Erin Kreeger

DISSERTATION TITLE:

“It’s All About Well-being, eh?” Mindfulness of what we’re making in our Ph.D. Ecologies

Tilburg University

This dissertation is focused on how we create well-being in the world with increased frequency through mindfulness of our everyday choices and communication patterns – specifically in our organizations and public institutions. The ideas and practices are applicable to many contexts, however this dissertation is focused on mindfulness of in what I refer to as our “Ph.D. Ecologies.” I use this term to foreground that academic communities are complex, richly textured and relational. As such, what happens in them has impacts on numerous relationships (seen, unseen, imagined, unimagined) in the larger ecologies of which we are a part.

The inquiry is grounded in 3 overarching questions: What are we making together in our Ph.D. Ecologies, How we are making it and How can we coenact well-being in the world in and through our Ph.D. Ecologies?

It is a transdisciplinary, dialogically interactive, practice based dissertation designed for exploring new meanings and relational processes as a way of making something different in our Ph.D. Ecologies — something which may contribute to well-being with increased frequency. I invite people with orientations and perspectives that are often separated by time, cultures, disciplines and social contexts into emergent, asynchronous conversations and practice space. Drawing on the logical forces of art based practices and traditional scholarly grammar, helps create the space for these transformational conversations to occur. It is an inquiry informed by and grounded in heuristics from CMM (The Coordinated Management of Meaning), relational constructionist and action research-based orientations, and Buddhist and Ayurvedic informed practices.

My goal with this dissertation is not to present a set of results or arrive at a set decision or bounded recommendation. Rather, I am interested in learning about and practicing with transforming patterns of communication as a way of evolving our ecologies so we increase the likelihood of acting together with increased phronesis and increased co-enactment of well-being.