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What is the role of emotions in scientific research? What is the role of the researcher's emotions in the relationship with research participants and in the data collection process? How does one deal with the emotions of the people taking part in the research? What attention does one give to emotions in the understanding of the problem one intends to investigate and in the methodological approach adopted?

This workshop intends to create a space where we can slow down to talk, reflect and exchange experiences regarding to these and other questions. Talk to find new meanings, to foster a critical look over the dominant perspective that science is based mainly or exclusively on rationality.

The workshop is based on the methodological proposal of Conversational Learning (Baker, Jensen, & Kolb, 2002; see also Koning, 2009), as a methodology of learning from experience, in which feeling, reflecting, thinking and acting are phases of a cyclical process of learning and (re)construction of knowledge.

The conversation will take place in a dialectical relationship between the sharing of experiences and the confrontation with “challenge-texts”, which allow the participants to problematise, substantiate, extend or reconstruct their ideas. In a dialectical movement between emotion and thought, “from the inside out” and “from the outside in” (Baker, Jensen, & Kolb, 2002).

It is also important to reflect on the object of emotional involvement, while for the researcher it is about his/her research, for the research participants it is about the object of the social work/struggle/social action they are carrying out. How does this create (mis)alignments and compromises on both sides?

Conversational Learning, as a dynamic that structures group conversation, also constitutes a useful/appropriate methodology for studying the dynamic effects of social interaction on the beliefs, attitudes, opinions and feelings expressed by people in interaction. On the other hand, the confrontation with “challenge-texts” may lead to sensitization, to awareness, to a more critical consciousness which seeks transformation, constituting also an action-research methodology.

We will start by experiencing the methodology, talking, reflecting and sharing experiences around the relation between emotions and scientific research, and we will end with a systematisation and reflection on the methodological proposal.

NOTE 1: The workshop is limited to 25 participants, accepted on a first-come-first served basis
NOTE 2: If you wish, you can contribute with a short “challenge-text” (experience, author's quote, etc.) of no more than 500 characters, to be sent to rodadesaberes@ces.uc.pt.
 

Workshop organised under the Methodologies Series "Roundtable of Knowledges" | Session facilitated by Raquel Ribeiro and  Cristiano Gianolla (CES) | Contact: rodadesaberes@ces.uc.pt

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This activity will be conducted via Zoom, with compulsory registration