Prolonged Engagement

Many of us are effective and productive, and we believe that we get more from life when we rush. When we hurry around we probably do get to see more glimpses of different places and people – and that’s fine, but are we able to experience the qualities of the moments as we live them (not only count them)?

I was thinking about life and what Stern (2004) says about present moment: that life is always lived in present here-and-now moment; that life is a constant flow of single moments – each of them experienced here-and-now. And each of them influencing future experiences and understandings – that is: if we are able of experiencing the moments we live.

I was thinking about art appreciation and what Armstrong (2000) says about prolonged engagement. There is always much more beyond the first glimpse of something.


I was thinking about research methods and how Bresler (2006) compares Armstrong’s perceptual contemplation to qualitative research: She says that we need to take the time we need to truly connect with what we are studying. Lingering caress is about achieving prolonged engagement with a studied phenomenon in order to grasp deeper understanding of it (Bresler, 2006). And even more, we can experience mutual absorption into the phenomenon we are studying (Bresler, 2006). It is through true engagement that our experiences can become lived, and that we can become to know something through our bodies.


Through prolonged presence inside a context, of for example interaction with children, we can happen to take part in production of “slow knowledge” (Clark 2010). Though, what happens between people is seldom experienced as slow or simple, but rather as complex systems where “multiple parts continuously and fluidly influence one another” (Thelen and Smith, 1994, p. 331) – that is exactly why it takes time to study processes, of for instance children’s meaning negotiation in order to grasp them holistically and contextually.

The images show Liora Bresler at Munch museum in Oslo http://www.munch.museum.no/?id=&mid=&lang=en . The second image has been manipulated to illustrate mutual absorption between Liora and Munch.

Armstrong, J. (2000). The intimate philosophy of art. London: Allen Lane The Pinguin Press.
Bresler, L. (2006). Toward connectedness: aesthetically based research. Studies in Art Education: A Journal of Issues and Research in Art Education, 48(1), 52-69.
Clark, A. (2010). Young children as protagonists and the role of participatory visual methods in engaging multiple perspectives. American Journal of Community Psychology, 46, 115-123.
Stern, D. N. (2004). The present moment in present moment in psychotherapy and everyday life. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company.
Thelen, E. & Smith, L. B. (1994). A dynamic systems approach to the development of cognition and action. Cambridge: MIT Press