What does it mean to be engaged?

So I'm interested in two things which I hope to write into one piece.

First of all what it means to me to be 'engaged' in terms of lived experience. This is close to what I spoke about on the symposium: what it means to exist as an academic on engagement projects. What that does to one's identity as a researcher. How does an early career researcher navigate the engagement funding regime? Both positives and negatives of this - because it's very ambiguous. There's great opportunity for creative, interesting work but it's poorly funded, often incoherent and frantic.

Secondly, is how to fit this in with much more abstract discussions of how engagement positions itself in relation to knoweledge, the economy and the position of research to society and research to government (which necessarily relates to think tanks and policy units too). What I want to get across is that asking the question 'What does it mean to be engaged?' from the point of view that I want to approach it in Part One leads one into gesturing at these wider abstract issues. It takes personal and critical reflexivity to get anywhere. It leaves your arms tired.

Furnace Park in its focus on process, on doing both physically and in terms of theory, makes it a great space to think about these issues, and our place within them.

Russel Brand and being present.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desert-island-discs/castaway/cae284e3#b037524r
heres the link to desert island discs we talked of today - worth a listen....if only for the being present comment.

Number 6 - What does it mean to be engaged?