Facilitated by student librarian Bronwen McKie this workshop discusses the concept of “citational politics,” including how Indigenous traditional knowledge is devalued in academia through dominant citational practices and how we can challenge these practices.
Introduction
As a course leader I present the Harvard referencing system to my new students at the beginning of each academic year.
‘UAL advises that the Harvard Referencing Style is used for all taught courses. Cite Them Right Online is a referencing resource. It will help you to cite and reference just about any source and avoid plagiarism’ (UAL, 2022, Pg. 8).
I work with colleagues in the Chelsea College of Arts library and academic support to help my students understand and apply the system and frequently signpost students to cite them right in tutorials and assessment feedback.
Significantly, I am a white educator who works with a diverse student cohort with a majority of East Asian students and more specifically international students from mainland China. To date I have presented the Harvard referencing system without any consideration of what experience of referencing my students will have had prior to starting on the course.
I have been leading the Graduate Diploma in Textile Design since 2019 and each year I have students from mainland China who find this aspect of their study difficult and will commit minor and sometimes major academic misconduct at formative and summative assessment points impacting on attainment and their student experience.
I am therefore interested in researching citation knowledges and systems in Chinese education with the aim of improving the student experience of international UAL students from mainland China.
Citation Politics
Initially interested in discourse on citation politics and power structures created and perpetuated through citing practices. Citation ‘Overtime becomes a selective reproduction of a limited knowledge system, sometimes with little engagement; basically a ‘reproduction of the system of selection (citation) (Ahmed, 2013).
A group tutorial with my pg cert peers and 1:1 discussion with my tutor Rahul helped me to identify that this research supports the larger context however that my focus must be narrowed to tackle a specific social justice issue which students encounter but also where I recognise the impact on my students of my own positionality as there is the potential for students to centre my role, not only, because I represent the dominant group in the university but as ‘whiteness overarches society’ (Jang, 2017, p.566).
References:
Ahmed, S. (2022) ‘Making Feminist Points’. Feminist Kill Joys Blog, September 11, 2013. [online] [Accessed 23 October 2022] Available from: https://feministkilljoys.com/2013/09/11/making-feminist-points/
Jang, B (2017) Am I a Qualified Literacy Researcher and Educator? A Counter-Story of a Professional Journey of One Asian Male Literacy Scholar in the United States. Journal of Literacy Research 2017, Vol. 49. pp. [Online] Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1086296X17733491 [Accessed
on: 23/10/22]
McKie, B. (2020) Decolonizing Citations [online] [Accessed 16 October 2022] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSqkdo91gn8
UAL (2022). Unit 1 Research and Risk-Taking: Exploring your Practice, Graduate Diploma Textile Design Assessment Brief. UAL Chelsea, Camberwell and Wimbeldon (CCW).