12.07.2014 Views

KARNEVAL I KLASSRUM –KUNSKAP PÅ HJUL

KARNEVAL I KLASSRUM –KUNSKAP PÅ HJUL

KARNEVAL I KLASSRUM –KUNSKAP PÅ HJUL

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

In my own definition of clown, the comedic perspective is overarching, that is to<br />

say to observe life with humor. The clown is the trusting child who easily<br />

expresses his/her emotions through tears or laughter. The tragic and comedic go<br />

hand in hand and are accommodated in every clown. The appearance of a clown<br />

can vary even if the make-up and costuming in this particular study were found<br />

to have a starting point in the framework of the Auguste clown, the Whiteface<br />

clown, and the Tramp/Hobo or Bag lady clown, which I describe in the<br />

dissertation.<br />

Method<br />

My study has a hermeneutic phenomenological research approach. Hermeneutics<br />

considers human beings to be meaning-seeking creatures. Phenomenology views<br />

human beings as being intentional. It pertains to how individuals perceive<br />

themselves and the surrounding world and what meaning they place on their<br />

actions. The approach is appropriate in that this study seeks the importance of<br />

meaning-making knowledge. The phenomenological recognition in the research<br />

individuals’ life-world is central to this dissertation.<br />

In the performative perspective, deconstruction is a manner of seeking that<br />

which hides itself behind a text’s various parts, in the various individuals acting.<br />

To paraphrase Jacques Derrida: someone writes in the sand, what is written<br />

blows away and something new is written. At the same time, in a philosophical<br />

perspective, it is one’s own frame of understanding that is set against the text or<br />

phenomenon being studied in order to bring about learning. Derrida expresses a<br />

central concept, namely “la différance” (Derrida, 2006), which means difference<br />

or different. Tonje Kolle, Ann Sofi Larsen, and Bente Ulla (2010: 71) have in<br />

their book “Pedagogisk dokumentasjon - inspirajon til bevegelige praksiser”<br />

(Pedagogic documentation – inspiration for mobile practices) suggested that the<br />

different can be interpreted as a space in-between that which is and that which<br />

can be, a sort of hesitation's-in-between-space, or the difference that means a<br />

difference.<br />

Abduction is used here and entails “…continuous and extremely fast interaction<br />

between observations and ideas and between parts and the emerging whole”<br />

(Starrin & Svensson, 1994: 26). During the research, through a switch between<br />

theory and empirical data, both theory and empirical data are reinterpreted in<br />

light of one another (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2008: 56). The abductive research<br />

logic is open to deep structures and theoretical patterns (ibid., p. 57).<br />

My research is inspired by ethnography yet is not ethnographic in the orthodox<br />

sense. Despite that it is classroom research, my sojourn in the studied class has<br />

occurred during what is in reality a short period of time, unlike the typical<br />

ethnographic study which often involves long stays in the environment being<br />

studied. Alvesson and Deetz (2000) call such unorthodox ethnography partial<br />

ethnography. The advantage of the method is that it via its detailed descriptions<br />

means the situation is focused on and makes interpretations possible from<br />

several more points of view than the one that the researcher chooses.<br />

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1945/2006) incorporated the corporeal in<br />

phenomenology, that is to say focused on the living body. Human beings<br />

191

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!