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15. Making Space in Composition Studies: Discursive Ecologies as Inquiry
- Utah State University Press
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15 m a K i n g s paC e i n C o m p o s i T i o n s T U d i e s discursive ecologies as inquiry Patricia Webb Boyd In the final chapter of The Making of Knowledge in Composition (MKC), published in 1987, Stephen North asks a question that has provoked much discussion within our field: “Is there any chance then for an academically full-fledged, autonomous, multi-methodological, knowledgemaking Composition?” (369). This question surfaced at a time when composition was trying to make a place for itself in the university. In 1987, composition did not have a clearly delineated identity as a discipline and was widely seen as a service arm of the university. Composition was the sad woman in the basement (Miller 1991), overshadowed by the resurgent interest in literary studies and its adoption of postmodern theories. Primarily viewed as practice—that is, the teaching of writing— rather than a coherent group of practitioners, researchers, and scholars, composition’s image in the university was not a shiny one. It is not surprising, then, that a key trend in composition at the time was for researchers and scholars to separate themselves from practice as inquiry. In order to validate their work in institutions that privileged scientific inquiry and departments that privileged literary theory, composition researchers and scholars insisted that the work they did produced the knowledge and that practitioners then applied the knowledge . When those outside the field of composition critiqued students’ writing abilities, those within blamed practitioners for not effectively using the knowledge that researchers and scholars had transmitted to them. Scholars and researchers did not consider the limits of their own research; rather, they argued that “practitioner inquiry had failed to produce knowledge adequate for the demands of teaching writing,” thus allowing scholars and researchers to shift the emphasis away from 284 TH E C H A N G I N G OF KN OWLED G E I N C OM P OSI T I ON “the shortage of adequate knowledge toward the problem of dissemination , of getting the Practitioners to use it, and use it properly” (North, 329). Thus, in a time when “power, prestige, professional recognition and advancement” (363) in the university were gained through scientific legitimation, composition scholars and researchers separated themselves so much so that we were “largely unaccustomed to entertaining the notion of practice as a mode of inquiry at all” (21). More than twenty years later, practice as a valued form of inquiry is, unfortunately, still challenged. In fact, “lore,” which North defines as “the accumulated body of traditions, practices, and beliefs in terms of which Practitioners understand how writing is done, learned, and taught” (22), has been increasingly devalued by the field as “what to do on Monday” kinds of information—not knowledge. North predicted that if practice as inquiry was not once again valued, the field of composition would be subsumed into either literary theory within the English department or into other disciplines like linguistics, psychology, or education . While composition has not dissolved, those in the field are still not comfortable with their identity within and outside the university, so much so that a good deal of our research has not moved beyond the questions North asked in 1987: “What exactly is this field called Composition? Where does it come from? How does it work? Where is it going?” (Preface). For North, the answer lies in the field’s valuing of multidisciplinary research methods—most importantly, the valuing of practice as inquiry. Some areas of composition studies have begun to recoup practice as inquiry in a way that shows its value to the field, the university, and the surrounding community. At the heart of ecocomposition and other place-based research is an embracing of practice as inquiry, but not to the exclusion of other methodologies. The kinds of research questions posed by ecocompositionists require significant interaction across the methodological communities within composition as well as across various disciplines like ecology, biology, cultural studies, and environmental rhetoric. The approaches to research that this community of inquirers takes combine methods of practitioners, scholars, and researchers. Through its multimethodological pluralism, ecocomposition research begins to achieve the goals North lays out for effective knowledge making in composition: “heightened methodological consciousness”; “methodological egalitarianism”; and increased recognition of and reestablishment of the validity of practice as inquiry (370–1; italics added). [18.191.21.86] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 21:39 GMT) Making Space in...