Dilemmas of the Living in the Research Project. Autoethnographic Report

Abstract

Anders Fogh Jensen states that projects seem to have no value other than bringing forward change, regardless of the ethical dimension of that change. However, when living in a project and being part of the process of projectification of such institutions as universities, flesh-and-blood individuals are caught in various and often moral dilemmas. In the paper, I attempt to answer the question of how to include moral values in the analysis of project life. Do we know how to present in detail the dilemmas of a life in projects? What causes these dilemmas? I answer these questions in the autoethnographic account. In August 2015, I started a three-year scientific project entitled “Tacit morality.” At the same time, I began keeping a field diary and describing my experience within the project. Autoethnography of science, which I present here, can be run by every scientist; after all, each of us carries projects. On the basis of my field notes, I have managed to identify controversies and dilemmas which appear in projects. Having analysed them, I have come to the conclusion that the relation between a (scientific) project and a stable institution (university) should be based on values, e.g. solidarity, and institutional facilitation. I start the article with the question of how to criticize the disadvantages of projectification and at the same time notice its advantages.

We make up the rules as we go along? Projectification, ‘smart’ cities, and the spectres of emergence

Abstract

The paper discusses the issues of the so-called projectification of reality from the perspective of the praxis philosophy. This point of view triggers the reflection upon the profound transformations of social reality resulting from the proliferation of “projects” as methods of operation and organizational forms. However, due to such transformations, it is necessary to move on from the deliberations inaugurated predominantly based on management sciences to a more humanistic (philosophical) reflection and the associated ontological issues. As a consequence, a “project” is understood not only as an educational method, a method of (e.g. creative) work in general, or an organizational form (e.g. in business) but, above all, as a property of social reality. Due to the projectification processes of the modern world, such fundamental variables of our functioning in reality in general as time, space, and social relations are evolving. This approach, proposed by Anders Fogh Jensen, for instance, records the fundamental transformation of modern disciplinary societies into contemporary project societies. Nevertheless, it prompts the following query in a critical plan: What are the consequences of this process? What is the post-project reality like? What are the effects of such temporary activities: flexible tools for the transformation of the world, emergent interventions into social reality? These questions are raised in relation to a specific case: the Oasis Little India project implemented in the historical Indian district of Singapore. This case perfectly fits into one of the most “projectified” ideologies of urban development—the notion of smart city.

When a project swallows an organization. Projectification in cultural non-governmental organizations and organizational imagination

Abstract

Projects have a widespread presence in the non-governmental sector. Sometimes, they make it possible to perform tasks which would otherwise remain uncompleted due to insufficient funds, for instance. At the same time, however, the increasingly common phenomenon in smaller NGOs is when one large project swallows the organization along with its more modest initiatives. With time, the Cracow’s foundation under scrutiny, which operates in the cultural sector, has evolved from a self-help organization engaged in a number of minor activities, often completely devoid of external funding, into an entity focusing all its strength and resources on one large annual project funded from grants. In her autoethnography combined with the material from individual in-depth interviews, the author, who is both a participant of and a witness to these changes, describes the process of the main project having supplanted the grassroots initiatives, which has resulted, inter alia, in the disintegration within the foundation. Simultaneously, she provides at least a partial solution to this problem in the form of organizational imagination understood as a management style oriented towards people with all their needs and capabilities as well as towards taking action based on far-reaching trust in people.

Impact of project financing on the operation of community archives as a possible research problem

Abstract

Community archives are grassroots documentative initiatives including the collection, storage, development, and sharing of archival materials. The paper contains a description of the project-based activities of six community archives. The data was obtained through interviews, observation, and analysis of secondary sources. The issue of the projectification of the work of community archives was included in the research project as a by-product, when it emerged while the author was exploring the research questions concerning the employees of community archives as well as how such initiatives are funded and what challenges they have to face. In the archives under examination, the issue of projectification appears in the context of how it impacts employment and archivist works and what problems are generated by project management.

Humanistic factors of project success. A case study of the World Youth Day Cracow 2016

Abstract

The text attempts to reflect on the project management practices from the humanistic perspective. The subject of consideration involved the World Youth Day (WYD) project, which took place in Cracow in July 2016. In the paper, the World Youth Day is shown as an example of a mass-scale organizational event, which required the people involved to have advanced management skills and the knowledge of methodologies and various tools necessary to manage large projects. Attention, however, was focused on the role that these people and their related values such as faith, emotions, pride, hopes, and dreams played in the management of this project. Thus, the research problem formulated in the paper investigated how the values of the people co-creating the WYD events impacted the effective and timely implementation of the project and its goals.