2006-04-11 DailyWorkNotes

Finally put together some ResearchThoughts outlining my initial ideas for my research project.

Haven't posted my daily notes for ages - oops. Recently I have been reading Bateson's Steps To an Ecology of Mind; Sturrock & Else's Colorado Paper, and looking at lots of papers on children's geographies.

This is really interesting me at the moment. I hated geography at school! But this stuff is cool. It's going to be really interesting to look at children's use of space and to bring geographic and psychogeographic perspectives to my existing playwork background perspective on children's play.

I'm not sure about the psychoanalytic approach that Gordon Sturrock brings; I mean, I don't exactly disagree with it, it's just not helpful to me with my existing biases and prejudices. I'm sure there is a valuable healing role for playwork, and I really dig the theoretical approach Sturrock and Else bring with their analysis of the play frame, play drive, play cues and the role of the playworker, and the dangers of adulteration.
I really love the idea of a ludic ecology.

I'm just not so sure about all the primitive Freudian stuff, the mythic consciousness and the sort-of Buddhist take on consciousness. But actually most of the paper, in fact virtually all of it, is really rational and sensible when I actually read it! There's a load of stuff in psychotherapy that sounds like nonsense but Sturrock and Else have managed to make it really grounded and useful.

Edith Cobb on the other hand...

What else have I been doing? Yesterday I had a good meeting with WR about the 160 module which I will be helping to update. That will be a big job for me for the next month or so.

I have been ploughing through a load of Clifford Geertz' writings in ethnography. Pretty cool stuff, if occasionally hard to get your head around. But then I'm not trained in that field or anything like it. But I have been recommended to take an ethnographic line in my approach to my research. At the moment I prefer the biological and psycho-geographic approach. WR seemed to consider biological and ethnographic approaches to be non-complementary in some way - I didn't press her. I suppose in many ways, and in many people's opinions (not saying WR is one of them), biology and culture are pretty opposite ends of a spectrum. But of course I'm with Dennett and Pinker and see culture as a biological artefact.

So I'm happy to see ethnography as biology. What are the differences between ethnography and anthroplogy? Or does anth. subsume ethno.?

anthropology ethnography gregorybateson playwork psychotherapy