. Significant other credit donor (can be viewed as an insurance scheme of donating in advance or after the effect for significant others one wished had access to such a service).
6. Captive volunteer; compelled via social group but would not otherwise have volunteered. eg student for course credit, eg community service requirement of a court order or on the advice of a lawyer.
7. Fringe benefit voluntary donor; tangible reward though non monetary eg recieving minimal reward such as a certificate in counselling accredited by the organization may have external validity, eg on cv.
8. Voluntary community donor; this type being the closest approximation in social reality to the abstract concept of giving freely. The primary characteristics of such donations being:
the absence of tangible immediate rewards in monetary or non monetary forms,
the absence of penalties, financial or otherwise, (so no reward and no punishment)
and the knowledge among donors that their donations are for unnamed strangers without distinction of age, sex, medical condition, income, class, religion or ethnic group.

With regard to the voluntary community donor, Titmuss states that no donor type can be said to be characterised by complete disinterested altruism. There must be some sense of obligation, approval, and interest; some awareness of need and purpose of the blood gift; perhaps some organised rivalry in generosity; some knowledge of need- of others unable to donate, and some expectation that a return gift may be needed and received at some future time.
Nevertheless, in this gift relationship (giving of oneself voluntarily for telephone counselling there is no formal contract between giver and receiver of counselling, no legal bond, no overt power over, no domination, constraint or compulsion, no sense of shame or guilt, no gratitude imperative, no need for penitence, no money, and no explicit guarantee of or wish for a reward or a return gift. The giving of time is an act of free will; an exercise of choice; of conscience.

Virtually all of this organisation's telephone counselors fall into this category. Tangible rewards can be said to be minimal,or negative: a certificate in personal development and in counselling. This comes with substantive personal cost of money, time, and personal involvement.

While the typology shows that there is variation in the in the concept of volunteer, gradations of motives, and behaviour show extremes.
In comparing this study of a gift relationship, especially where there is deep emotive field as with blood donating, the giving of time in telephone counselling characterised by the involvement with the welfare of others is also seen to be inextricably moulded by cultural and moral values. (Now Latour isnt going to accept this, from whence do these agents come exerting pressure....however, I can look at how my own thinking was developed, I can consider the influence of my parents, my grandparents, my friends and identify that those I respect value volunteerism, altruism, community service. I might also discern the shaping of such values by discussing the influences on actors that I have the privilige of interviewing.)

The gift of time

I'm going to take a small detour and consider what motivates people to give.

Richard Titmuss wrote a seminal piece on the gift relationship in 1970. His focus was blood donating; sometimes referred to as the gift of life. The following series of blogs relates to voluntary counsellors in a youth oriented telephone counselling agency and will be informed by his account as well as by my own experiences, and those experiences shared with me thus far in my data collecting (please note, this is a work in progress).

I am calling this the gift of time, because the time gifted is substantial. But I also want to make it clear the gift involves more than this. It's a commitment to the interests of others; to being available, to listen, and to (hopefully) making a difference.

I say hopefully in part because outcomes are hardly ever known and the style of counselling approach taught (based on the training manual, and on the philosophy of the organisation): is substantively non- directive and client-centred, a Rogerian approach.

The gift of time begins with a personal development programme, this involves 10 sessions; a committment of one evening a week and a weekend day. This is then followed by a basic counselling course, again 10 sessions; an evening a week and a weekend day. A further weekend is then dedicated to coming into the organisation via a Marae based weekend. That's a total of 50 hours minimum before taking any calls for the organisation. And as already intimated, its not just time, its what fills that time; a very personal journey sharing life events, understanding oneself and valuing of others undertaking a similar learning experience. This involves significant amounts of self disclosure as well as practice in counselling through role plays; through triads (where one person takes the role of a caller, one the telephone counselor and one as observer) and 'fishbowls' (where peers as well as the group facilitators provide ideas as well as feedback. The gift involves time as well as personal involvement and disclosures; there is an additional requirement to authorize a police check by the organization. In addition there is financial cost. A sliding scale is used with a cost between $50.00 and $105.00 for the personal development course and again for the basic counselling training course. That's a total cost to the volunteer of $110 - $210 and an additional cost of the Marae weekend.

In addition, young people who enter into this are required to be over/ state that they are at least, 17 years of age. There is no upper age limit. There is also a requirement that the volunteer consider themselves to be emotionally well and ready to undertake training; to have sufficient physical, mental and emotional health to withstand personal challenge and to receive personal feedback. If the applicant has hearing, language or mobility issues or if they are a 'consumer of' mental health services, the applicant is asked to contact the programme coordinator for a interview. The application pack also requires signing a declaration committing to staying a year after training (this involves ongoing annual membership fees plus attending a group supervision weekly and being rostered for two 4 hour phone duties a month.)

To quote Kermit the frog, "it's not easy being green".

There is decision point at the end of the personal development course where feedback from the volunteer and the group of peers involved and the course facilitators regarding whether the next step of training is to occur. Again, at the end of the basic training there is a further feedback step where there is self selection as well as peer feedback and group facilitator feedback (with right of veto) as to whether the person can then go 'on the phones' as a counsellor, or listen in with a buddy, or undertake a 'transition training group' where they will be further assessed as ready or not to take calls. Becoming a telephone counsellor for this agency, one who is able to 'go solo' takes time, committment, money and skill. In return the volunteer receives a certificate in personal development and basic telephone counsellling skills. These have no definite external value outside of this organisation.

To misquote Kermit the frog, "it's not easy being keen".

Its an exceptionally unusual gift.
Titmuss believed that the voluntary donation of blood represented the relationship of giving between humans in its purest form, because people give without the expectation that they will necessarily be given to in return....
There is no reciprocation.
As with Titmuss' description of the gift relationship involving blood donating, in this expose on voluntary counselling, the tangible rewards can be described as minimal; a certificate with no or very little external validity. They might also be considered 'negative' when the costs involve far outweigh tangible benefit.
So what motivates the voluntary counsellor? What do we know of the expressed motives for giving or not giving? Very little.

While my research looks at change involving the use of computer and communication technologies in a youth telephone counselling agency, some of the underlying issues also need to be explored. This will be continued in further blogging.
Please feel free to let me know what you think about what makes people 'give'. If you know of further reading I could be doing here, point me to it. Feedback is invited.

Having my cake and eating it

I am in the process of taking two steps forward and one step back.
I am revisiting 'technology'.
This is harder than it should be.
I think back, or try to: but the past is a forgotten country and they/i do/did things differently there.
When i was about 12 or so, I think I had some glimmers of some personalised understanding of what technology was. Technology involved being able to do stuff in new ways with things that were new: A calculator involved technology, a radio didn't, a car didnt. A clock did when it involved flashy lights in digital form like the calculator. Seems i have this recovered memory where digital displays symbolised technology for me.
The automatic washing machine, the automatic timer for my oven. My cell phone.
A whiteboard that could be printed from- seems passe now- it has been surpassed.
A touchscreen, yes, a media display unit yes.
But I didnt used to think (I dont think) of tv as technology, but now i do???
It was new when i was young, it had tubes, was black and white...and flashed, sort of. But it was entertainment: it wasnt something i felt I could use to make things happen. But nor can a digital watch. There is something else here.
Despite my perceiving newness, maybe i was too young at about 6 or 7yrs to perceive tv as a new way (for me) of doing things.
Possibly the word took on new meaning in the 1960's. Similar to other words that developed a new fashioned meaning, maybe technology took on new understandings when the world moved from analogue to digital. (I do remember asking what analogue was, seems the term was needed to differentiate what was ubiquitous timetelling in the past. (The meaning of words is expanded on by Raymond Williams, maybe like 'community' there are fashionable new meanings or at least new projected meanings based on values, I need to see what he has to say on technology.)

According to Alan Kay "Technology is anything that wasn't around when you were born."
How does a goldfish describe water?
What is perceived as technology by some is invisible to others. A generation gap is one quirk where what is perceived as new technology will be perceived by others as a norm.
Ursula Franklin (1999) deepens the meanings of technology for me:
She cites Kenneth Boulding suggesting that one might think of technology as ways of doing something. (p.6)
Looking at technology as practice has interesting consequences.
One is that it links technology directly to culture, because culture is a set of socially accepted practices and values. These practices develop a rut, they are seen as the convention, they are well laid down and accepted if not agreed upon practices.
This begins to define a group of people who have something in common because of the way they are doing things.
"Around here, that's how we do things" becomes a means of self identification.
Technology defined as practice shows the deep cultural links of technology.
As expressed by Franklin, it saves us from thinking that technology is the icing on the cake. Technology is part of the cake itself.
In my early recollections on technology it was the flashy lights, then that simplistic representation was replaced by one only slightly more cognitively developed: understandings based on the presence of a computer chip, the amount of RAM, bytes... but as discussed, this isnt enough.
Its not enough that its quirky or new; its how I am extended, what I do and can do.
A practiced understanding.

For those looking from the outside, technology can appear to be a very odd animal and is noticed particularly in 'odd moments': a teenager using a mobile for saying goodbye to dead friends...a videoconferenced tangi (funeral)... txt counselling... to read a book... or write a book... to do maths .... to learn... to teach...
Its that things are done differently that becomes the marker.
And we are in danger of using new technologies, new ways of doing things because they are new, because they have a semblance of bells, whistles, icing. The appearance of being the (next) real thing rather than being the real thing itself.

As written of by Alan Kay in an article on computers networks and education in Scientific American Special Issue on Communications, Computers and Networks 265(3) (September 1991) with education there is external mandate for a new "literacy", this is demonstrated in the demands that kids 'take computing'demonstrating a confusion between carrier and content. He expanded on how education may hinder learning and argues stronger ideas are needed to replace them before any teaching aid, be it a computer or pencil and paper, will be of more service.
For example the misconception that education is a bitter pill that can be made palatable with sugarcoating. Adding bells whistles, ppts with transitions...
Ouch; get back to what it is that students really need and want to know; use the technology because it takes teacher and learner there, not just because I can.

( Alan Kay is attributed with the invention of the mouse and the portable computer of the future: 'having wireless communications and being easy enough for a child to use'. He built a model in cardboard, filled with weights to check that it would be comfortable to carry around 'as weight is very much part of the user interface'. Seems an ANT savvy researcher: if only Apple in making the macbook pro had taken on board such practice oriented technology they might not have made a laptop too hot to put in your lap!)

Personal insights, goodgrief & the social and psychological effects of SMS and Text messaging

Goodgrief, it took me a few days to decide to reread this series of articles on the psychological effects of txting; after all some rational critique was warranted.
Its based on early research (McKenna et al 2002) that people utilising the Internet and email for social engagement did so to overcome social ineptitude.
Ouch.
OK reader, you are here, and by implication you too could be socially inept.
I'm here, so we are in good company.
I confess i sometimes/often use email instead of a phone call, that i send an email even when i could have walked 50 meters...My reaction to the article confirms my social ineptitude, I am annoyed.
And I start to look at myself and confirm it further:
I prefer to use an ATM when the transaction is simple, I prefer to use my computer to check my balance. I emailed my bank instead of making a phone call. I often send emails to people at my work that are within easy access of a stroll.I reread the findings and see them couched in terms of how for 'some people' it overcomes social difficulties, improves their lives...those who are socially anxious and/or lonely or have marginal identities. And that many others use it too.
I guess, I think, that i am one of many others. I might not be, I'm now perturbed, does this mean I am socially anxious. I did't think i was before I read this, but there we are...
Then on the basis of such wisdom the article by Reid and Reid have a go at texters vs talkers, and they show the same thing.
Ok, maybe i shouldnt go there, but again some reflection on my own practice: I texted back my brother when he described getting dusted by Dads ashes.
(Woops some family members didnt know I had kept them and sent them to Shagpoint (there really is a place called this, bottom of the Sth Island, just north of Dunedin) And its where Dad grew up. Their property included a coalmine extending out under the sea, which i understand was an unwelcome career choice for Dad who left school at 12 years and left home rather than work in the coalmine...
It's now DOC land with a Hoiho (yellow eyed penguin) colony, and I am sure Dad would be pleased with this.

But this may also further prove their point; I must be socially inept because here i am blogging about it....

Compared to Talkers, Texters were found to be more lonely and
socially anxious, and more likely to disclose their ‘real-self’ through text than via face-to- face or voice call exchanges

Goodgrief.
Despite this, and because I am rereading Annemarie Mol, I attempt to relate to parts of this literature.

...there is something special about texting that allows some people to translate their loneliness and/or social anxiety into productive relationships whilst for others the mobile does not afford the same effect

I wish the authors had not pathologised the practices of 'some people', me included? I can now personally identify with Bruno Latour's advice to stay with the actors; assume people are right...put yourself at the peak of enthusiasm, the apex, the point where things were irresistible...there's reason for people doing what they do, it is the best option they have available to them at the time. A very humanistic approach, Carl Rogers could like this.
back to the article. There is something special.

Texting permits visual anonymity and its asynchronous nature allows for editing and self- reflection. Texters may feel at greater ease being their ‘real-self’ through a text message reducing the potential repercussions that may otherwise take place in a traditional face-to-face or telephone encounter. Texting may offer Texters more control over their interactions with others by affording them visual anonymity and asynchronous communication. As such the mobile may become more a matter of identity than a simple communication tool. Further research needs to be carried out to delve into these ideas further.

Ahuh, we have an area of agreement, at least with the last sentence. For the rest I would rather ask the texters themselves, I have serious doubts about the other conclusions reached.
Yet the same type of research gets repeated, and cited. Again and again. Same authors 2003, and again 2004- Text appeal and the psychology of sms texting and its designs for mobile phone interface.... Here at least they ask about the resilience of texting and that it would be unwise to overlook the 'simple user benefits'. The paradox of detachment with intimacy is described.

The spontaneous sociability of the chat room coupled with the artful editability of e-mail – that lends texting a special, but paradoxical, appeal to key user groups. Put simply, text messaging seems to provide an opportunity for intimate personal contact while at the same time offering the detachment necessary to manage self-presentation and involvement.... sufficient time to exchange carefully crafted messages without the expectation of an immediate reply.

And they note that its more of a girl thing.
I'm getting cross now, is it that 'girls' are more socially dependent, need more attachment but in a form where they can scan more, be careful, review, revise...I can feel a Carol Gilligan moment coming on with outrage that what it is to be male is 'normal' and others are dysfunctional, or at least less socially ept.
The articles come across as arrogant.
They presume to speak for the actors. But the voices of these actors is missing.

Today Stephen Downes OLWeekly points to Danah Boyd who identifies that the myths remain despite the evidence.
Using the American Pew stats she notes:
# Email continues to lose its luster among teens as texting, instant messaging, and social networking sites facilitate more frequent contact with friends.
# More older girls than boys create and contribute to websites.
# Girls have fueled the growth of the teen blogosphere.
# Teens from lower-income and single-parent households are more likely to blog.
# Teens who are most active online, including bloggers, are also highly active offline.
# Most teens restrict access to their posted photos - at least some of the time. Girls are more restrictive photo posters.
# Content creators are not devoting their lives exclusively to virtual participation. They are just as likely as other teens to engage in most offline activities and more likely to have jobs.

Just when I was in danger of thinking my eptness quotient was lacking.

shaped 'for good'

Annemarie Mol's Keynote address at the 11th annual qualitative research conference provides the basis for this blog.
Instead of the random control trial (rct) being the gold std to prove that care practices studied are good, we would do better to develop research methods that work to improve care practices. She argues against foregrounding effectiveness but instead that we investigate the various effects of interventions. The effects on the bodily parameters and on the intricacies of daily life should not be separated out but studied in connection.

Now here lies a good idea because the faults in studying effectiveness are numerous. Through reading several horrible articles i have learned how to survive 'best practice.' The following articles should come with warning that they may be damaging to your health:
'Best Practice' for restraining people
(Evidence Based Practice Information Sheets for Health Professionals. Volume 6, Issue 3, 2002 ISSN 1329 - 1874 Physical Restraint -Part 1:
Use in Acute and Residential Care Facilities)
'Best Practice' in wound care demonstrating potable water is good enough for wound care
(Evidence Based Practice Information Sheets for Health Professionals. Volume 7, Issue 1, 2003 ISSN 1329 - 1874 Solutions, Techniques and Pressure for
Wound Cleansing.)

These articles, widely disseminated, fail to take into account
1. the purpose of care
and
2. not doing harm (saline doesn't hurt, water does).


Mol discusses this because what is 'for the better' is often not known.
This reading -in combination with it being Christmas and my having a pine tree in my lounge- reminds me of other reading, of E.M. Rogers, and of how the repercussions of change are oftentimes unexpected. p440 a story of Lapps and loss of reindeer and establishing a culture of dependence and poverty following the introduction of snowmobiles.
The effects of adopting innovations are oftentimes not known in advance, and maybe shouldn't wait for full implementation and formal evaluation before being revisited.

Effective and good practice are not unequivocal- Mol draws on examples from arteriosclerosis treatments and of type 1. diabetes.
She demonstrates how control needs to be social and material.
I remember a friend who killed herself. She too had type 1 diabetes, but she also had genital herpes. The diabetes would go out of control whenever the herpes flared up. Living between metabolic wards and gynae wards and the mental health unit for most of a year, she decided if this is life it sucks. Such control needed in her life made life unlivable. She killed herself.

Mol questions the notion of the good, 'what is good care?' Is the management so tight it risks hypoglycamia? This risks relationships as it tends to make people aggressive. There is a concurrent risk to brain cells; hypoglycaemia kills brain cells. The body and the social are implicated throughout. She concludes we cannot tell what good health care is, not simply, not in general. And so argues that it has to be established closer to home: in practice- in day to day life.

I concur.

If what is good care cannot be answered in effectiveness measures, an urgency still remains in providing an evidence base for practice. It is not a case that one treatment is better than another, as they come with different 'goods' and 'bads', qualitatively. How then to handle these? If there is trade off long term vs short term, what is more important? What is it you- as client- need /want to achieve...?
Clinical trials have a tendency to evaluate what is, what exists, what is known and market conditions support this. She argues though, that the market alone is not enough to improve health care. Treatments do not suddenly materialize of themselves. and treatment options are not linear. Goals+treatment+evaluation is not the only care trajectory that can or does unfold. The devil may be in all the details, but people are not automatons, almost every variable in a person's life is subject to change. Professional care involves tinkering, negotiating, and 'doctoring' to fit.

She further argues that this becomes obvious over time and not in snapshots or vignettes. The rct evidence to convince of best options, of funding, of external persons, of outsiders, of the quality of existing care, would do better to focus on insider issues. In tinkering and adapting, in calibrating. Such research is not in prooving rightness or wrongness but adaptability, of improving practices. Such unravelling of the tensions involved.

I wish i had written this myself. She's clever.
To further paraphrase:

A lot goes on without being sharply articulated, this then is our job as researchers: to unravel and to articulate, casting practice into words that allows them to travel, so that they might be more widely reflected on. Reality becomes foregrounded, and the intricacies of hopes and fears negotiated alongside the material technologies involved. The sociotechnical comes as a package, so it is better to study them together. In doing so we may come to discover how one form of practice differs from another, how practice is shaped 'for good.'

I am in awe.
I am not studying effectiveness of counselling in its various forms, but i am studying practice; practice as it unfolds and is un/told.

Proving or improving

The joys of being a PhD student! Just as I find my voice on an issue, I find I am not alone, my fumbled thoughts have found their way into words eloquently writ elsewhere.

‘Anyone can have big ideas”, said Concepcion. “I have had some big ideas, and most of them I thought of for myself, and then I found out that others have thought the same, and then I found out that other people have big ideas that are exactly the opposite, and when I think about it even more, I decide that only small ideas can be true, and the big ideas are too big to fit inside anybody’s mind, so there is no point in trying to have them. You know what my mother used to say when I asked her a question like “why does God let babies die?” She said “Pregunta a las mariposas”. Go and ask the butterflies, because they don’t know any better than anyone else.’
(de Bernieres, 1993, p 278)

Whether to prove or improve practices in health care research is well discussed by Annemarie Mol. I discovered this article while clearing a backlog of reading:

As it is, clinical trials are the gold standard of health care research, employed to prove that the care practices they study are good. Here, the author suggests that we would do better to develop research methods that work toward another goal: to improve care practices. This requires that we no longer foreground the effectiveness but, instead, investigate the various effects of interventions. If undesirable, they might then be tinkered with. As a part of this, the effects on bodily parameters and on the intricacies of daily lives should not be separated out but studied in connection. With examples drawn from studies into care practices for patients with diabetes or atherosclerosis, the author argues that instead of trying to turn the clinic into a laboratory, we should strive to support and strengthen clinical ways of working.
Annemarie Mol (2006),
Proving or Improving: On Health Care Research as a Form of Self-Reflection

This approach also encompasses the issues raised by cj:

... in new ways of doing things (aka technology)... for the most part, the original intent of the gizmo is rarely the use that is taken up....this points to an interesting habit where we tend to assume that gizmo X was actually designed to do what it is now being used for, i.e. the myth of design, make and appraise of technology as it is often taught in schools.
We also know that the making life easier line plays out interestingly when you, for example, have say two online information sources, one which is has richer resources but devilishly difficult to use, the other much poorer resources but dead simple to use. The easier to use resource wins. Then there is the small initial advantage a particular technology may develop, perhaps randomly, which is then amplified quickly over time. The Beta vs. UHS video format comes to mind. There are others.
For me, all of this underlines that we are always considering the sociotechnical, not just the technical that somehow gets taken up or adopted as diffusion theory suggests. It's all about negotiation between people and things. Delegation of work to a thing which is never a simple matter as Latour elegantly demonstrated a long time ago.

There is richness to be had in investigating the practices as they unfold, rather than attempting an evaluation of goodness, badness, rightness or wrongness.

It seems i need to take several steps forward to find myself standing in the same place and I am finding an essential ingredient for a Phd student is the ability to laugh at myself ;)

It works by magic

I don't know, and will never know, how come the funding application fell over.
However, it may have been the answer to the question on whether txt counselling is a good thing.
In some way i said that it was a difficult question to address in this way as the variables could not be controlled for and therefore a qualitative analysis on the perspectives of those involved would be important in informing future practice. (Reminds me of a poem, I will include at foot of this posting)
I didn't get the funding so maybe the answer didnt work.
And i don't know, but suspect risk aversive funding people just like sure things.
I also suspect the gold standard of randomized control trials was the only way to go for one panel member.
But the older i get, the less sure i am of rightness and wrongness.
When i was younger, i saw decisiveness as a good thing, and fence sitting as an inability to draw a conclusion.
In psychotherapy from an Assagioli tradition, it was about collapsing the point of tension too quickly. I personally found it uncomfortable to the point of distressing, to hold a point of tension.

I think about this differently now.
I have mellowed.

Applying a concept from Annemarie Mol's 'The body multiple' - reality is different for different players. I see this reflected in a review of elearning by Graham Attwell (2006).
Approaches re evaluation differ fundamentally with purpose, underpinning philosophy and ideological base. Different evaluations theories will be based on different assumptions about the way the world works and so models and practices based on those theories will be different as well. Despite this, the client base and majority of evaluation consumers, particularly in education are still wedded to the idea of objective evaluation and "finding the facts".
Attwell expands on this in several ways, one is about how the evaluator role is perceived, eg if seen as a judge or critical friend; how they conduct any evaluation and the conclusions drawn will vary.
In using ANT, my role is different again, I get to tell the stories, the performances witnessed.
"Evaluation theory also develops in a social context and practitioners work in different ways in different cultures, different sectors with different target groups, and different audiences. Consequently different approaches and models have tended to emerge based on these factors. For example, educational evaluation has developed along a different trajectory than for example health services. Theory in practice is a powerful determinant of evaluation approach and stakeholder perceptions and expectations of the evaluation process." (Attwell, 2006, p.19)
Here too, the performative turn is evident.

She asked me

She asked me if she took one pill for her heart
and one pill for her hips and one pill for her chest
and one pill for her blood
how come they would all know
which part of her body
they should go to?

I explained to her
That active metabolites in each pharmaceutical
would adopt spatial configuration
leading to an exact interface with receptor molecules
on the cellular surfaces of the target structures involved.

She told me not to bullshit her.

I told her that each pill had a different shape
And that her pills
could only work when both these shapes fit together.
She said I had no right
to talk about the shape of her body.

I said that each pill was a key
and that her body was ten thousand locks.

She said she was not going to swallow that!

I told her they worked by magic.

She asked me why I didn't say that in the first place.

Glenn Colquhoun (2002)

evocative objects

In reading Sherry Turkle's (2007) book, Evocative objects. Things we think with. I am provoked; the essay on cell phones has yet to be written. In its absence i write the chapter myself. Fanfiction for the Fanfact world?

Objects speak in ways that destroy the simple stories of relating. This theme is enlarged upon in the writing of Bruno Latour (1996). In my own story, i too find complexity; a not so simple story of relating. In Turkle's book, each narrative is paired with a short excerpt drawn from theory, talking philosophy down to earth. The excerpt I have chosen is taken from Annmarie Mol's, "The body multiple."

...a philosophical narrative. If we focus on foregrounding the practices inside of which objects are handled, the far reaching effect is reality multiplies. If practices are foreground there is no longer a single passive object, instead objects come into being, and disappear, with the practices in which they are manipulated. This begs the question of how they are related. For even if objects differ from one practice to another, there are relations between these practices. Far from being fragments, these objects hang together, somehow. The question rather than uncovering some truth, is how are objects handled in practice. The objects handled in practice are not the same from one site to another; so how does the coordination between such objects proceed? And how do different objects that go under a single name avoid clashes and explosive confrontations? And might it be if there are tensions between them, various versions of an object sometimes depend on one another.
"If it is not removed from the reality that sustains it, reality is multiple."
Paraphrasing Ann Marie Mol, The body multiple. Ontology in medical practice.

My cell (mobile phone) is a bridge crossing distance, time, relationships and is integral in my transition.
She helps me manage my life, my engagements and disengagements.

The first cell (phone) was a present, then the present got a present, dressed up and personalised both on the inside (with her own directory of contacts, ringtones to differentiate mine from others...and also on the outside. A pretty cover to shelter her from an inclement environment such as being dropped, or the tortures of being stuffed in a pocket,a handbag or chucked in the car. Personalisation also decreased the risk of mistaken ownership; accidental or by theft.

I found she extended my reach; no more waiting by a phone for a call. Such a quaintness associated with memories of aged love.
Though the expectations of being forever available to the reach of others became a source of contention. "I tried to call you, turn your phone on." I wanted to throw her off the harbour bridge. I liked the convenience of calling out, I resented the intrusive beck and call nature it placed on my relationship. "Leave me messages that would make me want to hear you, i would reply. But I kept her; the ph. that is. And the relationship :)

She evolved, I still use prepay, and so there are reasonably frequent times when she's not topped up and i cant call or txt. Her charge holds fairly well- a few days at least, and her reception is considerably better than earlier incarnations. She's evolved, newer renditions have made her smaller, though her functionality is considerably enhanced. My functionality too has increased. I am more intune with her, I keep her on, she's almost always with me: keys, money, cell phone.
I am dependent; I have handed over part of my brain to her, she is now part of my external memory: for phone numbers, addresses, hairdressing appointments.... She is my surrogate timekeeper, alarm, clock, mini sized torch, camera... And security blanket.

I had a miscarriage while away on a writing retreat, and my cell became my best friend. Supported, she enabled me. I could stay in contact with the people i cared about, and who cared for me, as i got myself home the 200km needed. She contributed to my safety but also bridged love and belonging.

For my daughter, her cell too provides a sense of belonging, enhancing what it is to be human. Always tethered Turkle says, but there is also a knowing; a comfort that others are there. Anytime, always. She has friends, many of them, affirmed by a contact list. Security comes in a slim purple chic package of sophistication and aesthetic beauty. I feel safer in trusting the cell connection that our daughter can go further; do more. Tethered risk enhancement.

My cell has taught me a new language, txt. 160 characters or less shapes each message. I use even fewer:
c u soon.
am l8.
call me.
Am at *bucks
Each txt demonstrating variations on a theme:
I don't want to speak to you but will leave you a message.
I don't want to speak to you; either you or this message is of less financial value, than the pittance a call would cost.
I don't want to speak to you, but i need you to get it right- i txt what i want you to remember: there's the shopping list, the address, the time, there is no room for denial.
I want to know what you're doing, I remind you of my 'presence'. Do you respond? Do i still matter? i want you to know that i matter, im here, i care, i want you to care, notice me!

4 me 2 txt takes 2 hands, and reading glasses. I know im old when I txt. A default grammatical correction corrects me now in the use of my first language; i becomes I, but she does not know what to do with im. I choose to ignore the niceties of language construction. My sentences get shorter. My words shorten, was ok not short enough? K. My punctuation worsens and predictive txt brings a whole new level of confused relating.
"Dad has alot me rain"
Half a world away an answer, huh?

My cell is moody, she can be quiet in meetings, if I engage with her according to her rules. There is need to demonstrate the correct etiquette to make this happen. Neglected, she has a life of her own. She can at inopportune times draw attention to herself; our initial appointment with the school principal was interrupted by the attention seeking chirruping incoming txt message. At other times she spontaneously elects not to function. I nurture her, feed her with prepay, charge her up. In an act reminiscent of open heart surgery I open her up investigate her internal workings, take the battery out, remove her sim card, put her back together, watch for life to spring forth. She needs my care. And I am careful of her (one of her relatives was killed in a horrible washing machine incident). Smallness paradoxically increases some vulnerabilities but decreases others. She has learned to manage me better.
Our symbiotic relationship works. I am/We are technically co-dependent. Technologically enhanced, I am provocatively cyborg Donna Haraway (1991) expands on this shifting quality of the human species. A hybrid of machine and organism; we are shaped in relation to each other.

Having fun in the funhouse, with mirrors reflecting on mirrors on mirrors, I thought I had a cell phone, but now she has me.
"You think you have an organizer, but in time, your organizer has you" (Turkle, 2007, p. 310).
And you, reader...you thought you were reading a blog?
Has it taken you?
Reality is multiple.

References
Latour, B. (1996). Aramis: or the love of technology (C. Porter, Trans.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Haraway, D. (1991). "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century" in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature New York; Routledge.
Mol, A. (2002). The body multiple: ontology in medical practice. London: Duke University Press.
Turkle, S. (2007). Evocative objects. Things we think with. London; MIT Press.

Things we think with

We find it familiar to consider objects as useful or aesthetic, as necessities or vain indulgences. We are on less familiar ground when we consider objects as companions to our emotional lives or as provocations to thought. The notion of evocative objects brings together these two less familiar ideas, underscoring the inseparability of thought and feeling in our relationship to things. we think with the objects we love; we love the objects we think with.

(Turkle, 2007, p.5)
In the selection of essays edited by Sherry Turkle, each object brings together intellect and emotion, in each case, the author focuses not on the instrumental power or purpose but on the object as companion in life experiences. Turkle points to how a train is connecting emotional worlds and the mental space between computer keyboard and screen as creating erotic possibility.

I look at my daughter as her face lights up when she sees Finnish band HIM playing in NZ in March and secs later the mobile phone too is lit up, the appointment calandar loaded and txts sent. Its 11.00 at night in real time but for txt this doesn't matter. No family will be distrurbed, just the recipient- and if they did not want to receive txt they could have this component turned off, or on silent...we have discussed this before. (The teenager that lurks in her has 'all the answers.')

"We live our lives in the middle of things" says Turkle.
Turkle, with a psychoanalytic background emphasizes the emotional component. She makes links to Freud saying : the shadow of the object fell upon the ego.
And i think to myself, yes. The ego of young people seems held or contained in txting, a vulnerability less fragile. This is what my first interviews with a telephone/txt counsellor seems to endorse. When someone txt counselling sends an SMS txt that says I cant talk, there is the possibility that it is too hard emotionally.
Latour describes the sociotechnical involvement but not of such drives as ego. I recall cj's reminder that I should eschew structures, and I am back to following the actors on this one (I cant see them naming their practice as shaped by ego defence mechanisms and stories told need no imposed meanings ...)

She also cites Walt Whitman who said "a child went forth everyday/ and the first object he look'd upon, that object he became."
With my daughter I see the object and she have already morphed; extended as cyborg.
With foresight cj reminded me of Latour and the 'delegation of work to things not being simple'.

potentially precarious

The network of relations are not all pulling together, sometimes they pull apart. The pushing and pulling on the strings that bind make for a precarious existence.
For txt messaging at Youthline, how useful is it that a sibling organisation, lifeline also uses txt, email and Internet postings? In part Lifeline's use provides credibility as a larger and more conservative organisation takes on practice that was innovative. Concurrently, this has been made possible through winning the contested funding. Its amazing that charitable organisations can work cooperatively when the processes shaping them encourage competition.
The Gods seem to be smiling on Youthline today; it is the Coca-Cola Christmas in the park tonight and it is not raining. This pulls on all the resources (people) Youthline can muster as its largest fundraising event. That the rain holds off contributes significantly to Youthline's wellbeing. The ability to raise charitable donations is to a large extent subject to the benevolence of God/s and/or the fickleness of Auckland's early summer weather.
There is the huge goodwill of volunteers, and also of paid employees (well beyond financial remuneration). What is it that creates the circumstances of giving the gift of time? (Titmuss wrote of this regarding the gift relationship; from human blood to social policy. What creates such philanthropy? What creates such philanthropy in NZ today? A whole new chapter to consider. A whole new thesis I suspect!).
There is also a funding war keeping the cost of txting down.
People dont use what doesnt work.
"People will use technology if it helps them, if it makes their lives better"
Stephen Downes said this regarding the 45-page guide to the evaluation of e-learning. The same might well be said of the use of txt, Internet postings, and email for counselling.
The philosopher in me struggles with such pragmatism, but here it is:
There is no pleasing everyone. Whats used, is used, to the extent that it is useful.
Sounds profound.
Might need to revisit this when the Oyster Bay wears off....
Circular arguments, and the profanity associated with such pragmatism, might not look so good in the morning :)

Pragmatism and fragility. hmmm.

Blogging the PhD

I was prompted today to consider the purpose of blogging while reading Biella's healthhacker blog triggered by a google alert on a particular writer, Anne Marie Mol. (I have her as an alert because she uses ant, shares a health focus, writes well of 'the performative turn' and utilised a creative writing style of a split screen between her own thinking and how this is informed by literature- a performance in its own 'write'.)

The reasons i blog; here they are, the unexpurgated version, Dec 2007:

1. my thoroughly modern supervisor suggested it
2. it helps me think! (writing creates my thinking, its not an after the fact activity)
3. being in the public domain forces me to be consider carefully; accuracy, acknowledgments, palatability- the approachability of what I write to a wider audience.
4. it links me to others who share similar methodology, or processes of study, or content; whether they know it or not.
5. provides for dialogue; real or imagined. Included here are my supervisor, other students (local and international, some I meet, most I never will), with colleagues, family, with myself.
6. provides a chronology of my own thinking and doing. (My methodology informed by ant follows Latour; he suggests 4 notebooks, one of which i have substituted with this blog- a chronology to keep track on the research process)
7. provides me a medium that hyperlinks to relevant resources; del.icio.us clouds that link me to other people's delicious use. And the bubbl.us software-
8. I am not limited to text or prose. i hyperlink, mindmap, use visual, auditary. The blog provides both actual and potential space for trials of creative writing.
9. its a playful forum, in many ways a forgiving forum, as i put it in take it off, move it around, wordsmith for impact.
10. Blogging allows for a work in progress to be shared, commented upon, revisited, reworked.
11. I stay writing, not as much by volume as i read, but time spent writing about what i read, or what i think, or can apply, to my areas of study, could be close to 50:50.
12. I 'perform' differently in this medium. The writing is less formal, less starchy.
13. I am shaped in doing this, and in this there is overlap with what i am studying- in (re)shaping practice, what is practice doing back. The exploring of how i am shaped in doing this provides for insights into how the medium shapes the message in counselling through use of txt, email and Internet postings. There is a walk the talk type quality. Havent started txting the PhD, yet ;)


So Whats different about doing this by blog rather than doing it in a notebook, using paper or a word doc?
a. Its still as public as i choose to let it be.
b. There is no doodling here, the medium and my artistic ability dont gel in the satisfying way of strokes on a page being pleasing aesthetically or soothing or whatever else my doodling suggests.
c. i dont have the satisfaction of crossing out, pushing the pen into a page, screwing up the page as a cathartic exercise. Moving to the delete bin doesnt quite do this.
d. I dont/didnt share as much in written hard copy formats. What i would have shared is so much more formal; i would feel compelled to have it at least halfway right, to be substantive, to look like chapters, essays. To look like a promising academic. The hard copy written format i find/found a slower more pensive engagement.

If you are visiting my site because of this posting linking to your own research purposes, or interest in blogging for academic purposes, please do leave me a post to let me know. Do you have similar reasons? what would you add? I will turn off the antispam number recognition thingy for a week (or as long as i can bear it) to make it easier (dont tell the spammers).

the strength of weak ties

"Strength does not come from concentration, purity and unity, but
from dissemination, heterogeneity and the careful plaiting of weak ties."

(Latour, 1997).
Plaiting the weak ties is the metaphor used in making a more durable entity: "...resistance, obduracy and sturdiness is more easily achieved through netting, lacing, weaving, twisting, of ties that are weak by themselves, and that each tie, no matter how strong, is itself woven out of still weaker threads..."
In applications of communications and computer technologies for counselling, there appears to be some strengthening of the weak ties; another actor is enrolled. Lifeline has launched txt messaging, and using an Internet based website for postings through a web page targeting young people with depression. This seems to add a little more substance to a 'novel' practice, the larger and arguably more conservative organisation seems to add a veneer of respectability to a method of counselling considered suspect by others.
I really want to follow this lead... it is a new endeavour for lifeline, being launched 3/12/07. Youthline's text service began December 2004 and Internet postings much earlier with the launch of the Urge website. One aspect argued by the CEO OF Youthline in an October 2007 press release was about not reinventing the texting wheel. The competitive funding model to my mind, continues to put services up against each other. The potential is that threads unravel.

A further musing installment on the question: what is occurring as counselors (re)shape their practice; and what is practice doing back?

Beam me up Scotty

I am just waiting for the newspaper competition of fill in the thought bubble: Tell me again why I should spend less time with the people I love and more time with strangers?
etiquette involved in martyrdom and suffering seems superfluous to many. The use of phone booths could be subject to an ant informed analysis, predating Dr Who and the TARDIS, the need to have a booth compensated for the vulnerability of the technology and the quality of the connection. Arguably such factors helped to create the expectation that calls occur privately. Current advances in audibility and portability may be aiding and abetting the publicly displayed intimacies that others find surprizing if not offensive.

Ubiquitous cell phone as common as muck

The worlds population reached 6,634,294,193 yesterday (at least according to International Programs Center of the US Census Bureau)
And cell phone subscriptions reached half this number...
Perhaps minus one
Please note, saturation of the worlds population with cell phones is not 50%; many of us have more cell phones than we know what to do with!
I confess to having more cell phones in my family than people (its useful to have a spare for people from o/s, or for when one goes down, gets washed, dies (cell phone I meant).
My last poll in a large lecture class showed all but one student had a cell phone, many had more than one, several confessed to living in households where the numbers were in excess of the people. I am not alone.
NZ Prime Minister Helen Clarke confessed she has 3, and arguably has found texting a useful diversion during Monarchy and Heads of State addresses. Nice to know she is multi-talented, and up with the play. I like this in a PM.
I can wonder if she was receiving the aussie updates on polling or playing that cute duck game with the traintrack you have to construct...
I like problem solving if not hand eye coordination in a PM too.
Sadly she cant remember; this is a less positive attribute in a PM :(
I wonder when she's going to get her own Bebo page so i can add her to my list of friends :)

On a more serious note, the use of cell phones is fast becoming a very normal practice. The rate of change as people debate the etiquette, the good, the bad, demonstrates how change is negotiated.
My description of cell phone use for counselling seemed to cause consternation amongst the group of psychotherapists I conversed with at a recent social event. Shock horror, I still have social outings... but there seemed to be furtive glancing about, as if a sudden need for crosses, holy water, garlic or stakes. I went looking for the chardonnay.
After all i might need a glass to put out my smoking paw...

only in hindsight

It looks so easy to birth a gadget at least according to Wired magazine. (Gads, why did i have a child ...)
But the ease of conception is true only with hindsight, a more realistic rendition of change is described by Czarniawska & Joerges (in Weick & Quinn, 1999, p. 362)

First there were losses, then there was a plan of change, and then there was an implementation, which led to unexpected results.

So where are the losses, the blood on the floor, the relationships won & lost. And what of the unexpected results...
The retrospective application suggests there was but one route to an end. Not immaculate conception, but according to this representation, a well planned conception. I wonder what really happened?
Too-ing and fro-ing, reshaping, contamination, adaptation, translation...
Reality is much messier outside of biblical Genesis stories.
Fascinating; the performance of a clean story.
No smut, no blood on the floor,so what is the story's pulling power?
Do we like to simplify to pretend that its easy? Does this make it more likely that we might enroll others? Does tidiness have this attraction? Are we that gormless?
Give me a decent plot any day and a decent analysis.

When social science tries to deal with things that are complex, diffuse, and messy, the answer John Law argues, is that it tends to make a mess of it. Simple clear descriptions do not work well when the stuff itself is incoherent. The attempt to be clear, increases the mess.

For further reading, see After method. Mess in social science research by John Law.
The story in Wired is superficial, so much so that it might aptly be considered a work of fiction, but still fiction too is a performance in its own right.
I find it so hard to humbly accept that the actors might know what is going on.
I am struggling with letting go of critical analysis.
But i guess no one asked the writer... the editor...the reader...
However, as a reader, I'm not persuaded; the simplistic rendering has made a mess of it.

Drowning in description

I lost the plot.
And revisited Bruno Latour

Professor — So… I take it that you are a bit lost?
Student — Well, yes. I am finding it difficult, I have to say, to apply Actor Network Theory to my case study in organisations.
Professor — No wonder— it isn’t applicable to anything!
Student — But we were taught… I mean… it seems like hot stuff around here. Are you saying it’s really useless?
...
Professor — [ANT's] a theory, and a strong one I think, but about how to study things, or rather how not to study them. Or rather how to let the actors have some room to express themselves.

So, no more discourse analysis.
Except...
I'm a slow learner.
The discourse analysis was a means to considering how txt is shaped by the cell phone. That being invisible to each other requires questions of identity and of clarification. That the first letter is default capitalised, that there are 160 characters incl blanks so messages are constrained.
(so why do people write txt as short as poss? They rarely use 160, seems the average would be between 50-70)
Back to following the actors....

Professor — ... I would abstain from frameworks altogether. Just describe the state of affairs at hand.
Student — ‘Just describe’. Sorry to ask: but is this not terribly naïve? ...
P — Because you think description is easy? ...I have, myself, always found this incredibly demanding.... we go, we listen, we learn, we practice, we become competent, we change our views. Very simple really: it’s called field work. Good field work always produces a lot of new descriptions.
S — But I have lots of descriptions already! I’m drowning in them. That’s just my problem. That’s why I’m lost and that’s why I thought it would be useful to come to you. Can’t ANT help me with this mass of data? I need a framework!
P —‘My Kingdom for a frame!’. Very moving; I think I understand your desperation. But no, ANT is pretty useless for that. Its main tenet is that actors themselves make everything, including their own frames, their own theories, their own contexts, their own metaphysics, even their own ontologies… So the direction to follow would be more descriptions, I am afraid... if your description needs an explanation, it’s not a good description, that’s all. Only bad descriptions need an explanation. It’s quite simple really....I have never seen a good description in need of an explanation. But I have read countless numbers of bad descriptions to which nothing was added by a massive addition of ‘explanations’! And ANT did not help…

I just revisited cj's advice on data collecting, its succinct:

stay broad, eschew structures

back to following the actors...

help, not waving, drowning: Discourse analysis of SMS

I am not strong on discourse analysis.
I spent one summer trying to read Foucault and this convinced me two summers doing this would be unwise.
Please help. seriously.
This is not my intended methodology, but it may prove useful. If you are experienced in discourse or even curious regarding the application to an intriguing application, please play with me here. Beginning with a toe in the water rather than full immersion because i don't like drowning, here is my tentative discourse analysis of a series of txt messages in counselling. (Feel free to push me in deeper if needed, or tell me to get out of the water....)
This series of interactions are from one side of a txting counselling scenario.
(The stream of txt was never seen, it is based in reality rather than actual reflection of reality. To do any type of data collection wherein one does not have the consent of the authors of the text is not ethically defensible. To do discourse analysis on a reported composite of a text is also methodologically dubious. This is a work of fiction).

1. "I just want to disappear"
2. "I cant talk"
3. "what diff email"
4. "r you a counsellor"

Discourse analysis
line 1, an opening, a cry for help, a reaching out.
Txted to a 'netherworld" an unknown entity. The txter doesnt know the person who will receive it, Maybe the anonymity helps. A confirmation of no one responding might confirm the sense of disappearing. There seems an ambivalence, will i disappear, am i disappearing, do people notice me. There is also an 'i want to' do i hurt so much i just want to vanish, i just want it to end?
(Did you notice that, I switched from 3rd person to first, not only do i project in, i begin to imagine myself in...)

line 2, a response to an invitation to talk further. The counsellor has responded (affirming the person for making contact, acknowledging their distress or difficulty, and inviting the person to use a ph line to talk about it). Line 2 rejects using a phone. "I cant" without punctuation. Punctuation is extra difficult on a cell. Plus it may or may not be known by the sender. Or may not be important to the sender, it takes extra time and it doesn't significantly alter the message. But the message in its brevity remains ambiguous. I cant talk because its too distressing (I cant talk because I have no money on my phone? I cant talk because others will hear? ...)
The use of capitals for I, is probably auto generated on the cell phone.

line 3, responding to the counsellor suggesting other options, seeking clarification on those options. The txt is truncated, a word is shortened and syntax condensed presenting an incomplete sentence. The meaning is sufficiently clear regarding a clarification request. There is another quality though, the person sending the message is engaged in concrete specific concerns. The concern though becomes about the equipment, how do i , rather than this is what i am distressed about. My sense is not that there is no difference in that 'i' cant talk regardless of the medium. But a seeking of clarification, i may not want to verbalise it because its distressing. 'i' might be able to enter into an email dialogue if 'i' can see a reason.

line 4, in the invisible space of txting whose on the other end seems to need checking, asking. Just as with internet cartoon where noone knows your a dog, in txting too no one knows whose there. sex is indeterminate, age is indeterminate, role is indeterminate. If I can enter into conversation via txt with you, is it because you are a counsellor and this seems ok so far and i might generalise from this counsellors therefore seem safe. Or is it a question of if i take the next step will i see you. Interesting some words truncate some dont. The use of the cell phone and the ease of some words versus others?

Please, I am really happy to receive input on this naive analysis and will now go (internet) surfing to reduce my naivity.

Other theory relevant:
Sproull and Kiesler (1991) regarding emails say "people talk with other people but they do so alone". This too explains the need for checking out who is the person at the end of the txt receiving "my' message. In addition,they write of the conventions for communicating being weak - This may be reflected in the question of are you a counsellor- who are you, what are you, as well as other conventions of social practices such as grammar being weaker.
Constance, Sproull and Kiesler (1996) Reflect on the kindness of strangers and the strength of weak ties.
Turkle (I think, but i cant find this so maybe it is more Sproull and Kiesler) talk of the projection onto messages. In the absence of more cues- tone, body language and the amount of information exchanged, there is a tendency to read more into a message- project more onto the message- than is actually there.
Bloch (2002) said email is used for creating and sustaining relationships. and also
showed email not just about language but is also about negotiating identity in a way not done in a classroom. Suggests in a counseling scenario there is also the use for negotiating identity, who am I, who are you, can we work together.
Rich Ling, Telenor R&D (2005) on discourse analysis of sms in Norway: note that its cheap, relatively unobtrusive (can be done silently), they describe sms as an "odd duck": the size of the screen limits readability, the 160 character limitation of screen, the lack of traditional of keyboard. They also discuss the differences Male to Female with female being more attentive to emotion, to flourishes of writing (punctuation), longer messages male average 5.54 vs female average 6.94, females also use more salutations. I wonder if use by women is greater as women, at least stereotypically maintain connection, relationships. Its also cheaper to sms than a ph call, and maybe women have less discretionary income. These writers also identify the liklihood of first letter capitalisation because of a default mechanism.

do u txt b4 sex?

am i the only parent of a teenager distressed about txt for a condom?
I am seriously concerned, not because condoms will be mailed out, but because two days later, or however long the post takes, is just not going to do it. Please, if a condoms needed, the mail service aint going to be of much help till its too late. Whats needed has got to be a sub 60 minute courier service!
condom alarm
Might take even longer if it has to cross the Tasman, but I found this also and although it targets a different group, on the end of a cell no one knows who you are. I do remember passion, and I dont remember it patiently waiting for mail.
nzaf.org

Things that go bump

BUMP!

And then
something went BUMP!
How that bump made us jump!


I am musing about the right word/s to use. I want to demonstrate a second rendition of the network I am studying, the first was just a whose who, I am now finding that its not enough- the people who connect are only one facet of whats going on. And dare i say it for a counselling modality, they may not be the most important part!!!! So back to looking at whats going on, and i thought I'd place it here, but even imposing a title gets problematic.
As Latour himself says the actor network theory and the hyphen are all problematic.
One step at a time: The actors. The language assumes masculinity and actresses doesnt make it any better. Actants then. yuk. sounds like a chemical reagent.
Things that go bump...are not always human.
Latour is critical of the word Network and despite thinking i knew what hhe was on about, I still fell into this one. Just mapping those i connected with and how they were connected with others gave me a bit of the picture, but it was more about who was important to me in what I'm studying. Not the purpose of the study. Mapping the network in this way was not effective. To put it crudely; its not a sewer sytem. And this 'network' doesnt just flow one way.
So more words:
Typology: lists with out substance.
Topographic: a topographic map characterized by large-scale detail and quantitative representation of relief, usually using contour lines. But its static
Chorography: a systematic, detailed description and analysis of a region or regions. OK, slightly better but it doesnt encompass the alive nature, or the influence of one's self in the analysis.

Two words describe it better, but connotations need clarifying, and the rationale for long words is that short ones dont quite do it:
Ontology: the connotations in health tend to be about disease development and particularly cancer development. However, here is a word that describes the push and pull, and the 'alive' state of a network. From my online thesaurus:
1. A systematic account of Existence.
2. (From philosophy) An explicit formal specification of how to represent the objects, concepts and other entities that are assumed to exist in some area of interest and the relationships that hold among them.

Choreography:
1. the art of composing ballets/dances and planning and arranging the movements, steps, and patterns of dancers.
2. the arrangement or manipulation of actions leading up to an event.

Ann Marie Mol talks of the network as ontological choreography. And i confess to finding the language distancing. (Makes note to self: sounds academic but doesnt make the work readable).
Meantime, here is a draft on the choregraphed ontology of a txt counseling message :) The confidential nature of counselling meant that this is a 'for instance' type of counselling scenario, a composit of scenarios rather than an individuals experience.

iphone: therefore I am

Time magazine 2007, November 19.Invention of the year
The phone, a mobile phone, not just any phone; the iphone.
Time's stated reasoning:
Its pretty 'surface is depth'
Its touchy-feely
It will make other phones better
Its not a phone: Its a platform
What will come will be better.
A huge indictment on Time magazine to grant magnamity based not on what is, but on what may come! And not for what it is: a phone, but on iphones not being a phone...
Whats left: its pretty and it feels good.
i want one.

whose acting when I'm acting?

Wendy saw the shadow on the floor, looking so draggled, and she was frightfully sorry for Peter. "How awful!" she said...
Fortunately she knew at once what to do. "It must be sewn on," she said, just a little patronisingly.
... and sewed the shadow on to Peter's foot.

"I daresay it will hurt a little," she warned him.
"Oh, I shan't cry," said Peter, who was already of the opinion that he had never cried in his life. And he clenched his teeth and did not cry, and soon his shadow was behaving properly, though still a little creased.

...Peter, boylike, was indifferent to appearances, and he was now jumping about in the wildest glee. Alas, he had already forgotten that he owed his bliss to Wendy. He thought he had attached the shadow himself. "How clever I am!" he crowed rapturously, "oh, the cleverness of me!"
It is humiliating to have to confess this conceit ...

Just like Peter, my dark side gets left behind, and it takes effort to restore my shadow.
Creating the online persona takes active work, whether in 2nd life where self creation is overt, or on a blog space. There is still work in constructing as well as in deleting and hiding the unintended.
So in my blog I have blogs that never see the light of day, but saved as drafts they maintain thoughts, and chronology for me.
The shadow.
The stuff that would be unwise to shout in a lecture room, the stuff that would be stupid to have in a cv.
While tripping through delicious blogs I tripped up on thoughts on the less intentional profile

The unintended profile can publicly display my predilection for what I save, whether its music or websites or articles or my reading (self conscious and belatedly I note the trashy murder mystery is not listed in what I'm reading)....delicious puts some of me out there, but is it a part i want?
I find myself thinking twice (or more) about do i put this in endnote or in delicious... such as revolting articles involving a darker side of text or social media...
The intimate feeling created between myself and my laptop is deceptive, if i choose to hit post, a part of me is in the public domain.
I found myself surprized by the updated bubbl.us mindmapping tool, a work in progress. But a visible one. A widget so I should have known it would remain current...I embedded it in a blog, now i need to be careful about what's in; whats out.
I was surprized by my weather pixie dressing herself with logos in my blog, but i also found myself editing out names of logos that i have a problem with...
So, do I deidentify myself? or create myself deliberately without a shadow?
The foucodian panoptican is fully functioning here.

actor net working

Using bubbl.us, thanks to a link on mindmapping and tracing connections on
mashable.com
A piece of free social software that lets me trace connections. Posting this edition, lets me demonstrate the starting phase of data collecting post ethics, in this research performance. You can move it to centre it, increase by zooming in... My posting it is more to keep a chronology going (as per Latour's suggestion of notebooks for different purposes).

How to do something worthwhile and have fun doing it

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feeling used

Insidious use of product placement on my blog!
i just noticed the product placement on my weather pixie today, apple logo on her tshirt and carrying, i think, a clamshell apple ibook. Just as well i like apples, but am still feeling mildly used....
If other companies i do not have an affinity for, start dressing her I will have to revisit our friendship.