Why yes, I do go for a ‘lost electropop album title vibe’ for post titles 🙂
Couple of months to deadline and the MS is a mix of the nearly done and the 3 : ??? stages. My process, such as it is, remains constant.
At this stage, new ideas float in and out. Especially about the structure and the ‘golden thread,’ the way it all hangs together. So, where are we to with that?
Well, there are a few basic ideas:-
1 Engagement is important and valid. But it is not necessary that everyone do it, or do it in the same way.
2 To realise 1, a system approach is needed. And a collaborative one at that. Thinking of law schools as a whole, with some doing engagement in one way, others in another; some doing more basic research, others building on it. Difficult in a competitive world of HE, but doable I think.
3 Engagement needs to be rooted in mutuality- of understanding, of effort, of respect for knowledge, and of outcome.
4 Engagement in the law school often expresses something of the ‘signature pedagogy’ of the law school-problem solving and advice. So, it’s law clinics and its policy. And this is good. But a ‘clinic +’ approach takes in Streetlaw / PLE, information creation, discourse support; connecting engagement to the idea that it is ‘real people’ with ‘real issues’ who are the core of clinic, not (simply) ‘law firm like experiences.’ Such thinking also allows for emerging ideas around legal design to find a place.
So to the structure. The base is good old questions- why, who, what / how? Why do engagement, who’s involved, what are they doing? Literature, examples, and interviews help answer them. Why is all about ideals, values, motivations; who about the law school and the publics; what is about how things are done, but also about the underpinning assumptions and techniques of how we do engagement. And around them all, the possibilities-affordances of the law school.
Then another question- what does it mean? How can we bring all this together? It’s here that models / philosophy appear, however lightly sketched. Realist ways of thinking about the institution and its why-who-what; and activity theory helping us think about engagement on the ground, and the why-who-what there. With a bit of knowledge mobilisation and boundary work added in.
Then the imaginaries- Rutland re-revisited and the new Riverside. How could the model be applied to both describe, analyse, and deliver engagement in a law school? What would happen in curriculum and research design? How might it affect organisations, reward systems?
There’s currently things in the MS which may need to be trimmed down. I need to discuss decolonisation for example, as it relates to engagement and the ways in which it can assist the law school; but mainly point to existing work in the field.
Panic? Yes, always some low level panic. But having a structure to work within, even where it means giving some things up… well that helps a bit 🙂
Public understanding of law 