Stepping Forth to Discover the New World

Well no, Not really...

We are like the explorers and adventurers of old, setting out to the new world. However this is not the new world it is the world in which we already reside. Instead of a blank sheet of browned paper waiting to be filled with paths and the like, we already have many plotted paths and routes. It is important that we remember that these paths don’t always need to be replotted. In actual fact I am looking for the paths the have changed, or those that are overgrown, and those the are only a few yards longs which the peter out with unknowns lying beyond.

In module two we are mapping out our practices by planning an investigation into a small part of it.  To begin this I created some very brief and messy mind maps looking at my practice; what makes it up, and how one aspect will effect another, with many crossing and inter connecting lines, as paths cross on a map.

It is these paths that I have been trying to find those that are overgrown and unknown, and through the enquiry I will hopefully cut back the stray branches and hedgerow, hopefully with a little more care the and machete and bulldozer, but nonetheless by the end I hope to have extend the existing path and happily plot its new route. 

So any way by creating these rough maps I the saw where areas of uncertainty and unknowing, these are the areas that I want to look into further. The areas the stood out most to me were those around rest and that of the effects touring. From these large areas of my practice that I wish to know more about I decided to think upon the 'Little Wonders' approach mentioned in the Programme handbook and create lists of questions within each topic that I want to find out about, this is also mentioned in Doing Your Research Project by Bell (2010, p. 28).

Here I created a list for each area full of 'Little Wonders' and questions I want to learn more on. I think that I found more questions and wonders for the ideas of rest and sleep, I also just found that I was more interested in this area, I found questions and ideas would flow more easily for me. 

The next steps...

I will begin to search for literature around this area and the questions I have thought up, to both bring up some more questions and maybe give me ideas about which direction I can take the inquiry.

I think that the thoughts on maps and paths came to me as I am currently listening to an audiobook of The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson (2015). The book is a revisit to an early book of his Notes form a small Island (1995) in which he travels around Britain commenting on its people and places for his unique naturalised American point of view. In the revisit he often comments on how things have changed in the time between his travels. There is a section in which he talks on ‘systems’ in the UK, focusing on the numbering of roads. I wont go in to the details which are somewhat comical, however much of the point is that they theoretically numbered according to a dividing up of the country, however very often due to the nature of roads crossing the country they will cross between sections, thus not fitting to the system. This I think draws parallels with the mapping of out practise as you can consider things in certain sections or categories but things will often straddle multiple sections.

This may be on a little tangent form the main point of this post, however I highly recommend reading (or listening) to these books, they are well informed and highly entertaining for Brit and non brit alike. 

References

Bell, J. (2010) Doing Your Research Project. 5th ed. Berkshire: McGraw-Hill Education.

Bryson, B. (2015) The Road to Little Dribbling. London: Black Swan.

Bryson, B. (1995) Notes from a Small Island. London: Penguin Random House.