Since I edited the book Rhetorical Machines with my colleague, John Jones, I have kept a close eye on news bits that relate to the computational aspect of human-machine interactions. Recently, I came across the robot priest - a robot meant to teach visitors about Buddhist principles in the Kodaiji Temple in Kyoto. I haven't had the chance to see this robot in person, but I will post updates in the near future if I find the funds to actually go and visit the temple.
When I first saw the machine in the video, my first reaction was to respond to it as a scholar, but then I resisted this impetus and tried to reflect on how I related to this as a human, as a person who would go there and meet this machine in a place meant for spirituality. What I find troubling with this encounter is not the idea of using a robot for this purpose. I actually appreciate the opportunity to learn about Buddhism in an interactive way. I am not bothered with the looks of it either; in fact, I appreciate that the makers of this robot do not hide the wires and the mixed matter of a human-looking face with the other bits and circuits that make the machine. I find the design of the machine quite interesting in this place where questions of matter and physicality need to be negotiated with other types of matter: spiritual, soul-related, untouchable, indescribable. What I do find troubling, instead, is the testimony of the human priest who so confidently argues that now the teachings of Buddha will move beyond each individual human priest at the temple. The robot will not perish and can continue the legacy of teachings beyond the bodies of each priest who will guard the temple. Maybe I am nostalgic, but what is actually magic about temples is the mix of perishable and non-perishable matter, the meeting points of clothes and human flesh and the immensity and un-measure-ability of what the place stands for and calls in. I think I simply don't like to see a robot in a temple not because it is a machine but because the human priests em-bodies the teachings of Buddha in a different way, in a more paradoxical and confrontational way, making the gap between human-ness and holiness more tangible and immediate. I guess I would have to experience the encounter with the robot priest in person to better understand the many complex relationships between wires, flesh and soul. Interesting times ahead!
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The ELTRA project that my colleague, Dr. Sally Zacharias, and I are currently conducting is now entering its second stage. After interviewing our participants on their language practices, we have also collected work that our students developed over the course of their Master's studies at the University of Glasgow, in the TESOL Programme. Sally and I have also had conversations with our participants about translanguaging and other ideological frameworks that our teaching practices are built on.
Last week we met with some of our participants and had the pleasure to share some of our preliminary findings with them. It was interesting for the whole team to reflect on the metaphors we use to talk about our languages. Do you think about languages as "tools", "containers", or "fluids"? This is one of the questions that we pondered on and, as we move forward, the research team hopes to develop a rich repertoire of metaphors that teachers can reflect on to strengthen, revise and change their practices. When working with multilingual pupils and students, these metaphors are important because they can convey important messages about how we value different linguistic backgrounds in our classrooms and the wider communities we all engage with. On January 16th, Claire Bynner and I organized a workshop for Early Career Researchers at the University of Glasgow on New Directions in Research on Multiculturalism, Interculturality and Migration. The idea of the workshop came from a recent event that both of us attended in Santiago de Chile in October 2017, where we tackled similar themes at the international level. At the event in Chile, we were struck not so much by the theoretical frameworks that researchers were building on, but by the methodological range of tools and approaches currently applied in new contexts where migration flows take new turns and engage different groups of people and communities. From social cartography to arts-based methods, participatory and performance-based methods, autoethnography, latent growth curve analysis and World café method, we learned about the many directions research can take in contexts of migration and multiculturalism. The themes addressed in some of the projects included: health and well-being (e.g., mental health trajectories among migrant groups, migrant and indigenous women’s birthing patterns and rights), group dynamics (e.g., using sports for social inclusion), enacted ideologies (e.g. Islamophobia and multicultural education), migrant activism and linguistic discrimination. We were happy to meet colleagues from universities across the globe under the umbrella network of Universitas 21.
Claire and I gathered some of the themes we found interesting and challenging for the current research landscape and we presented them at the workshop for Early Career Researchers at the University of Glasgow that we organized. An expert group of practitioners from the Scottish Refugee Council, BEMIS, and Glasgow City Council joined us to share some of the latest research projects in which they are currently involved. Together with other researchers from our university, we identified themes and issues that currently need to be addressed in relation to various communities in Glasgow, Scotland and the UK. Practitioners advised us to move away from a focus on services and access to structures of support - both being areas that have been heavily investigated by researchers and policy makers. More importantly, future research would need to move beyond this level of analysis and explore the actual lives of people in various communities. Fewer research projects have looked, for instance, into the daily life dynamics of communities while taking into account what people actually do in their day-to-day activities, outside pre-set groups or organisations. Another important suggestion was related to the migrants’ need for independence. Instead of framing research based on models of “needs” and “lack,” emergent research would also have to turn towards migrants’ desire to be and act independently. Many other important topics, such as employment, national identity, skills and well-being emerged during our conversations. Taken together, all these issues seem to call for a potential shift in research that we may see in upcoming projects. Claire and I were happy to receive positive comments at the end of the workshop: practitioners and researchers had some very concrete and productive discussions about potential research projects. The event seemed to touch on a sensible chord as well: the need for more opportunities to engage early career researchers and practitioners in the first stages of project-development. Such brainstorming sessions align what researchers identify as significant areas of analysis with what practitioners experience in their own contexts of working with communities in different locales. Claire and I have a learned a lot by organising this event and we hope we will see more similar ones at our institution and elsewhere. In this project, supported by the British Academy (2017-2019), I am part of an international team that will investigate a core problem in emerging economies of strengthening the urban engagement role of universities. We will look at ways in which universities contribute to developing sustainable cities in the context of major social, cultural, environmental and economic challenges facing the global south. The project seeks to strengthen the capacity of universities to contribute to city resilience towards natural and human-made disasters. Examples of urban engagement include supporting the development of physical infrastructure, ecological sustainability, and social inclusion (including issues of migration and/or forced displacement). The project assesses the extent to which universities in six countries (Iran, Iraq, the Philippines, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe) respond to the demands of society and how through dialogue with city stakeholders this response can be enhanced. The Glasgow team will collaborate with partners in emerging economies and will adopt a locally-informed approach.
Challenging the Translingual Turn: Student-Teachers' Perceptions, Practices and Networks
This project, supported by the British Council, explores the potential and limitations of the translingual turn for TESOL student-teachers who move from their MA studies into the workplace. Now that we have established that language learners are always engaged in translingual practices, to what extent do teachers actively engage within the same translingual framework in their classrooms? The research will explore student-teachers' language ideologies at the beginning of their postgraduate studies, their changing perceptions and practices during their studies, and the take-up and implementation of new pedagogies when they return in their home countries. The project will map out pedagogical changes, expectations, and practices collected from student-teachers, as well as other direct stakeholders in the students' working contexts (such as programme coordinators, supervisors, and other language professionals). Findings from this research will indicate possible ways of supporting a translingual agenda to make a more sustainable impact on local stakeholders who may be less familiar or open to a translingual approach. |
Lavinia HirsuProject updates, research musings and other news on my research activities Archives
December 2019
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