The Authentic Dissertation: Alternative Ways of Knowing, Research and Representation - Softcover

Four Arrows (AKA Don Trent Jacobs)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0415442230 ISBN 13: 9780415442237

Publisher: Routledge, 2008

Synopsis

The Authentic Dissertation is a road map for students who want to make their dissertation more than a series of hoop-jumping machinations that cause them to lose the vitality and meaningfulness of their research.

Students and tutors are presented with practical guidance for  the kind of alternative dissertations that many educators believe are needed to move Doctoral and Master’s level work beyond the limitations that currently stifle authentic contributions for a better world.

Drawing on his Cherokee/Creek ancestry and the  Raramuri shamans of Mexico the author explores how research can regain its humanist core and find its true place in the natural order once more. Four Arrows provides a degree of "credibility" that will help graduate students legitimize their ideas in the eyes of more conservative university committees. This inspiring book will also help academics who sincerely want to see these alternative forms but are concerned about the rigor of "alternative" dissertation research and presentation.

The featured dissertation stories tap into more diverse perspectives, more authentic experience and reflection, and more creative abilities. They are, in essence, spiritual undertakings that

• Honour the centrality of the researcher’s voice, experience, creativity and authority
• Focus more on important questions than on research methodologies per se
• Reveal virtues (generosity, patience, courage, respect, humility, fortitude, etc.)
• Regard the people’s version of reality

The goal of this book is not to replace the historical values of academic research in the western tradition, but to challenge some of these values and offer alternative ideas that stem from different, sometimes opposing values.

About this title

Review:

What could be timelier in a new century that is lurching from one
dramatic event to the next, than a text that encourages candidates to imagine an alternative approach to global problems? ... A timely text that has appeared at a stage in world history when‘business as usual’ would appear to be a very dangerous pathway’  Dr Christine Black, Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, May 2009

About the Author:

Four Arrows (Don Trent Jacobs), past Dean of Education at Oglala Lakota College, is the author of sixteen books. He is currently a Professor at Fielding Graduate University, USA.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0415442230
• ISBN 13: 9780415442237
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272