Greetings, IGDORE, I take the opportunity to follow up on a related discussion (On Language and peacebuilding) - Sometimes a research interest is triggered by a personal event, or a personal emotion. But should scientific inquiry be able to remove the subjective bias and crate objective frameworks of reference?. This reflection relates initially to the the benefits and value of using non violent language in communication in general. When it comes to research however, the ability to create not only an objective viewpoint but also using a suitable language for doing this, so that a researcher learns how to avoid writing their own feelings and emotions in the communication describing their research. From a research viewpoint, could writing one’s own emotions into the communication describing their project, could result in lack of scientific validity of the arguments. Is that so? (discuss?) (Reading 1. Emotions as the New Ethical Turn in Social Research – Items 2) The Place of Emotions in Academic Research on JSTOR
The Area piece addresses reflexivity, the methodology that captures personal experience as an intentional component in research design. But I think that the Mertonian norm of “disinterestedness” is probably an outdated idea that requires reconsideration and refinement to meet our current understanding of social and cognitive sciences. The current trend is to give context to our work, and to do that, we must ask why anybody should care about our meticulous efforts–indeed, why do we care ourselves?
Most basic research really is kind of boring when you look at it on the page. But once you get the PI in the room to talk about it and answer questions, that’s when it starts seeming like an amazing project that could change our understanding of whatever they’re talking about. I am truly objective about the distance of some far off galaxy, and I really need the passion of the Webb Telescope astronomers to sell me on it. If I hear some news bit that the Webb team just identified the farthest galaxy ever recorded, I tend to register that piece of information as just another metric in the day’s news. But when I hear those astronomers gushing about deep time and the shape, color, and smell of space on Science Friday, I start caring enough to stop what I am doing and dig a little bit on the other Web.
We’ve been working under Merton for the better part of a century, and like most norms of that time, it’s more about gatekeeping than rigor. Back then, organizing the world according to one’s own worldviews and slapping one’s name on it was considered discovery, so I wouldn’t waste too much ink defending your decision to abandon a half-baked idea from a long-dead academic. Instead, I advise that you design approaches that declare and account for the contribution that emotions make to your work. Aside from reflexive methodology, you can also discuss it in the Background of your pre-pubs and Discussion section of your published results. You can also use a project journal, such as Jupyterbook, to track your emotional intelligence to insights about findings throughout the project lifecycle. That in itself would represent an advancement in reflexive design, but would probably not be included in a peer-reviewed publication. I think it would be refreshing to see somebody document how they deal with “bad” findings (and serendipity, too); normally, the disappointment of producing negative results is not addressed at all. In Merton’s time, scientists just had a gentleman’s agreement to turn a blind eye to dark data and sweep it under the rug. Mustn’t embarrass the academic!
Thank you Merc Nice to read you on this forum I d love to see how to use Jupyterbook in ways other than to write code. Please give us a demo, if you can
re You can also use a project journal, such as Jupyterbook, to track your emotional intelligence to insights about findings throughout the project lifecycle. That in itself would represent an advancement in reflexive design, but would probably not be included in a peer-reviewed publication
Good idea! I’m a bit busy at the moment, but let me think about it and catch back up later this summer.