Kennelly, Anne (2013) An áit ina bhfuil t-anam is ann a thógas do chosa tú (your feet will always take you to the place of your soul): A study of transformation through indigenous ways of knowing in a County Kerry Community. PhD thesis, National University of Ireland Maynooth.
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Abstract
People have known from earliest times that the arts have the potential to heal and
transform whatever needs attention in inner life. This study illustrates how a group of
County Kerry adult learners with visual impairment communicated an understanding
of their lives to their communities through various arts media. Exploring their worlds
creatively through six stage performances and preparatory workshops, over a seven
year period, brought them into deeper relationship with the self, other, community, the
earth, their ancestors – their customs, traditions and their ways of being and knowing.
Finding voice to tell the stories of the challenge between their internal and external
worlds, the surface and the deep, was a transformative experience for them, changing
their approach to learning and living. As they transformed their experiences of life on
the theatre stage, life was transformed also for their everyday communities and those
journeying with them as they co-constructed knowledge with the audiences who
viewed their performances.
This study uses an arts-based, heuristic methodology to illuminate their process of
transformation. These illuminations in image, dvd and cd formats, are further
amplified through the inclusion of the learners’ thoughts and reflections throughout
the process. Transformation continued beyond the life of their stage illuminations and
images of the visual art work capturing this process are also included, as are those of
the researcher. This study shows how learning through the lens of imagination, as
opposed to a more technical and rational one only, allows for experiences of soul.
This, in turn, facilitates an experience of learning as living, which challenges
modernist approaches to teaching and learning. An indigenous postmodern
worldview and experience emerge from this work and make a contribution to
pedagogical theory and models of education. The study also offers implications of an
indigenous postmodern perspective for educational policies and approaches.
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) |
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Additional Information: | Support audio and visual material is kept with the hardbound copy and are available on request at the Information Services Desk, JPII Library. |
Keywords: | County Kerry Community; |
Academic Unit: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Education |
Item ID: | 4526 |
Depositing User: | IR eTheses |
Date Deposited: | 03 Oct 2013 13:23 |
URI: | https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/id/eprint/4526 |
Use Licence: | This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here |
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