Tag: visualising

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PhD Thesis Visualising ESL

Visualising the PhD journey: once you start looking for metaphors…

A little heads up on a current (soon to be revealed) WIP: I’m visualising the PhD journey using digital paintings, maps and interactive story-telling. It’s an exciting project and I can’t wait to share it when it goes live. This means that I’ve been thinking about metaphors and ways of storytelling. And it turns out that once you start looking for visual metaphors, they turn up everywhere.

My own personal metaphor for undertaking the PhD was pretty mainstream, despite being invaluable. For those who don’t know, I’ve been climbing a mountain whilst doing the PhD. Passing the viva was effectively reaching the summit, but on the way were a whole bunch of added extras, from being caught in an avalanche (loss or illness), so taking shelter in a cave while storms raged (fighting my university for access and not feeling able to go on), to getting stuck in a swamp and totally lost (doubting that my work was valuable, relevant, or particularly insightful).

Whatever was happening in my life at the time, there was a convenient metaphor for it, and one that helped me put my problems into a tangible frame where I could appraise their significance (objectively), figure out a plan, and then refocus on my goals. I think this is why I found the metaphor so helpful, and why it was it one of the keys to me completing the PhD after 8 years of hard slog. Having that mountain in the distance meant that, regardless of what happened along the way, I never lost sight of my goals and was able to appreciate the storms for what they were; temporary blips that would not permanently interrupt my progress.

Sky: Children of the Light

While my forthcoming project is designed, painted and written by me as a visual representation of my metaphorical journey, I stumbled upon a different version of the metaphor… scrolling through the latest games on Apple’s App Store, I came across a game called “Sky: Children of the Light”. Here are some screen grabs from the App Store, mainly so that you get an idea of the beautiful artwork in this game.

Screen grabs from “Sky: Children of the Light” on Apple’s App Store. The game, created by Thatgamecompany, combines a simple story with stunning graphics and visuals that also work well as a metaphor for other life journeys.

The aim of the game is to get to the top of the dangerous and dark mountain (sound familiar?) and this is best achieved by working altruistically and making friendships (also familiar – no one ever finishes a PhD by working alone). The graphics are undeniably beautiful, and the challenges include decoding glyphs and meeting ancestors to gain their knowledge as you go along (also, very relevant for a PhD journey, although less literal when those ancestors are in book form in a library).

The blurb about the game states that “with your trusty candle, you’ll illuminate the world bit by bit, pushing back the darkness and igniting beacons to open doors to new areas”. This might be a little poetic, but is a comforting thought to those of us trying to develop new knowledge that might just make the world a better place, one day.

“You’ll meet dozens of ancestors who will teach you new expressions – like setting off a dazzling fireworks show – or offer items like capes, hairstyles and musical instruments”. While no one offered me a hairstyle throughout the PhD, learning from ancestors, mentors and peers is a central part of the process. Despite the journey being solitary and even lonely at times, the most valuable resources are the people around you – your cheerleaders.

“Although you can play Sky alone, the experience truly comes to life when you connect with friends, family or strangers. Can’t reach a hidden cliff? Signal to a passer-by who has a more powerful cape and perhaps they’ll take your hand and escort you up. The desire to help others is woven throughout the game’s fabric.” There have been many occasions when I’ve benefitted from the generosity of others in my field. Progress doesn’t happen through sheer slog in the library, but from friendships, kindness, and solidarity. And some beautiful metaphorical scenery.

Categories
3D interactive methodology Visualising ESL

ESL in 3D (the first steps)

What if we could visualise frames and concepts in 3D and move around to see the impacts of those frames?

With the help of a little 3D modelling software called Blender, this is possible.

How can we visualse a frame – literally and metaphorically?

This is the very first step towards making a 3D version of my thesis. There is a lot more to learn, and a lot of work to be done, but the possibilities here are extremely exciting. Currently, this is compressed and uploaded as a GIF, meaning that the sequence is shorter, the frame rate is reduced and there’s quite a lot of noise. But you get the idea… what if we can visualise the frames, concepts and theories that we talk about in the social sciences? How could the visual assist in exploring how we do, talk, and think about law and economics?

Categories
acoustic jurisprudence economics Embeddedness methodology methods Research Visualising ESL

Diving in to an ESL frame…

This mini animation, with sound, asks what the reintegration of the economic, legal and social might look like and sound like.

This is relevant for each and every interaction that occurs – there are always legal and economic aspects to every interaction, but we tend to forget that talking about the legal and economic in isolation from the social is a metaphor, or fiction.

How might we think about integrating legal, economic and social phenomena conceptually?

How could frames or lenses like ESL help us to remember the social basis for any legal or economic aspects of interactions?

Categories
Development economics PhD Procreate Research Uncategorized Vignettes Visualising ESL

Making research relevant: Meet Ann, Pol, and Lil

One of the biggest challenges for anyone working on conceptual issues is making their research relevant to everyone else. After all, the first question any researcher should be asking themselves is “who cares”? This is not the passive-aggressive, somewhat depressing question that it could be, but rather a positive nudge to any researcher to bear in mind why you’re doing the research, and who is going to benefit from it.

My research is primarily conceptual, but has three main audiences: academics engaged in sociolegal research, policy makers working in international development, and a lay audience seeking more innovative responses to the financial crisis. Using designerly approaches to make the research tangible and visible, this post puts a face to each of these groups. Let’s meet each in turn.

Introducing Academic Ann…

Academic Ann

Ann works at a university as a law lecturer. She is researching the importance of the legal system for any country wanting to attract foreign investment. She is planning a trip to Sri Lanka – her target country for research – and is going to talk to government ministers, business people and investors, and local communities around investment zones. But how should she frame her research? How can she hold the interests and views of such a wide range of people in one frame at the same time?

Introducing Policy Polly…

Polly has been working at an international development institution for several years now. Her job requires her to use existing research to make policy recommendations for foreign governments, international agencies and charities. She wanted to work in development to reduce poverty, but has become disappointed by the lack of tangible impact her work has, and has been wondering whether there is an alternative approach to understand the causes and ways of addressing poverty.

Introducing Lay Lillian…

Lay Lillian

Lillian is not an academic. Nor does she work in development or policy. In fact, she is a retired dinner lady and pillar of her local community. She doesn’t know much about “the law” or “the economy”, but she cares about her community, and knows that something isn’t working properly. The economy crashed in 2008, and a decade of austerity was rolled out. She was told that there was “no more money” and that budgets across the country needed to be cut. But while her community saw centres close and support disappear, she noticed that the rich continued to get richer. So, she began reading about the crisis, and noticed that there were a lot of people arguing that we need to “do” economics and law differently. Lillian is an interested bystander, and wants to know more.

Why the characters? Personae can be a useful tool for exploring research concepts. We can see the relevance of concepts and frames for our own lives. They can make the conceptual visible and tangible.

Each of these will be developed in future posts, and will each bump up against the limitations of the ways we currently do, talk, and think about legal and economic phenomena. Each of them will then try an ESL lens using embeddedness and then moving beyond embeddedness. Through their eyes, we can explore the benefits and drawbacks of reframing in different contexts and for different audiences.

In the meantime, these characters are by me, using ProCreate on an iPad. They are rough first drafts, and the characters will be developed along with their stories. Copyright 2020.

Categories
economics Procreate Research Thesis Visualising ESL

Visualising interactions in colour

What if we visualise interactions according to their type? Legal aspects of interactions are red, economic are yellow, and social or other aspects are green.

The first GIF here imagines what interaction patterns might look like if we use yellow for economic phenomena, red for legal phenomena, and green for social, political and/or power-oriented phenomena. They are presented separately, performed between actors represented by the red dots.

The following GIF asks what this might look like when these phenomena occur simultaneously.

The colours show the various phenomena as they are simultaneously performed through interactions.

It is worth noting though that by using colour to separate out the economic, legal, and social phenomena, we are using “embeddedness-based” ESL lenses. In other words, we are accepting that legal, economic and social phenomena are separate.

As I argue elsewhere on this blog, if we really want to talk about, think about, and do the econolegal better, we need to move beyond embeddedness.

Future posts will explore what this might look like.

Categories
Procreate Research Visualising ESL

Visualising interaction patterns… interactively

How can we visualise repeated interactions between a small group of actors?

The GIF above visualises a simple pattern of interactions between a small group of people. The latest update of the ProCreate app on iOS brings with it animation tools and some really exciting possibilities for exploring what econo-socio-legal interactions might look like.

In the GIF, each red dot represents a person. Each time they interact with another person, the link between them is highlighted. Interactions repeat, overlap, or cease.

Stay posted for updates of what happens if we pan out… or add a soundtrack asking what econo-socio-legal interactions might sound like!