Model of Reality vs. Reality of Model

I wrote this in response to some comments  I've read on facebook, concerning the election of Mr. Obama. These conservative friends expressed a fear over Obama's election, mostly because they said he was economically "naive" for not allowing the freemarket, free reign. Of course, the assumption being made by these individuals is that the "free market" model is reality, and Obama's approach ignores economic reality. While the latter, no doubt, has  a small grain of  truth, the commenters fail to examine the mote in their own eye. All economic models of reality are words about reality and not reality itself.

(I am deliberately writing this in the abstract. As Foucault once said, "Let the police worry if my papers are in order".)

In one of Mark Twain's lesser known stories about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, the duo find themselves loss somewhere in the midwest floating in a hot air balloon. Both Huck and Tom are intently examining a map, while looking for landmarks, trying to discover just where they are. Finally, after some time, Huck states with great certainty,

"We are in Illinois!"

"How do you know that, Huck?" responds Tom.

"Well, look down there! Everything is so green!" says Tom.

"What does that have to do with where we are?" Tom asks in confusion.

"Well, look at the map... Illinois is all green. If we were in Indiana everything would be pink."

An amusing story and we can all chuckle over Huck's naive understanding of maps; we all know that a map's purpose is simply to help us with navigation and not a detailed picture of geographic reality. Maps serve their purpose well as long as we understand what their purpose and assumptions are. As sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu has pointed out, an unsimplified geographic map would be useless since it would be the exact same size as the geography it was mapping.

As amused as we are with Huck's "naive realism", don't we all do the same thing with our own political economic "maps" of reality. We fail to critically examine our own "maps" purpose and assumptions and take it as a total picture of reality. Of course, we are very good at pointing out the problems with the political economic maps of others... we see them riddled in "unreality"

Social Fields

I wrote this as an email to a colleague this morning.

I've been thinking about this article all morning and think it might be useful to expand on Bourdieu's insights in relation to our own situations at ****.

Bourdieu has noticed in his own research that all social fields (e.g. **** faculty or the world of beekeeping) are arenas of social conflict and struggle where the various species of capital (e.g. economic, social, cultural, and symbolic) are _not_ the only things at stake. The winners in these struggles not only recieve the lion's share of capital, they are also given the "authority" to define what the "rules of the game" are in further struggles. Unlike a game of baseball or football where the rules stay the same no matter who wins or loses a game, the rules do not stay the same after each contest in a social field, but are changed by the winners to some degree to favor their own interests in further struggles. As I see it, this explains alot of what has happened over the last 15 years at ****.

The faculty at **** is a dominated subfield of the **** institution as a whole. The administration has "consecrated" certain members of the faculty as "leaders", either through promotion to administrative positions or as "informal", behind the scenes, leaders. Overall, these "consecrated" individuals have some characteristics that distinguish them from others:

a. (Bureaucratic Technicians) They do not engage themselves in critical/creative scholarship in their own disciplines beyond the reading of journals and textbooks. Sometimes, this is lacking.

b. They possess an incredibly extreme Protestant Work ethic. They see hardwork and busyness as a virtue in and of itself, whether that hardwork actually leads to any significant increase in "outcomes". In systems theory language, they focus more on "outputs" than on "outcomes".

I would add one other thing. For various career trajectory reasons (e.g. being an **** alumni, being hired by administration without an outside search) these individuals demonstrate an extreme loyalty to **** as an institution. While we all love SMU, many of us have other countervailing loyalties that keep us from totally "drinking the Kool-aid". I cannot ignore the debt I have to the Jesuit and the Anabaptist traditions that influenced me through college. I cannot simply ignore the critical thinking skills I've acquired from 30 odd years as a sociologist and simply say "Oh, conflict theory doesn't apply to ****. We don't have conflicts and we all have the same interests."

So, these are the qualities of those who have won, at this point, the social struggle in the faculty and so, these are also the qualities you and I are held to and judged by: (a) bureaucratic technician skills, (b) Working hard but not smart and (c) uncritical loyalty. Those of us who can't or won't live by these rules are at a disadvantage during further struggles and are easily labeled as "obstructionists", or "anti-lasallian" if we do voice objections. Even worse, like me, the institution can simply ignore them.

Making a Virtue out of Necessity

As I continue my ethnographic work on beekeepers, I have concluded that one idea of Pierre Bourdieu seems quite useful. Bourdieu notes that the necessities and realities produced by one's position in an objective social space are often framed as virtues by those occupying the position. (When the fox can't reach the grapes, he says they were probably sour anyway!) So, the faculty member, whose academic background and/or lack of ability forces him/her to forego scholarly research and work for an emphasis on teaching, will construct a rationalization making teaching a greater virtue than research.

Bourdieu takes this one step further however. The winners in social struggles, not only accumulate capital, they also get the right to define their "virtues" as the rules of the social game. So, for example, if these "virtuous" teacher-professors dominate an academic institution, they often impose this "virtue" on others as the "standard" all good academics must follow and rewards are distributed accordingly.

Sabbatical Proposal Revised Again

I received some comments from the Faculty Development Committee concerning my sabbatical proposal and have revised it. (see below) I am going to let my department chair read this before I send it back to committee since he didn't understand why any changes were called for in the first draft to begin with.

____________

Sabbatical Proposal for Spring Semester 2009
Wesley E. Miller
Department of Social Science
September 2007


1. Synopsis


I teach the interdisciplinary course called Global Issues and every semester I am faced with the same problem: How do I engage students to consider important macro-structural global issues without losing them? An understanding of the problems and benefits surrounding economic and environmental globalization is a must for any informed citizen, yet for many students, these issues are too abstract and distant from them. Their eyes glaze over with each discussion of IMF policy, or the impact of neo-conservative ideology. I do well enough on my evaluations so I could ignore this problem and coast to retirement, but I have this gut feeling, not found in any of the “positivist” assessment tools used to evaluate the course, that my students are just not getting it. Developmentally, my students are very concrete thinkers, so I am left with the problem of getting them to somehow ponder very abstract concepts and processes.

One approach to my dilemma is to get my students to cultivate what we sociologists call “the sociological imagination”: the ability to perceive that one’s inner and day-to-day life is very much connected to the larger macro-structures we live within (Mills 1959); the concrete mundane problems that we can easily grasp are very much related to those larger global issues and policies which we see as distant. From this pedagogical approach, students would start by focusing on an engaging, concrete activity and slowly broaden this focus during the semester, learning how this activity is impacted by a complex web of larger national and global structures that seem so distant to them at first.

After doing some initial reading last summer on the complex issue of “Colony Collapse Disorder” (CCD) amongst honey bees (Apis Mellifera), I think that a Global Issues course that centers on honey bees as the proverbial “canaries in a coal mine” would help students understand and engage in the global issues that impact their own lives as well. The problems (e.g. CCD, organic vs. conventional husbandry) that beekeepers and their bees face are not simply biological issues, but are influenced by macro structural forces as well.

The effective construction of any such course will demand a retooling on my part. A course with this focus will demand knowledge outside my disciplinary expertise. Besides a hands-on understanding of day-to-day apiculture I will need to become more familiar with global economic and political policy, ecological issues, agribusiness practices, and the cultures and philosophies in the beekeeping world.

In sum, then, I request a sabbatical leave for spring semester 2009 in order to pursue the following objectives:

1. To understand how the day-to-day lives of honey bees and beekeepers are impacted by the larger macro-forces produced by globalization.

Underlying this objective is the theoretical orientation in sociology called “structural constructivism” (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1988). Like ‘normal’ social constructivist theory, this approach recognizes that as individuals interact they collaboratively construct “typifications” or representations of reality (Berger and Luckmann 1967). Structural Constructivism argues that the “social materials” used in the social construction of reality come not only from the external social environment of individuals, but that these materials systematically vary with the structural/historical position of the actor. For example, a middle class, 21 century, US citizen from the Midwest will produce a different social construction than an upper class, 19th century, Irish citizen from Cork simply because their social/geographical/historical coordinates have placed them in different environments where the “social materials” at hand are different.

The chief advantage of this approach in both sociological research and problem-based pedagogy is that it avoids the false opposition between human agency and structural determinism. Actors “improvise” and create but always within the limits of the structures at hand; they internalize the external, while externalizing the internal, all with some “improvisational” control on the part of the agent. As they externalize they also reproduce, and creatively adapt to some degree, the structures they originally internalized.

As a proponent of the Conflict paradigm in sociology, I tend to shy away from the use of systems theory. From my viewpoint, systems theory tends to overly exaggerate the integration of cultural artifacts and the functional interdependence of societal structures, while casting conflict and cultural contradiction as “abnormal”.

2. To distill the above information into concepts and activities that would effectively engage students in understanding global issues.

Admittedly, at this point, I only have vague notions of what a “bee-focused” Global Issues course might look like. I would like to explore the possibility of combining a problem-based pedagogical approach (Delisle 1997) with a grounded theory-based (Glaser and Strauss 1967) research methodology (see more about grounded theory under objective 3). In problem-based pedagogy, students learn not by reading or listening for the teacher’s “correct answers”, but by creating and answering their own questions. The grounded theory methodology would provide the students with an environment to do this in, not simply as students, but as research collaborators elaborating on and clarifying the work I’ve already begun in my ethnography through their collection of data from new theoretically chosen comparison groups. Course activities might well include experiences interviewing beekeepers and observing different apiaries, content analysis of internet “bee” forums and email lists, attending to the current research on bee management and bee ‘problems’ in various apicultural publications, examining economic, environmental and political policies that might impact bees and/or beekeepers, and hands-on experiences in bee management and care. All these experiences would be recorded and reflected upon by each student in a detailed journal of field notes.

While the sociological perspective of the instructor will no doubt be a guiding influence here, the course should offer an interdisciplinary (rather than “other disciplinary”) perspective on “bees in a global context”.



3. To produce an ethnography of the beekeeping world including those more “esoteric” movements like “biodynamic beekeeping” and “apitherapy”.

Methodologically, this ethnography will be guided by two meta-sociological approaches: reflexive sociology and grounded theory.

In a nutshell, reflexive sociology (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992) recognizes that the same types of social forces that impact the social constructions of ordinary actors in day-to-day life also impact the scientific observer and her instruments when doing research and analysis. The scientific method does not provide the observer with a “magic bubble,” giving the researcher a “god-like viewpoint” on reality, thus exempting her from the influences that her social/historical position exerts on her. The reflexive sociologists rejects the “futile attempts to eliminate the effects of (and on) the researcher” (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1983:17), but instead calls on the scientific observer to examine those effects in order to produce a richer understanding of the phenomena under study. Ignoring these social forces or claiming to control them doesn’t make the knowledge produced any more valid.

This proposed sabbatical project could serve as an institutional model for doing reflexive research. Whether we are discussing our positivist approach to assessment or Bloom’s taxonomy at SMU, we lack any general acknowledgement or analysis of reflexivity in the knowledge we produce. To paraphrase Schuman (in Hammersley and Atkinson, 1983:17), artifacts (or numbers) are produced in the minds of their socially positioned beholders.

The ethnographic study will also be informed by what is called Grounded Theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). According to Glaser and Corbin (1990: 21) “the grounded theory approach is a qualitative research method that uses a systematic set of procedures to develop an inductively derived grounded theory about a phenomenon”. Through “theoretical sampling” and strategic comparisons, the researcher produces substantive theories that fit the data observed well. The beauty of such a methodology for problem-based pedagogy is that the theories produced are always open-ended, allowing others (both students and faculty) to clarify and possibly add to the theory through their own systematic observations, strategic comparisons and analytical clarifications.


2. Activities Description

The following is a tentative timeline of the activities I propose to do during this sabbatical. The spring semester was chosen since it coincides with the beginning of beekeeping season in Minnesota.

a. January

1. Library research with a focus on bee biology and apiculture.
2. Begin interviews with apiculturalists of all types. It will include interviews with large and small-scale intensive honey producers, apiarists who practice “organic” or “sustainable” beekeeping, and backyard beekeepers who have one or two hives.
3. Attend the American Beekeeping Federation annual meeting.

b. February

1. Library research and interviewing with a focus on the philosophical “esoteric” side of beekeeping. This includes examining the ideas of Rudolf Steiner, Gunther Hauk, and other members of the “biodynamic” movement. Also, time will be spent studying the ideas of Charles Mraz and other proponents of “apitherapy”. This also might include attendance at an American Apitherapy meeting and a visit to the apiary founded by Charles Mraz in Burlington, Vermont.
2. Attend the Organic Beekeeping Society meeting.

c. March

1. Library research on global agricultural policy and practices.
2. Take a short course on apiculture at the University of Minnesota extension from Dr. Marla Spivak, breeder of the “Minnesota Hygienic” bee.
3. Prepare two hives: one using conventional Langtroth boxes and frames, the second using a Kenyan Top Bar hive.
4. Continue interviews


d. April and May

1. Begin construction of a Global Issues syllabus using materials collected thus far. Syllabus will include readings and activities in and out of class.
2. Participant observation conducted at local apiaries of different sizes and philosophies. Observations will go beyond simply husbandry concerns to attitudes towards bees and global concerns.
3. Add bees to the two hives set up last month.
4. Library research with a focus on global environmental issues that may impact bees.


e. May to Summer

1. Begin the writing and continue research for the ethnography.
2. Summer management of bees.


3. Contribution Description

a. Professional Development – Sociology has a long tradition of ethnographic studies describing the subcultures of occupations. Back in the 1920s, Robert Park (1983) analyzed the social world of news reporters. In the 1950s, Howard Becker (1963) examined the lebenswelt of Chicago jazz musicians. More recently, French sociologist Loic Wacquant (2006) did a participant observation study as an apprentice boxer. These studies looked underneath the manifest, official descriptions of these occupations found in organizational flow charts or career services materials to a complex world of meanings and rituals. This ethnographic examination of the world of beekeeping is my first attempt to add to this body of materials.
b. Academic Program – I think that the activities of this proposed sabbatical, brought into the classroom environment, will enhance our students understanding of global issues. If other faculty find this approach engaging and/or successful, it might inspire others to approach other courses in this manner.
c. Sharing Results with Other Faculty- Besides doing a post-sabbatical presentation on some relevant issue growing out of my research, I will be keeping a daily blog which will be accessible to faculty, students, and administration during and after the sabbatical. This blog (“Canaries in a Coal Mine”) will document my sabbatical’s day-to-day activities and discoveries. The use of a blog in this fashion is something rather unique.

5. Assessment Description

Four types of evidence will be used in assessing this sabbatical project.

a. Scholarly Publications- I will produce some body of work that will be submitted either in article or book form. I can envision the research producing a number of possible publications in sociology, pedagogy, environmental studies, and apiculture.
b. Presentation at the Midwest Sociology Convention.
c. I will use the comments left on my blog to assess the accuracy and clarity of what I am discovering. I will also share the assessment of my work to my blog readers as well.
d. I will produce a new syllabus for my Global Issues course that uses honeybees as a concrete focus for examining the problems and benefits globalization.


Works Cited


Becker, Howard S. 1963. The Outsiders. New York: Free Press.

Bourdieu, Pierre and Loic Wacquant. 1988. “Social Space and Symbolic Power”. Social Theory 7:18-26.

Bourdieu, Pierre and Loic Wacquant.1992. Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago.

Delisle, Robert. 1997. How to Use Problem-Based Learning in the Classroom. Alexandra, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Glaser, B. and Strauss, A. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago: Aldine.

Hammersley, Martyn and Atkinson, Paul. 1983. Ethnography: Principle in Practices. New York: Routledge.

Mills, C. Wright. 1959. The Sociological Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Park, Robert E. 1983. “The Natural History of a Newspaper”. The City: Suggestions for Investigation of Human Behavior in the Urban Environment. Edited by Robert E. Park and Ernest W. Burgess. Chicago: University of Chicago.

Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. 1990. Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Wacquant, Loic. 2006. Body and Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer. Oxford: Oxford University.