Embodied ways of knowing value and centre the materiality and experientiality of the human body in the practice of inquiry. The researcher (and their bodied knowing) is often neglected or deliberately omitted in scientific traditions that focus on cognitive or computational modes of analysis. What is potentially lost? What can we gain by reminding ourselves, as researchers, how we know through our bodies?

Join us for this RMIT Masterclass. Participants will investigate how mind-body connection and multisensorial attunement can inform research processes across sciences and humanities.

Agenda:

Through discussion and experimental exercises, participants will gain an introduction to experiential tools grounded in theoretical approaches that centre and reinvent the materiality of human body.

10:00-11:30 introduction, exercises
11:30-12:00 discussion
12:00-12:30 reflections on practice
12:30-1:30 lunch and discussion

This is NOT a dance or theatre class nor yoga/meditation💚... No particular experience required.

This Methods Masterclass is part of an RMIT series sponsored by the Digital Ethnography Research Centre and R&I’s Enabling Impact Platforms for Social Change and Design and Creative Practice. This workshop is co-facilitated by Drs Lisa Dethridge and Tamara Borovica, experts from the School of Media & Communication and the School of GUSS, respectively.

Let's flip the coin of research methodologies, from the side facing theories, concepts and disembodied data to the side facing our most simple yet profound way of knowing. Let's investigate human (and more-than-human) embodiment - in its full complexity. We may discover aspects of our individual and collective experience that are buried, hidden in the body and obscured by the cognitive bias of language and scientific thought. This fun masterclass is for researchers seeking a fresh perspective on the emotional, experiential and embodied doings of research.

Your facilitators for the masterclass will be:

Dr. Lisa Dethridge is a transformative designer/author/producer working toward a human-centred approach to Ethical and Responsible Artificial Intelligence. She has produced and exhibited media arts; dance theatre and entertainment projects internationally and facilitates sprints and change-making for organizations focused on sustainable and responsible innovation. Peer of the Australia Council for the Arts. PhD New York University in Media Ecology.

Dr. Tamara Borovica (she/her) is a creative artist and an early-career researcher at the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT. Tamara’s research focuses on psycho-social approaches to trauma, health and resilience and the intersection between creative practice, embodiment and individual and societal health. Her expertise is in embodied and arts-based methods for transformative research and human-centric design. She is co-convenor of HASH Arts and Creative Practice for Wellbeing thematic group and member of Social Equity Research Centre at RMIT.

Note: event was originally scheduled for October 10, but has been moved to October 31.

Embodied Ways of Knowing - Remembering our Human Body when Doing Research