Abstract:
At the outset, I dis-claim any knowledge or understanding what-so-ever, which is a peculiar stance to take for a nurse educator immersed in the language of “expertise,” “best practices,” and “champion” healthcare offerings. I do not dis-claim knowledge to absolve my professional accountability, nor do I absolve myself of being responsible for my text, rather I apprehend this journey of sentience and embodiment as an infant experiencing and learning the world in which it finds itself. It is only through a naïve, furtive play that I am able to proceed, through the difficulties and paradoxical tensions of constructed identities, without complete paralysis. As I play and ponder my way through multiple methodologies, a representational form emerges between repetitious moments of contemplation, remembering lived experiences, and reflecting on philosophical discourses. The difficulty or tension lies in the provocation of identities, as nurse, educator, and mother, among many other stances and formulations. Each identified discourse compels me to challenge my gaps in new ways. As I explore, I unravel the forms of text that are various incarnations of narrative reflection. The choices I make are about inquiring through concept, form and identification, which I both uniquely challenge as an individual and hold in common by being socially and historically situated. Each transition, contemplation and provocation is hopeful and volatile. I am always attuned to how it is that I live the spaces between each, unknowing my “self” as my otherness, letting go the ideal/real and becoming the (/) through a relational pedagogy.

Committee members

Dr. Anthony Clarke, Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, UBC
Dr. Carl Leggo, Department of Language and Literacy Education, UBC
Dr. Anne Bruce, School of Nursing, University of Victoria

Joanna Szabo's Background

Joanna’s journey began as a first generation Canadian in an intergenerational and interethnic home. She obtained a baccalaureate degree in Nursing through the University of Calgary, where she became entrenched in specialized and critical care approaches to health challenges. Joanna continued her graduate studies in Nursing at the University of Victoria, expanding her horizon and depth into the disciplinary landscape of nursing. As a doctoral student in Education in the Centre for Cross-Faculty Inquiry at UBC, she found herself inspired by the interstices in inter/trans/cross-disciplinary spaces. While the majority of her nursing career was spent in healthcare facilities, the important transition she has made into an expanded view of “community” has lead her to take a deeper interest in dominant discourses through post-structural lenses. Joanna likes to spend her time imagining how it is that we already are community—as relational beings—and live inquiry—as a reflective and necessarily ethical engagement—amidst the tensions of our identifiable social situatedness. Joanna’s current interests include: living inquiry, narrative inquiry, complexity thinking, collaborative curriculum development, editing and publishing, exploring the discourses surrounding ecology, technology and globalization, and the prospect of wellbeing in academic communities. Joanna especially enjoys spending quality time with her family.

I hope the project will build an awareness that because global citizenship enjoys multiple and diverse definitions, it is open to our own interpretation and participation. As global citizenship becomes an increasingly popular term, there is also an opportunity to critically reflect on how we are being involved through the definitions of others and how/if we would like to identify with the term. This exploration of global citizenship might be used to connect with ways we have, are and aspire to participate in all levels of society.
The project has two platforms, an online blog and a future plan to include the project in the CONTACT photography festival in Toronto, in May 2009. I invite everyone to visit and contribute to the blog.

Committee members

Dr. E. Wayne Ross, Department of Curriculum Studies
Dr. Mary Bryson, Director, Centre for Cross-Faculty Inquiry in Education

Yasmeen Ahmad's Background

I am from Toronto, Ontario and have also lived in Schomberg, Ontario, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia , Bali, Indonesia, and Vancouver, British Columbia. My academic background includes a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Toronto, a T.E.S.L. Certificate from the Canadian Cooperative for Language and Cultural Studies, a Bachelor of Education from York University and now a Master of Education from the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Cross-Faculty Inquiry in Education. I have been an educator for thirteen years, teaching English as a Second Language for eight years to adults, youth and children in Canada and Indonesia. I have spent the past four years working as a public school educator in Ontario and British Columbia, Canada. My experience at CCFI has provided me with the opportunity to think critically about the notion of global citizenship and to inquire into how this term is used in diverse formal, informal and non-formal teaching and learning environments. My final online project and graduating paper reflect my interest in facilitating creative and critical learning environments that provide spaces for people to speak for and represent themselves.

They live in tipis, dress in meticulously crafted self-made costumes, take Indian names, participate in Powwow culture and enact ceremonies — apply North American Plains Indians’ knowledge to everything from how to survive in the wilderness to new age spirituality to global environmentalism. And that’s where the story begins – with Karl May, the most widely read author – more so than the Bible – in Central Europe.
As Tomas King put it in his 2006 Massey Lecture, “So, whose story is it, anyway?” An essential part of this story belongs to the First Nations performers Andrea met and interviewed at the Karl May Festival, where they were performing dances, telling stories, and talking about their culture — well aware of the ambivalence their communities back home have about their activities in Europe. But despite some hesitancy, they still agreed to be interviewed and bring a highly-charged issue into the context of their own lives.
The Green College audience was troubled and fascinated. There were many questions about the subject matter, how it was presented, the experience of spending an evening listening, and the radio-documentary-feature as a living inquiry research paradigm. Weeks later, the interdisciplinary community at Green College continues to ask questions and for an opportunity to listen again and refer to Playing Indians in their own work.
Scholars are interested in both the innovative research paradigm as well as important subject matter. They comment on it as a model of transdisciplinarity that intersects with their own scholarly work and field research practices -- and with their life experience as Canadian residents or international students trying to understand Canadian First Nations land and other issues about appropriated indigenity and the construction of nature.

Andrea Dancer Background

Andrea Dancer is a poet, scholar, radio documentarian, soundscape recordist and doctoral candidate. She completed her MFA at the University of British Columbia’s Creative Writing Program in Poetry (with George McWhirter) and Radio Documentary Feature Production (with Don Mowatt) and is advancing to candidacy in a doctoral degree at UBC’s Centre for Cross Faculty Inquiry in the Department of Education (Co-supervisors: Lorraine Weir and Karen Meyer, Meryn Cadell).
Her writing is published in "Canadian Literature", literary and scholarly journals such as Qualitative Inquiry, Art Education, across disciplines such as the Soundscape Journal, anthologies and chapbooks. Her radio documentary features have aired on CBC’s Ideas, NPR, and internationally (forthcoming: Prague Radio Vltava).
She is currently working on spoken word / soundscape compositions for the Deep Wireless Radio festival and the World Forum of Acoustic Ecology Conference; a poetry manuscript entitled The Sonorous Forest at the Edge of the World; and, a radio documentary-feature on the Central European fascination with Plains Indians, Woodcraft, and Tramping -- all part of her doctoral thesis which focuses on the shifting soundscape of a Bohemian Forest.
She is a board member of the Canadian Association for Sound Ecology, and affiliate representative in the World Forum of Acoustic Ecology (WFAE), She lives between Mayne Island in the Gulf Islands of British Columbia, Canada; a multi-disciplinary scholar community at Green College, UBC, and a seventeenth century farmhouse in the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands in the Czech Republic.
Visit her website for a closer look at living and working as a transdisciplinary artist-scholar.

Co supervisors

Dr. Bonny Norton, Department of Language and Literacy Education
Dr. Samson Nashon, Department of Curriculum Studies (Science Education)

Committee member

Dr. Maureen Kendrick, Department of Language and Literacy Education

My background

I come from Mbale district found in Eastern Uganda. I have an undergraduate degree in science education (Islamic University in Uganda) and an M.A in Science Education (UBC). Before undertaking my studies here at UBC (M.A. and now PhD), I taught biology for four years at a high school in Uganda. I began my PhD in 2005 at CCFI. The centre provided me with an opportunity to innovatively develop an interdisciplinary approach to research. I have drawn on insights from both science education, on the one hand, and critical literacy, on the other, pushing the boundaries of both disciplines to investigate how best science teaching can include critical social issues, hence the title health literacy. I have often sought to understand how best to include social issues in science education so that learning becomes a meaningful process that speaks to real life challenges faced by young people in Uganda today.

Publications

Refereed Publications
Mutonyi, H (2007): Analogies, Metaphors and Similes for HIV/AIDS among Ugandan Senior Three students. Alberta Journal of Educational Research
Mutonyi, H., Nielsen, W., & Nashon, S. (2007): Building Scientific Literacy in HIV/AIDS education curriculum: A case of Uganda. International Journal of Science Education
Mutonyi, H & Norton, B. (2007): ICT on the Margins Journal of Language and Literacy Education.
Norton, B. & Mutonyi, H (2007) “Talk what others think you can’t Talk” HIV/AIDS clubs as peer education in Ugandan schools. Compare, Journal of comparative education
Kendrick, M & Mutonyi, H., (2007): Meeting the challenge of health literacy in rural Uganda: The critical role of women and local modes of communication. Journal of Diasporic, Indigenous and Minority Education (DIME Journal)

Refereed Conference Presentations Mutonyi, H & Kendrick, M (2007). Ugandan secondary school adolescents’ visual representation of HIV/AIDS. Paper presented at the American Association of Applied Linguistics April 2007.
Mutonyi, H., Nashon, S. & Nielsen, W (2006). Building scientific literacy in HIV/AIDS education: A case study of Uganda. Presented at the American Education Research Association conference. April 8th-12th 2006. San Francisco, U.S.A.
Mutonyi, H., Nashon, S. & Nielsen, W (2006). Interpreting student understandings of HIV/AIDS and their impact on biology pedagogy in Ugandan classrooms. Presented at the National Association of Research in Science Teaching. April 3rd – 8th 2006. San Francisco, U.S.A.
Mutonyi, H. Nashon, S. & Nielsen, W (2006). Sexuality and HIV risk among adolescents in Eastern Ugandan schools. Presented at Canadian Social Science and Education Conference, May 2006. Toronto, Canada. Mutonyi, H & Kendrick, M (2006). Ugandan secondary school girls’ visual representation of HIV/AIDS knowledge. Presented at Canadian Society of Studies in Education Conference, May 2006. Toronto, Canada.
Mutonyi, H. and Norton, B. (August, 2005). Scientific literacy in teaching about HIV/AIDS in Uganda. Presented at the 4th Pan-African Reading for All Conference: Literacy for Sustainable Development, Swaziland.
Mutonyi, H. and Norton, B. (July, 2005). Gender and literacy ecology of AIDS education in Ugandan schools. Presented at the International Association of Applied Linguistics, July 25- 29th Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.
Kendrick, M., Mutonyi, H., Jones, S., and Norton, B. (May, 2005). Multimodalities and health literacy in Ugandan schools. Paper presented at the Canadian Society for Studies in Education, London, Ontario.
Mutonyi H. Nashon, S.M and Nielsen, W (April, 2005). The nature of analogical, metaphorical and simile-like expressions for HIV/AIDS among Ugandan Senior Three biology students. American Educational Research Association (AERA), April 10-15th.Montreal, Quebec.
Mutonyi, H. Nashon, S.M. and Nielsen, W (April, 2005). Perceptual Influence on Ugandan Senior Three biology students’ understanding of HIV/AIDS. National Association of Research in Science Teaching (NARST), Dallas, TX, April 4-7th.