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26  Envisioning Polysemicity: Generating Insights into the Complexity  319

            and educational research within a contested place can be to bring people together
            with disparate histories, with an emphasis on how to value and learn from the
            others’ perspectives and support place-based education to promote change in envi-
            ronmental contexts and in socio-historical contexts as well.



            Seeking Polysemic and Collaborative Research Approaches


            Research is not neutral. It is informed by what people bring to the process, including
            their theories, perspectives, and intentions (Martin et al. 2006, p. 170). In a context
            that is fraught with contested perspectives, research that is polyvocal and polysemic
            can serve to provide an opportunity for people to provide their perspectives and as
            such, it is research that not only documents, but that seeks to politicize, and prob-
            lematize. One of the questions that is raised for me in reading this work is, where
            are the voices of the participants? Basu (2008) has suggested that including partici-
            pant voices into educational research can give power to communities of practice as
            well as adding to theory, and it is toward this end that I imagine adding the voices
            of those involved in the research would strengthen the points made in the chapter.
            Semken and Brandt conclude with mentioning action research, and building on this
            point, I am suggesting an approach blending a focus on place-based education with
            collaborative research approaches, in order to work toward shared decision-making
            and problem-solving coupled with local activism.
              A polysemic approach to collaborative research provides recognition and affirma-
            tion, as it encourages a variety of stakeholders (teachers, students, local residents,
            indigenous peoples) to recognize the differences in their place/history/community
            and emphasizes the need for working together from the inside, rather than have
            decisions solely decided in courts and boardrooms. Incorporating a dialogic focus
            (Bakhtin 1981) can support such polysemicity. Mikhail Bakhtin’s dialogue is much
            more than the words that are used in a conversation. It is a way of life that replaces
            a  monologic  approach  with  an  understanding  and  acceptance  of  difference  and
            multiple perspectives. Through fluid approaches that are negotiated by stakeholders
            to be responsive to difference (Tobin 2008), participants identify what is salient and
            together attempt to come to issues and concerns for focus, and a sense of place can
            support them as they discover their individual and collective connections. Positioning
            research  in  this  manner  motivates  collective  action  and  politicizes  place-based
            education to become situated within the broader socio–political–historical context.
              Polyvocal, polysemic research is a theoretical and political tool that embodies
            praxis, in that the action that is undertaken is informed by the theories that emerge
            and evolve from collaborative relationships. As power shifts, there are opportuni-
            ties for taking increased agency as participatory, polysemic research breaks down
            the traditional boundaries between “researcher” and “researched.” In addition to the
            possibilities of place-based education within the communities broadly, teachers
            in the local schools could contribute to the process of seeking solutions by consid-
            ering  the  historical  contexts  that  have  led  to  the  point  the  communities  are  at.
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