senate

[Carol Thorogood]

Dear all   I've got my application forms and information stuff for making a submission. I know I'm a cynic but I just gotta do it. Anyway the list motivates me to keep going. And, my comments that nothing ever changes is the result of a bad thesis (or hair) day - both need cutting. Of course things have changed, it's just that it isn't always visible.   Joy, I'm guilty of using phrases and jargon which often have little meaning to others - sort of like expecting a woman to feel good that she is an ROA 2/5 above the brim or 'fully'!  My way of thinking about postmodernism is that there are lots of ways of skinning a cat! My postmodern research goals are to challenge the content and form of dominant models of knowledge (probably the 'scientific method') and to help to produce new forms of thinking about birth and midwifery by breaking down disciplinary boundaries and giving voice to those not represented in dominant 'ways of thinking'. I didn't say all of that - Geroux did in 1992. For me,  no method of research or discourse grants privileged access to truth. I'm trying to mix and match various perspectives and research styles partly cause my supervisor says it's a good idea and partly 'cause  it tends to 'deligitimate all master codes'. As my friend Nietszche said in 1873 'truth is not something that inheres in nature; it is rooted in conventions fabricated by humans'. So I'm telling a different story about homebirth, which the women and midwives and doctors etc have told me. And it ain't the sort of truth that was published in the BMJ fairly recently! Hopefully I'll be able to help build different (but not necessarily right) ways of thinking about birth.   Hope this helps, maybe I'm beginning to understand what it all means but then who knows cause each individual can potentially perceive the truth about the world differently!    Trish, I'm an atheist with a passion for Medieval religious chants. My favourite CD was produced in a monastery with recordings of  2-16th Century hymns but with saxophones improvising. The ensemble never knows what the two saxes are going to do!  So the music is one off never to be reproduced again. I think this is my version of spirituality but I have no idea what it means.   Carol