[-empyre-] Practice in Research

[Adrian Miles]

On Wednesday, 23 January 2013 at 3:28 AM, Kirk Woolford wrote:  
> In one of the first statements of this discussion, somebody pointed out the fact that PhD students in the Arts and Humanities tend to be older than those in the Sciences. This is generally because in the Arts and Humanities, the PhD (or other form of doctorate) is seen as a mark of the highest level of research achievement, whereas in the Sciences, it is viewed as minimum starting point or, as I was humorously told by a Professor of Computer Science, "a licence to practice". In the sciences, the PhD is generally awarded when a researchers is deemed ready to begin his or her research career. We appear to have somehow mixed up the notion of a practice-based PhD with that of a Habilitation, or what I understand of the Docteur d'État and Docent, and we require very high levels of achievement rather than simply demonstrating that the candidate is capable of functioning as a professional researcher. Perhaps that's the root of the debate. If we can't agree to guidelines or even boundaries for creative research, how can we agree that we've trained a student to a required level? In some disciplines, such as Management Studies, a PhD is a bound collection of 3 peer-reviewed journal articles. Would anybody grant a PhD for 3 articles in Leonardo or Performance Research?
>  
These are good observations and comments. In the arts and humanities too many supervisors and examiners do treat the PhD as the magnum opus, rather than the exercise you complete to prove and demonstrate that you can then begin a valid research career. It gets hypostatised as this enormous thing which, as everyone tells you, once completed rarely is read again by anyone. What many don't tell you, and perhaps don't recognise, is that it also bears little relation to what you will actually do as a researcher after you have a PhD!  

In the context of earlier discussions this month, for those doing a PhD it is sometimes wise to recognise the validity of what Kirk has argued here and realise the PhD is the thing that gets you into the 'club', and then once in you can make as much disruptive noise and advocate for change as you like. But just like being an artist, you have to be recognised by others in that role first to have agency within that community.  

--  
an appropriate closing
Adrian Miles
Program Director Bachelor of Media and Communication (Honours)
RMIT University - www.rmit.edu.au
http://vogmae.net.au/



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