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Spotlight On .... Professor Mihaela Kelemen
Mihaela Kelemen was awarded a PhD in applied economics by the Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest in 1996 and a DPhil in Management Studies by Oxford University in 1995. She came to Keele in 1996 and was promoted to a Senior Lectureship in 2002, a Readership in 2005 and a Chair in 2006.
Her earlier research focused on the role of leadership in organisations undertaking change in the UK and Eastern Europe. More recently, her research agenda has shifted to an exploration of community leadership in its various forms (i.e., volunteering) via co-design/co-production research processes. There are two inter-related strands in her current research.
1) The development of an American Pragmatist agenda for bridging the divide between academic knowledge and community practice. Her publications (one of which was awarded Highly Commended Paper at the Emerald Literati Network 2013 Awards for Excellence) and invited research talks demonstrate the effectiveness of American Pragmatism in challenging and going beyond the dualistic relationship between knowledge and practice. Her AHRC grant entitled 'Bridging the Gap between Academic Theory and Community Relevance: Fresh Insights from American Pragmatism', conducted in collaboration with Edinburgh, Open and Brunel Universities in the UK and Seinan Gakuin University in Japan, and community partners: New Vic Borderlines, The Glass-House Community Led Design and Mondo Challenge Foundation explores issues of language translation and power balance across the academic world and the wider community. Underpinned by a Pragmatist approach this collaboration taps into narrative methods, dramaturgical approaches, visual studies, sociological theories and community studies and explores what is considered ‘actionable’ knowledge by communities and what makes knowledge relevant, useful and/or practical at their end (http://www.keele.ac.uk/bridgingthedivide/). The interactive audio-visual installation resulting from this research will be showcased at the AHRC Connected Communities Showcase from Edinburgh (July, 2013), Japan (November 2013) and in cultural venues in Stoke, Sheffield and Newcastle upon Tyne in 2014.
2) The advancement of a Cultural Animation methodology for co-designing and co-producing research with communities. Rooted in the counter culture movement, Cultural Animation puts day to day experiences of ordinary people at the heart of inquiry, thus aligning well with a Pragmatist agenda. This approach has as starting point the validation of the language used by organisational/community members to describe their experiences, and placing the 'mantle of expert' upon their shoulders in exploring what changes they would like to see, who should be involved and how to make it happen. Apart from day to day language, Cultural Animation focuses on the ‘doings’, on what people can create together beyond thought and theory, namely artistic outputs that involve one’s body as well as one’s mind. Her AHRC project, Personal Communities: A Review of Volunteering Processes) culminated in a documentary drama performed by the research subjects (i.e., volunteers) themselves at the New Vic Theatre and at Connected Communities Showcase in London (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QsosP821t0). The performance demonstrated the power of documentary drama in engaging with issues that are crucial to local communities. Another AHRC project, ‘Untold Stories of Volunteering’, explores this approach further, in collaboration with Leicester University, The New Vic Theatre and National Council for Voluntary Organizations by co-designing a methodology for co-producing and co-delivering a documentary drama that captures grassroots experiences and counter-discourses of volunteering (http://www.keele.ac.uk/volunteeringstories/).
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