Katie Brown DJCAD - PhD Upgrade 03/10/2018

PhD Upgrade: Katie Brown DJCAD 03/10/2018

Research: Exploring Hearing Aids and Super-Normal Design

Points of note that will be or could be relevant to my research:

Image: https://www.audicus.com/pages/hearing-aids

• Upgrade: 18 min Powerpoint Presentation with 4 no: White spiral bound, supporting documents, with acetate covers!
• Volunteered at the Deaf Hub in Dundee for the past year: to define her approach and framing
• Stigma of hearing aids
• The Role of Objects
• How our design background's/career path interrogate the research
• Deaf mentors - could I have 'blind' mentors?
• Network research, including museum archives, hospitals, deaf heritage events
• Action research methodology. Having researched what this means, it is unlikely that it will be an integral part of my research. Noted in case.
• Cultural Probes - including diaries and disposable cameras - with questions on paper taped to the camera. "What I have with me." "What I want" "Something I want to Change.". Inspiring as a methodology and reminded me of Caroline Christie's On Site Arts project and the gypsy traveler displacement project, due to the Olympic bid.http://www.onsitearts.org/texts/prints.html
• Block colour timelines: Literature Review, Methodology, Placement Work, Academic Training
• Literature Review - to be thorough 
• Epistemology (the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity and scope and the distinction between justified belief and opinion).
• What exposure had she with the deaf community, prior to research?
• Research and presentation of Goffman's Stigma Theory within the literature review. Feedback from the external examiner, was that the disabled community are offended by the attempts of being 'normalised'. And the term 'super-normal' is equally as offensive.
• What is the spectrum of deafness - and in my research area, blindness?
• If there is a deaf/blind mentor, what is their role?
• For participants within the research, what are their investments?
• How do you differentiate between participants?
• Be aware of potential conflicts between stakeholders and wearers (of hearing aids).
• Wearers should be consulted.
• How they internalise the idea of what it means to be 'hearing' and their loss.
• Action research and how to engage with participation.
• What data? And how will you gather that data?
• Thematic analysis.
• Established methods of cultural probes
• Action research: be aware of what that is and what the process is.
• Build in 'contested' territory
• Discord = a lot more going on.
• In data, tease out inconsistencies and claims
• What is this object meant to do? Answer, industry? Wearers?
• Cochlear implant shock. Specialists couldn't agree about what 'hearing' meant.
• Unpack interpretations at thematic analysis stage.
• Explore different approaches through co-production.