Knowledge creation in an application domain : a hermeneutic study

In this paper we discuss a special case of knowledge creation (pattern mining) that was studied using a hermeneutic circle. Hermeneutics assists the oscillation between tacit and explicit knowledge through the process of knowledge qualification, combination, socialization, externalization, internalization and introspection. Our investigation of the knowledge creation process lead to the enrichment of the knowledge creation framework proposed by Wickramasinghe and Lichtenstein, allowing us to reflect on activities and aspects of knowledge elicitation across an application domain and involving practitioners who do not communicate directly.

Creativity and the working artist/teacher : the relationships

The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand the relationships between creativity and the working artist/teacher employed by an art college. The topic emerged from my job as an instructor at The Ontario College of Art which was used as the primary data resource and provided the highest caliber of professionals to chose from. Existent data were used to facilitate the study generated by the research of Cawelti, Rappaport, and Wood (1992). The data were generated by a group of 5 faculty members from The University of Northern Iowa, recognized for their expertise in the arts (a painter, a poet, a sculptor, a novelist, and a photographer). They were asked to respond to the following statement: "In as much detail as you like, list the things that you did, thought, or felt the last time you created an artistic product. II Cawelti, Rappaport, and Wood (1992) produced three models of the creative process, each building on the previous, with the resultant third,being in my opinion, an excellent illustration (text/visual) of the creative process. Model three (Appendix D) presented a "multi-dimensional view of the creative process: time, space, observatility, and consciousnessll (p. 90). Model three utilized a visual mapping device along the bottom of the page linked to text segments above. Both the visual and the text were interrelated so that they harmonized into a comprehensive "picture." The parti'cipants of this qualitative study were asked to consider model three from their professional perspective as artist/teachers. The interpretive sciences directed the methodology. The hermeneutic circle of continuous reflection from the whole to the part and back to the whole was an important aspect of the data analyses. Four members of the Foundation Department at The Ontario College of Art were the key participants. A series of conversational interviews was the primary source of data collection, this was augmented by observation, fie,ldnotes, and follow up telephone interviews. Transcripts of interviews were returned to participants for reflection and the telephone was used to discuss any additional -points raised. Analysis consisted of coding and organizing data according to emerging themes. These themes formed the basis for the narrative stories. The text of the narrative stories were given back to each participant for further comment. Revisions were made until both the researcher and the participants felt that the stories reflected reality. The resultant whole was critiqued from the researcher's perspective. The significance of this study was discussed as it pertains to the working artist/teacher and areas in need of further study are pointed out.

Le cercle du comprendre et la conception heideggérienne de la philosophie dans Sein und Zeit

La conception heideggérienne du « cercle de la compréhension » exposée aux §§ 31 et 32 de Sein und Zeit est bien connue et a souvent été analysée, notamment par Hans-Georg Gadamer dans Vérité et méthode (1960) et Jean Greisch dans son commentaire de Sein und Zeit (1994). Mais on a trop peu vu que la théorie du cercle herméneutique déterminait aussi la conception heideggérienne de la philosophie. Notre recherche s’efforcera de le montrer et d’expliquer pourquoi il en est ainsi. Au plan de la méthodologie, nous proposerons, en nous inspirant des commentateurs les plus autorisés (Greisch, Gadamer, Courtine, et al.), un commentaire serré des §§ 31 et 32 de Sein und Zeit, sans oublier le § 63 où Heidegger souligne lui-même la « situation herméneutique » de sa propre enquête, ni le § 68 où se trouve mise en évidence la dimension temporelle du cercle de la compréhension. Nous tâcherons ensuite de montrer en quoi ce cercle affecte la conception heideggérienne de la philosophie telle que présentée au § 7 de Sein und Zeit et dans d’autres textes de Heidegger tels que Les problèmes fondamentaux de la phénoménologie (GA 24).

Narrative inquiry and auto-ethnography: Interpretive approaches to research

Hermeneutic phenomenology informed two qualitative methodologies used in my doctoral research: narrative case studies and auto-ethnography. Through these methodologies I investigated the phenomenon of place and identity in visual artistic practice. Four narrative case studies of four artists were developed using experience-focused narrative inquiry and thematic analysis. Auto-ethnography was used to investigate the phenomenon of place and identity within my own practice as visual artist. This involved analysis of my artworks that encompassed place and identity and writing from different contexts of my past. Rather than relying on memory recall. This became textural writing in the phenomenon rather than describing what I already knew. This enabled me to challenge conventional ways of telling my story (big stories) and produced “small stories” from which new insights could be interpreted. The insights gained from my auto-ethnography in turn assisted me to encourage story telling to find the small stories of my artist participants.

Não há você sem mim: histórias de mulheres sobreviventes de uma tentativa de homicídio

The murder-suicide (H / S) has been defined as a shocking crime in which a person takes the life of another and then kills himself within 24 hours. Set up as a gender violence, because men are in majority, the killers and the women victims. This study aims to understand the meanings of the experience of a H / S, from women who have survived this act. This study sets up as a hermeneutic phenomenological research, based on Heidegger`s ontology. We interviewed three survivors of H / S, whose narratives allowed to approach the senses present in their lives. The interviews were transcribed and interpreted in accordance with the hermeneutic circle, as proposed by Martin Heidegger. From the interviews of research participants perceive that these women have built their senses in stocks, represented the family foundation and the presence of a husband and children. This project that moved their lives toward the construction of modes-of-being. We noticed the presence of historicity constructing meanings for the existence of these women. We found reports of an experience of loving relationships characterized by strong jealousy, with the presence of fantasies of betrayal, and marked by a careful affective relationship that put them in the position of object possession of his companions. Reflect that such caring restricted their existence being-for-husband. So the senses that moved their stocks, which aimed his ways existential, was the creation of a family, a reference to their lives, to live a love, and care for the children. Therefore, beyond the already known aspects in studies on violence against women, which made these women continue to choose this relationship was the sense that they had for their existence. It is hoped that this study will contribute to the construction of a new look on violence against women, taking as a basis the Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenology

The Experience of Dis-placed Communities: Mis-placed Educational Opportunities

Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) has a long history of out-migration and internal migration between communities in coastal areas within the province. Resettlement programs initiated by the NL government between 1954 and 1975 accounted for the internal migration of approximately 30,000 people from 300 communities. Modern-day encounters with these abandoned communities are relevant to understanding the loss of place and home, as significant numbers of students in NL today are affected by migration. This dissertation is a phenomenological study of the experiences of educators as they explored the remnants of an abandoned community. The participants of the study were six experienced public school educators with teaching experience at the primary, elementary, intermediate, and secondary levels. The study took place in eight abandoned communities located on the western shore of Placentia Bay, where mainly the remnants of Isle Valen, St. Leonard’s, St. Kyran’s, and Great Paradise were explored. Data collection consisted of two personal interviews and one group hermeneutic circle, with the aim to answer one fundamental question: What is the experience of educators exploring the remnants of an abandoned community? Data in this study are represented by lived experience descriptions, which were interpreted hermeneutically and guided by four phenomenological existentials: temporality, corporeality, spatiality, and relationality. The most prominent themes emerging from the educators’ anecdotes were determined to be attunement, tension, and intensity. The results of this study not only provide deeper insight into communities abandoned through resettlement; they also reveal the significance of place in our lives, place as heuristic teacher, the pedagogical power of place, the need for local, meaningful place-based experiences in a curriculum as lived, and their potential for furthering personal and educational insight no matter where in this world we live or dwell.

Story Circle : Digital Storytelling Around the World

Story Circle is the first collection ever devoted to a comprehensive international study of the digital storytelling movement. Exploring subjects of central importance on the emergent and ever-shifting digital landscape-consumer-generated content, memory grids, the digital storytelling youth movement, and micro-documentary- Story Circle pinpoints who is telling what stories, where, on what terms, and what they look and sound like.

Development of a novel rolling-circle amplification technique to detect Banana streak virus which also discriminates between integrated and episomal virus sequences

Bananas are hosts to a large number of banana streak virus (BSV) species. However, diagnostic methods for BSV are inadequate because of the considerable genetic and serological diversity amongst BSV isolates and the presence of integrated BSV sequences in some banana cultivars which leads to false positives. In this study, a sequence non-specific, rolling-circle amplification (RCA) technique was developed and shown to overcome these limitations for the detection and subsequent characterisation of BSV isolates infecting banana. This technique was shown to discriminate between integrated and episomal BSV DNA, specifically detecting the latter in several banana cultivars known to contain episomal and/or integrated sequences of Banana streak Mysore virus (BSMyV), Banana streak OL virus (BSOLV) and Banana streak GF virus (BSGFV). Using RCA, the presence of BSMyV and BSOLV was confirmed in Australia, while BSOLV, BSGFV, Banana streak Uganda I virus (BSUgIV), Banana streak Uganda L virus (BSUgLV) and Banana streak Uganda M virus (BSUgMV) were detected in Uganda. This is the first confirmed report of episomally-derived BSUglV, BSUgLV and BSUgMV in Uganda. As well as its ability to detect BSV, RCA was shown to detect two other pararetroviruses, Sugarcane bacilliform virus in sugarcane and Cauliflower mosaic virus in turnip.

A participant’s response : recreating the circle with We Al-Li: a program for sharing and regeneration

Personal reflections on the We Al-Li Program

Full circle : the future of sustainable fashion manufacturing in New Zealand

Many fashion businesses in New Zealand have followed a global trend towards inexpensive off shore manufacturing. The transfer of the production of garments to overseas workers has had consequences for the wellbeing of local businesses, fashion designers and garment makers. The gradual decline of fashion manufacturing also appears to have resulted in a local fashion scene where many garments look the same in style, colour, fabric, cut and fit. The excitement of the past, where the majority of fashion designers established their own individuality through the cut and shape of the garments that they produced, may have been inadvertently lost in an effort to take advantage of cost savings achieved through mass production and manufacturing methods which are now largely unavailable in New Zealand. Consequently, a sustainable local fashion and manufacturing industry, with design integrity, seems further out of reach. This paper is focussed upon the thesis that the design and manufacture of a fashion garment, bearing in mind certain economic and practical restrictions at its inception, can contribute to a more sustainable fashion manufacturing industry in New Zealand.

Full Circle : a collection of prototypes

This exhibition engages with one of the key issues facing the fashion textiles industry in terms of future sustainability: that of the well being of fashion industry workers in Australia and New Zealand (people). This collection formed the basis of my honours dissertation (completed in New Zealand in 2008) which examines the contribution that design can make to sustainable manufacturing; particularly design for local production and consumption. An important aspect this work is the discussion of source, the work suggests that the made in China syndrome (in reference to the current state of over-consumerism in Australia and New Zealand) could be bought to a close through design to minimize waste and maximize opportunity for ‘people’: in this case both garment workers and the SMEs that employ them. The garments reflect the possibilities of focusing on a local approach that could be put into practice by a framework of SMEs that already exist. In addition the design process is highly transferrable and could be put into practice almost anywhere with minimal set up costs and a design ethos that progresses at the same pace as the skills of workers. This collection is a physical and conceptual embodiment of a source local/make local/sell local approach. The collection is an example of design that demonstrates that this is not an unrealistic ideal and is in fact possible through the development of a sustainable industry, in the sense of people, profit and planet, through adoption of a design process model that stops the waste at the source, by making better use of the raw materials and labour involved in making fashion garments. Although the focus of this research appears to centre on people and profit, this kind of source local/make local/sell local approach also has great benefits in terms of environmental sustainability.

Desire in the winter’s pale : a hermeneutic interpretation of the experience of sexual desire in older age

The experience of sexual desire in older age remains an aspect of the ageing experience about which little is known; much less understood. To address this gap in knowledge, the purpose of this hermeneutic interpretive study was to describe and understand how sexual desire is experienced in a sample of 11 purposively selected men and six women aged between 62 and 92 years. The study was based on audio-taped interviews with participants who were willing to discuss their experiences of sexual desire. The study was guided by the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur through the process of interview transcription to the interpretation of the experience of sexual desire in older age. Participants’ narratives were analysed for emergent themes using a twofold methodology inspired by Ricoeur. The narratives provided first-hand accounts of the experience of sexual desire in an ageing context. Findings revealed that participants identified as a sexual being regardless of age and availability of sexual partner. Findings also revealed that sexual selfhood was acknowledged through physiological response, that sexual desire could be influenced by socio-cultural factors and experienced within an ethical relational domain. Major themes explicated during the study included the experience of health and wellbeing, experience of sexual response, experience of sexual inadequacy, being socialised and re-entering the social scene.