Esther Waite

Posted by Esther on Mar 22, 2011 in People | 2 comments

My research interests are very much relationally-oriented and attuned to understanding the generative possibilities of learning, organising and achieving innovative ways of performing our world into being.  I am fascinated by processes of sense making, meaning creation and conceptual framing, also by questions of incommensurability between diverse systems of knowledge and by the tensions of power and interest that both enable and constrain our individual and collective agency.

Digital technologies increasingly intervene in our everyday encounters as electronic devices and media become ever more intimately and subtly entwined with our lives.  New dimensions of possibility emerge when the historical distinction between the real and the virtual begins to blur, inviting us to navigate uncharted experiential territory and opening up novel spaces and places in which to enact new forms of social practice.  The digital economy, however defined, serves to locate us in ever more complex socio-material-technological relationships.

This rapidly changing landscape has far-reaching consequences for individual and organisational learning, potentially enabling unprecedented access to a rich diversity of voices and practices.  Heterogeneous networks are commonly cited as the life blood of innovation.  But what kinds of opportunities are we making out of these encounters with alterity?  Do interdisciplinary or postdisciplinary initiatives open up radical, transformational possibilities for tackling the challenges of contemporary life, or encourage integration and synthesis into embedded ways of thinking that prolong unsustainable social orders?  What role is there for (intra)disciplinary differences in a connected world?  How do we attain more insightful and critically reflexive ways of understanding and working with individual and collective differences?

I first came to Lancaster as a Visual Arts undergraduate.  On completing my first degree I worked in FE before becoming involved in the ICT industry.  I have maintained my link with University through the Management School, where I completed a PG Cert in Marketing Management in 1999 and an MA in Management Learning and Leadership in 2010.

I live near Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire and enjoy getting out and about in the South Pennines with my husband and little boy.  I sing with an upper-voice ensemble called Alyssium that performs the work of local composer Alison West and also with Enkelit, an upper-voice choir that performs contemporary music predominantly from Finland.