staying open

The difficulty of this work has been staying open to new possibilities, when the main current of research still privileges particular epistemological and ontological assumptions (Dillard, 2003b) and (mostly) demands rational explanatory texts that take readers along a pre-defined path to a pre-defined conclusion.

Yet developments in methodologies, including arts-informed research (e.g. Lipsett, 2002), are responding to increasing demands for research approaches and forms of representation which recognize, (a) a wider range of epistemological and ontological assumptions, (b) that multiple meanings can emerge as readers and text interact (Cole, Neilsen, Knowles & Luciani, 2004), and (c) that structure merges out of content merges out of structure, out of content out of structure..... and ultimately, out of ontology and epistemology..... (Nolan, 2007).

What is distinct about this multi-media hypertext is its explicitness in acknowledging that meaning-making is often done in collaboration with an animate Earth. In this context, each journey is unique, and the ultimate end is seldom pre-determined. Thus, while the abstract and executive summary do make some clear summative points, the hypertext provides an ongoing invitation to its reader to actually engage with the ontology and epistemology explained within.