Abby Templer Rodrigues | Missouri State University (original) (raw)
Uploads
Thesis Chapters by Abby Templer Rodrigues
This dissertation explores the contours of artistic economic activity through participatory actio... more This dissertation explores the contours of artistic economic activity through participatory action research conducted with artists and artisans in the Greater Franklin County, Massachusetts. The creative economy has drawn significant attention over the past ten years as a principle economic sector that can stimulate the redevelopment of post-industrial cities. However, dominant creativity–based development strategies tend to cater to the tastes of an economically privileged, and implicitly white, “creative class,’ leading to gentrification and social exclusion based on race, ethnicity, class, and gender. These exclusions also apply to artists and artisans, occupational groups whose economic activity and needs have been paradoxically erased from dominant creativity-based
development prescriptions.
The data were collected as part of a collaborative research project in which twenty-two artists and artisans were hired from the region to conduct interviews to explore the economic lives of their peers. These peer-interviews were embedded in a collaborative research process, which generated two data streams: one hundred and thirty-two peer-interviews conducted by the research team and the ethnographic data
from the collaborative research process itself.
Through analyzing the peer-interview data, I find that regional artistic economic activity spans both the formal and informal economy and derives from a wide range of non-market logics. I argue that the multiple values of artists and artisans give rise to heterogeneous economic practices and logics, which fall outside the formal economy and
are thus largely ignored in existing entrepreneurial initiatives to support the arts. Within the already precarious situations of professional artists, I also find that these conventional initiatives intensify vulnerability for artists from marginalized groups.
Through analyzing the ethnographic data from the research process, this
dissertation also deepens understandings of community-based research methods. In particular, I extend the discussion of peer interviewing beyond how interviews are conducted to developing new ways to analyze the data produced by this method. I also illustrate the micro-political effects of conducting participatory action research on its subjects, arguing that this method offers an innovative model for transformative social change.
Papers by Abby Templer Rodrigues
The Handbook of Diverse Economies, 2020
In the early 2000s the minority world turned towards the creative sector to revitalize regional e... more In the early 2000s the minority world turned towards the creative sector to revitalize regional economies. The resulting development policies ultimately led to gentrification and social exclusion based on race, ethnicity, class and gender. These exclusions also apply to artists and artisans, occupational groups whose economic activity and needs have been paradoxically erased from dominant creativity-based development prescriptions. This chapter draws on an action research project that aimed to reframe artists and artisans as active subjects of a regional economy so that they could take a more active role in shaping the nature of redevelopment. The project employed the practice of reframing as used in post-structuralist participatory action research. The author focuses on the techniques that were used to enable new economic subjectivities for artists and artisans to emerge: interacting as equals, facilitating multiple forms of interaction, and creating a space in which to practise emergent subjectivities.
Journal of STEM Education: Innovation and Researach, 2022
In 2016, Missouri State University (MSU) received a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to pr... more In 2016, Missouri State University (MSU) received a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to provide scholarships in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (S-STEM) for academically talented students with financial need. The MSU S-STEM program provided two years of financial and academic assistance, supporting students who began their studies at MSU during their sophomore and junior year and supporting transfer students in their first two years at MSU. The goal of the program was to increase the quality and number of undergraduate students with unmet financial need completing a Bachelor of Science (BS) within the fields of computer science, engineering, mathematics, and physics. Running from the fall of 2016 to the spring of 2021, the MSU S-STEM program served 5 cohorts, supporting 93 students total. In addition to two years of scholarship, the MSU S-STEM program provided academic support through requiring participation in a 1-credit hour seminar each fall and by making 12 hours of peer-to-peer academic tutoring available per week. This article describes the program and presents the findings from a qualitative, summative program evaluation. The data presented highlight the way intersectional inequalities differently shape student experience within STEM majors, affecting how they were supported in the MSU S-STEM program. This article makes a case for taking an intersectional approach when evaluating programs to support students in STEM and ends by discussing the benefits and challenges of taking an intersectional approach in program evaluations.
Academe
How many times a day do faculty members check e-mail? How often do they send work e-mails in the ... more How many times a day do faculty members check e-mail? How often do they send work e-mails in the evenings or over the weekend? Do students or colleagues expect faculty to reply to e-mails within twenty-four hours or in far less time? How can we change the university culture to keep up with technology? While the use of e-mail has become widespread over the last decade, the development of policies, rules, and etiquette around its use in colleges and universities has been haphazard at best. Unfettered e-mail expectations create misunderstandings between colleagues, as well as between students and faculty; they lead to increased “bleed” between work and home and create inefficiencies as well as stress. It is time for universities to implement e-mail policies aimed at improving workplace conditions for faculty and maintaining the quality of communication with students. The dissemination of a consistent set of guidelines to colleges and universities could help change expectations regardin...
This study explores how faculty at one research-intensive university spend their time on research... more This study explores how faculty at one research-intensive university spend their time on research, teaching, mentoring, and service, as well as housework, childcare, care for elders, and other long-term care. Drawing on surveys and focus group interviews with faculty, the article examines how gender is related to time spent on the different components of faculty work, as well as on housework and care. Findings show that many faculty report working more than 60 hours a week, with substantial time on weekends devoted to work. Finding balance between different kinds of work (research, teaching, mentoring, and service) is as difficult as finding balance between work and personal life. The study further explores how gendered care giving, in particular being a mother to young children, is related to time spent on faculty work, controlling for partner employment and other factors. Men and women devote significantly different amounts of time to housework and care giving. While men and women faculty devote the same overall time to their employment each week, mothers of young children spend less time on research, the activity that counts most toward career advancement.
This dissertation explores the contours of artistic economic activity through participatory actio... more This dissertation explores the contours of artistic economic activity through participatory action research conducted with artists and artisans in the Greater Franklin County, Massachusetts. The creative economy has drawn significant attention over the past ten years as a principle economic sector that can stimulate the redevelopment of post-industrial cities. However, dominant creativity–based development strategies tend to cater to the tastes of an economically privileged, and implicitly white, “creative class,’ leading to gentrification and social exclusion based on race, ethnicity, class, and gender. These exclusions also apply to artists and artisans, occupational groups whose economic activity and needs have been paradoxically erased from dominant creativity-based
development prescriptions.
The data were collected as part of a collaborative research project in which twenty-two artists and artisans were hired from the region to conduct interviews to explore the economic lives of their peers. These peer-interviews were embedded in a collaborative research process, which generated two data streams: one hundred and thirty-two peer-interviews conducted by the research team and the ethnographic data
from the collaborative research process itself.
Through analyzing the peer-interview data, I find that regional artistic economic activity spans both the formal and informal economy and derives from a wide range of non-market logics. I argue that the multiple values of artists and artisans give rise to heterogeneous economic practices and logics, which fall outside the formal economy and
are thus largely ignored in existing entrepreneurial initiatives to support the arts. Within the already precarious situations of professional artists, I also find that these conventional initiatives intensify vulnerability for artists from marginalized groups.
Through analyzing the ethnographic data from the research process, this
dissertation also deepens understandings of community-based research methods. In particular, I extend the discussion of peer interviewing beyond how interviews are conducted to developing new ways to analyze the data produced by this method. I also illustrate the micro-political effects of conducting participatory action research on its subjects, arguing that this method offers an innovative model for transformative social change.
The Handbook of Diverse Economies, 2020
In the early 2000s the minority world turned towards the creative sector to revitalize regional e... more In the early 2000s the minority world turned towards the creative sector to revitalize regional economies. The resulting development policies ultimately led to gentrification and social exclusion based on race, ethnicity, class and gender. These exclusions also apply to artists and artisans, occupational groups whose economic activity and needs have been paradoxically erased from dominant creativity-based development prescriptions. This chapter draws on an action research project that aimed to reframe artists and artisans as active subjects of a regional economy so that they could take a more active role in shaping the nature of redevelopment. The project employed the practice of reframing as used in post-structuralist participatory action research. The author focuses on the techniques that were used to enable new economic subjectivities for artists and artisans to emerge: interacting as equals, facilitating multiple forms of interaction, and creating a space in which to practise emergent subjectivities.
Journal of STEM Education: Innovation and Researach, 2022
In 2016, Missouri State University (MSU) received a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to pr... more In 2016, Missouri State University (MSU) received a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to provide scholarships in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (S-STEM) for academically talented students with financial need. The MSU S-STEM program provided two years of financial and academic assistance, supporting students who began their studies at MSU during their sophomore and junior year and supporting transfer students in their first two years at MSU. The goal of the program was to increase the quality and number of undergraduate students with unmet financial need completing a Bachelor of Science (BS) within the fields of computer science, engineering, mathematics, and physics. Running from the fall of 2016 to the spring of 2021, the MSU S-STEM program served 5 cohorts, supporting 93 students total. In addition to two years of scholarship, the MSU S-STEM program provided academic support through requiring participation in a 1-credit hour seminar each fall and by making 12 hours of peer-to-peer academic tutoring available per week. This article describes the program and presents the findings from a qualitative, summative program evaluation. The data presented highlight the way intersectional inequalities differently shape student experience within STEM majors, affecting how they were supported in the MSU S-STEM program. This article makes a case for taking an intersectional approach when evaluating programs to support students in STEM and ends by discussing the benefits and challenges of taking an intersectional approach in program evaluations.
Academe
How many times a day do faculty members check e-mail? How often do they send work e-mails in the ... more How many times a day do faculty members check e-mail? How often do they send work e-mails in the evenings or over the weekend? Do students or colleagues expect faculty to reply to e-mails within twenty-four hours or in far less time? How can we change the university culture to keep up with technology? While the use of e-mail has become widespread over the last decade, the development of policies, rules, and etiquette around its use in colleges and universities has been haphazard at best. Unfettered e-mail expectations create misunderstandings between colleagues, as well as between students and faculty; they lead to increased “bleed” between work and home and create inefficiencies as well as stress. It is time for universities to implement e-mail policies aimed at improving workplace conditions for faculty and maintaining the quality of communication with students. The dissemination of a consistent set of guidelines to colleges and universities could help change expectations regardin...
This study explores how faculty at one research-intensive university spend their time on research... more This study explores how faculty at one research-intensive university spend their time on research, teaching, mentoring, and service, as well as housework, childcare, care for elders, and other long-term care. Drawing on surveys and focus group interviews with faculty, the article examines how gender is related to time spent on the different components of faculty work, as well as on housework and care. Findings show that many faculty report working more than 60 hours a week, with substantial time on weekends devoted to work. Finding balance between different kinds of work (research, teaching, mentoring, and service) is as difficult as finding balance between work and personal life. The study further explores how gendered care giving, in particular being a mother to young children, is related to time spent on faculty work, controlling for partner employment and other factors. Men and women devote significantly different amounts of time to housework and care giving. While men and women faculty devote the same overall time to their employment each week, mothers of young children spend less time on research, the activity that counts most toward career advancement.