News
Research as Performance
21 April 2005
| Byline: | Louise O'Brien |
|---|---|
| Source: | Humanities Research Network |
Should research grants be given on the basis of papers and citations - or are there better and fairer ways of measuring quality and impact of research in the humanities, arts and social sciences?
On April 26th, 27th and 28th, Jennifer De Leon will perform in a dance work for which she is also the choreographer, a performance which will simultaneously fulfil the requirements of a Master of Health Science degree (accompanied by a 45,000 word exegesis), a work for which three of its spectators will also be its examiners.
Still point (at the still point: there the dance is) is thus a performance which is also a direct and assessable product of research, equivalent to any thesis, conference paper, or journal publication (see the HRN events calendar for more details). Yet the acceptance of performance as research is slow in coming and beset with difficulties for institutions structured by traditional disciplinary boundaries and textually-based measurements of research activity and outcomes. For such institutions, the difficulties of supervising and assessing such research outcomes as exhibitions, performances, or even creative writing, are structural as well as pedagogical, and their failure to accommodate such cultural and creative work leaves its practitioners unable to access the same funding and facilities available to researchers who work within traditional and academic paradigms. A 1995 discussion paper produced by the Performance as Research Subcommittee of the Australasian Drama Studies Association (ASDA), Performance as Research/Research by Means of Performance, describes the emerging contest: 'The landscape,… is crisscrossed with the territorial clashes of discourse, power/knowledge and practice within and between 'the academy' and 'the profession'.'
That paper goes on to characterise the difficulties for those caught between two modes of thinking:
Choice of research direction and methodology is of great importance. Even though it is so new as almost to lack a coherent body of literature of its own, this field of enquiry springs to life already marked with the difficulties and dissensions that characterise the contexts within which people who want to 'practise and research' must perforce operate.
Yet, as the ASDA paper also notes, 'the differences of interest and perspective' which make up this debate, while 'internally unstable', also constitute 'evidently productive relations.'
The Tertiary Education Commission is nibbling at the edges of such issues, and is currently seeking submissions on the PBRF auditing framework for research outputs and staff eligibility: see HRN news for more details, and to contribute to a submission.
Across the Tasman, in recognition of the diversity of research and its outcomes in a sector as diverse as the arts and humanities - encompassing those who write novels as well as those who write about them, those who dance as well as those who study it - the Australian Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) is currently conducting a research project, commissioned by the Australian Government's Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST). They seek to identify new measures for research, and their potential effects on funding mechanisms. They formulated five key questions to ask whether research grants should be given on the basis of papers and citations - or whether there are better and fairer ways of measuring quality and impact of research in the humanities, arts and social sciences. See their website for more details: http://www.chass.org.au/
Jennifer De Leon - researcher, choreographer, dancer - answered these questions with reference to her own work and research.
CHASS: 1) Research outcomes in humanities, arts and social sciences take a wide variety of forms. In addition to books and scholarly articles, research may result in artistic works; film and multimedia works; policy reports for the public and private sector; opinion and analysis in the popular press and other media; and others.
Question 1: What are the implications of this diversity for any genuine assessment of the value of research in the sector?
Jennifer: Diversity is equally great challenge and great inspiration. The challenge arises in the fact that any new thing lacks known parameters and accepted criteria. Quite major questions and difficulties for the University through which I have done my Masters (AUT) were, for this thing that has never been done before - who should be the supervisors? Who the examiners? By what criteria is the work to be measured? Can it still be rigorous research when it goes outside the already-known and already-tested academic definitions of rigour?
Equally only through diversity can the already-known become greater than before. Expansion, insight, awareness and illumination - maybe even divine illumination - can occur only through allowing the diversity.
'Genuine assessment' takes place when the assessors (a)acknowledge the above, (b)hold fast to principles (accuracy, discipline, depth, presentation) that remain constant and (c)are able to humbly accept that there is wisdom that crosses boundaries.
CHASS: 2) Many measures already exist for assessing the quality of research, such as citation impact, and peer review.
Question 2: What forms of assessment of quality are most appropriate for humanities, arts and social sciences research in New Zealand?
Jennifer: Assessment for the humanities, arts and social sciences research is carried out by assessors. The answer to this question therefore must be to do with the people who are selected to be assessors. What is their experience: social, physical, academic, spiritual? What are the belief structures around which they build their lives? Who are their models and mentors?
Though we profess to evaluate objectively there is no assessment that is objective. The 'quality' of a thing is inescapably joined with the subjective opinions, emotions and (very basically indeed)! to the neurophysiology of the hippocampus and the amygdala and their connections to the higher cortical areas of the brain (d'Aquili, E. & Newberg, A. (1999). The mystical mind. Probing the biology of religious experience. New York: Fortress Press).
CHASS: 3) Assessing the "impact" of research in our sector is both more difficult and, arguably, more important than for research in the scientific disciplines. Beyond its impact in the academic world, humanities, arts and social sciences research may contribute to policy development; inform the public at large on issues of social and cultural concern; make scholarly, artistic and commercial contributions to the nation; and, through research-based education, shape the thinking of the next generation of Australians.
Question 3: How is the value of this impact best assessed?
Jennifer: Again I observe that assessment and valuing must be done by people. People within the community therefore who have shown and proven through their works and relationships that they are wise (beyond the smaller definition of 'clever') are the ones best to determine the value of any impact function. These people may or may not be publicly much noticed. In the end the value of anything is bounded by the calibre of the valuers.
CHASS: Question 4: How important is it to evaluate this impact, as opposed to simply evaluating "quality" in purely academic or artistic terms?
Jennifer: What are the criteria that determine 'impact'? Surely the nature and occurrence of 'impact' is ultimately a personal decision.
In my opinion evaluating impact has limited value. What is impactful today will be superseded tomorrow by that which has greater impact.
CHASS: 4) Humanities, arts and social sciences research is publicly funded from a wide variety of sources. As well as university block grants, and contestable research funding, research may be commissioned by government departments or the private sector. It can be funded through national, state and local bodies, from arts grants, to locally-funded community initiatives. Both the funding and the research itself tends to be jointly managed between the public and private sectors. Research funded in these diverse ways has equally diverse goals - and therefore, different measures of success.
Question 5: How is this diversity best captured in any set of measures of quality and impact?
Jennifer: If funding is diversely given then feedback from a diverse demographic must be sourced. The truest measures must be those which have been discovered through feedback from a wide diversity of individuals. Certainly the data gained through such feedback can be analysed to allow common threads to emerge, which threads can then contribute to some 'set of measures'.
