{"id":363206,"date":"2021-11-05T19:22:47","date_gmt":"2021-11-05T16:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/extending-scholarship-to-oral-traditions-through-podcasting\/"},"modified":"2021-11-05T19:22:47","modified_gmt":"2021-11-05T16:22:47","slug":"extending-scholarship-to-oral-traditions-through-podcasting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/extending-scholarship-to-oral-traditions-through-podcasting\/","title":{"rendered":"#Extending scholarship to oral traditions through podcasting"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Extending scholarship to oral traditions through podcasting<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n How a group of creative Canadian academics is changing the face\u2014or is that sound?\u2014of scholarship\n <\/div>\n
\n In an early episode of his new podcast, Our Creaturely Kin<\/i>, Daniel Heath Justice\u2014a renowned First Nations and Indigenous studies professor at the University of British Columbia\u2014will do a deep dive on coyotes. He\u2019ll interview ranchers, trapp<\/a>ers and conservationists, detailing the animal\u2019s biological evolution and the trajectory of its relationship with humans, and delving into representations of the wily predator in media<\/a> and folklore. (Cedar, moss and the equally wily raccoon will also get their own programming slots.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot to learn from people who interact with these beings in their daily lives,\u201d Justice says. \u201cI\u2019m approaching [the project] as a researcher rather than a journalist, but I think that opens up the potential for thinking about expertise as something one gets not only through academic credentials, but through lived and professional experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

The podcast isn\u2019t merely an offshoot of Justice\u2019s \u201creal\u201d written research or an elaboration of an existing journal article; it is<\/i> the research. In fact, Justice\u2019s podcast, which will be peer-reviewed before its release\u2014a first in North America\u2014is part of a bold new take on research that treats new media as scholarship, defying the traditionally rigid informational hierarchies in academia.<\/p>\n

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Justice\u2019s podcast is one of three planned by the Amplify Podcast Network, founded in the spring of 2020 by co-directors Dr. Hannah McGregor, an assistant professor with Simon Fraser University\u2019s department of publishing, and Siobhan McMenemy, senior editor at Wilfrid Laurier University Press. \u201cThe idea that only written knowledge can be \u2018serious\u2019 knowledge has a long history in settler colonialism and the devaluing of oral traditions\u2014and it doesn\u2019t make much sense when you apply pressure to it,\u201d says McGregor. \u201cIt\u2019s led to the default assumption that something like a podcast can talk about scholarship, but can\u2019t be scholarship.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Copeland,<\/p>\n

Copeland, Amplify\u2019s supervising producer (Courtesy of Stacey Copeland)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Peer review as a legitimizing exercise\u2014wherein one or more academics with similar expertise evaluate, critique and ultimately approve a piece of research (or don\u2019t)\u2014has deeply entrenched roots: first employed in 1731 by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the process rose to prominence thanks to post\u2013World War II advancements in communication technology<\/a>, and became standard practice for academic journals by the last quarter of the 20th century. While some of Amplify\u2019s podcasts will use scripts, the focus of the peer-review process will be the audio component. \u201cPeer review is essential to maintain quality in academic work,\u201d says McGregor. \u201cBut that doesn\u2019t mean it can\u2019t be reimagined.\u201d<\/p>\n

So how does one peer review a podcast? Much in the same way one would review an article, except one uses sound files, which are sent to two or three academics whose own bodies of work are pertinent to the subject. They\u2019ll provide feedback for revisions before the podcasts are released to the public. Some concessions will have to be made for the format, of course: podcasts can\u2019t be double blind or fully anonymous when delivery of the information is vocalized.<\/p>\n

McGregor notes that the emergence of scholarly podcasts coincides with a wider push in academic circles toward open-access publishing, a model that distributes research online free of charge. \u201cSo much of our scholarly output has been locked down by a small number of for-profit companies that make research deeply inaccessible to anyone outside of a university,\u201d she says. \u201cMany [of us] want to challenge the status quo.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A 2019 meta-study found that while universities, both public and private, make heavy use of terms such as \u201cpublic good\u201d and \u201ccommunity\u201d in their mission statements, open-access scholarship is general<\/a>ly not prioritized\u2014and is, in some cases, actively discouraged\u2014in guidelines that dictate what kinds of work count toward an academic\u2019s tenure or promotion. Neither is community-engaged scholarship, which engages members of the public in research itself.<\/p>\n

Another culture-shifting inclusion is Amplify\u2019s involvement of graduate students from podcast creation to production. Stacey Copeland, Amplify\u2019s supervising producer, is a Ph.D. candidate at SFU\u2019s school of communication. \u201cI produced a three-part audio documentary as part of my M.A. thesis, but it wasn\u2019t considered \u2018the thesis.\u2019 I still had to write it,\u201d she says. \u201cAmplify is shaking it up. And, with podcasting, I get to combine two things I love: I can write critically, but I can also bring in creative elements like storytelling and sound design.\u201d Kendra Cowley and Mar\u00eda Alvarez Malvido, the producers behind another Amplify podcast called Border Crossfade<\/i>\u2014which focuses on borders, literal and otherwise, and explores themes of identity, land and mobility\u2014were master\u2019s students at the University of Alberta when they joined Amplify.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been very important for us to make sure that early-career and emerging scholars are a central part of this work,\u201d says McGregor. \u201cIn my experience, grad students are engaged by the idea of creating fun and accessible scholarship that their friends, communities and families might also be able to listen to and engage with.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think we\u2019re in a remarkable time where scholarship can take many different forms and maintain the same rigour, dependability and peer assessments that any other kind of research endeavour would,\u201d says Justice. \u201cA lot of people listen to podcasts who probably wouldn\u2019t pick up an academic book or journal on the topic. Podcasts connect with a broad audience, but have the potential to draw from a broad knowledge base, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Our Creaturely Kin<\/i> is currently in the interview stage and, as with the other slate of Amplify podcasts, is set to launch in late 2022. It remains to be seen whether podcasting will gain widespread adoption as a research medium, but for students worried that their work will get trapped in the postgraduate ivory tower, Amplify\u2019s programming is a welcome sign of things to come. \u201cAcademics have always pushed boundaries,\u201d Justice says. \u201cI\u2019m excited about the possibility of this work taking research into new spheres\u2014and to new audiences.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

This article appears in print in the 2022 University Rankings issue of<\/em> Maclean\u2019s magazine with the headline, \u201cMedia studies.\u201d <\/em>
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