The main theme that I wanted to discuss was what happened at the Artistic Research Conference in Stavanger in late October and ethics.
I described, as good as I could, what happened in Stavanger. How I got questions like…but what about fascism?, and me answering that the democratic society allows its citizens to be fascists, to believe in conspiracy theories, and to hate politicians and the establishment and so on. One of the main findings in my latest reading (Därför demokrati by Åsa Wikforss, English translation might be Therefore Democracy) is that in a democratic society everyone are allowed to have all types of opinions, but I don’t have to (nor do I want to) spread these ideas in my project. My understanding of this important because it helps me understand how to handle situations where people tries to interact with the project, but for the wrong reasons (For example the Scribbler man that wrote on the poster in 2019).
I described the three-part division on ethics in my project. The parts
1. Who’s allowed in?
I don’t have to allow all people in because of the specific participants agenda.
Connected to what a learned by reading Åsa Wikforss.
2. How can participants, their contributions and personal data be safe? What can be shared? How should data be protected? How to reach an informed concent with the participants?
3. How can I show/shed light on all participants in the project? (Reciprocity and reward)
We discussed all this, and Matt had some thoughts:
– I should read Roxanne Leitao’s thesis. She’s been working a lot with ethics and is also critical to how ethical problems should be handled and university ethical processes.
– How do you ensure that people know what they are doing in a space for ambiguity?
– The ethical dilemma also lies within the power structure—I (Ingrid) am there as a researcher/institution.
– How do I manage reciprocity and reward to the participants?
I also asked Matt what a critical practice is. To answer that I got a set of questions back (:-)).
– What’s my ontological position?
– What informs my critical lens?
– What is my model of critique? DEFINE IT!
(Help people find some kind of inner voice? Expand people’s horizons? Reach more pluralism?)
So, what is ontology and epistemology?
Matt defines it like this:
Epistemology is what can be known.
Ontology is our personal relationship to knowledge.
(Flash out your subjectivity? Adding value to something?
We discussed if I should visit the policy lab where Nina Cutler used to work in London. And we concluded with that being a good idea.
So, what I should do now is WRITE. Matt suggested I’ll write the structure of the reflection (chapters,headlines, sub-headlines, and a little bit of text under all headlines). Important stuff is; my reflection in how the dynamics work on the experience of participation (ok, I really doesn’t remember/understand perfectly what we talked about here, Matt). And how to turn my learning into something to share (the readers should learn something). Bring th contribution and effort together.
Matt’s suggestion was that I’ll write three chunks of text until March, and that we (Ingrid, Matt, Åse) discusses and takes a decision in early March in if I should show my practical work in August/September or later.