Lucía Durá, University of Texas El Paso

Opening Remarks

My keyword is positive deviance. It’s one of the primary methodologies that I use. Positive deviance used both as an approach to culture change and as a research methodology. The concept of positive deviance originated in research in the field of nutrition when a Tufts-based nutritionist named Marian Zeitlin and her colleagues were studying child malnutrition in Burma in the late 1980s. They knew they had a poignant malnutrition program, and based on literature they had been reading at the time, they decided to ask a different question. Instead of focusing on the problem of malnutrition and it’s causes, they asked, are there children that are well-nourished? Do they exist? Who are they?

So, my first question for this group is, when solving complex problems my first question is, are we only focusing on the aggregate? On the middle of the bell curve, or do we take the time and remember to look at outliers? We have a tendency, especially in expert driven contexts, not to look at outliers because we don’t want to know what they’re doing necessarily. We want to focus on the norm. Or we might turn to negative outliers. COVID clusters are an example, or crime hotspots. Those are the negative outliers. But if we were to draw a map and we were thinking in positive deviance terms, we would ask, are there any places that are supposed to have COVID clusters that don’t? Similarly with crime, are there any places where there are supposed to be crime hotspots based on statistics demographics, etc., and they’re not there? And then we start to dig deeper, “Well why not?” And so that’s kind of how we get to the outliers.

In essence, what we describe as positive deviance practices in contrast to evidence-based practices. Outlier practices represent practice-based evidence in at least the way we’ve described them, we might have to write something later that contradicts that but we’ll see. My second question as we think about positive deviance is: Do we embrace the above perspectives in our teaching and mentoring practices? Because this isn’t just about doing research–this disposition of positive deviance can be used in partnerships, marriages, organizations. It’s a heuristic way of pivoting the way we’re thinking.

Synthesis from Breakout and Discussion

Running Definition

• This is an approach to social change (a research methodology) that is premised on the idea that pops [nodes] have already found solutions to intractable problems. Generally, though, this pop [node] on a bell curve would be deviating away from the norm. This is the focus of a problem, the deviance from the bell curve. Asking in this theoretical way that connects to all of the other keywords here and the crucial work happening in these ways with the various keywords is the point of this term.
• As rhetoricians, professional, and technical communicators, can we use positive deviance questions and processes to facilitate conversations that engage both evidence-based practices and practice-based evidence, i.e., helping experts see the value of local knowledge?
• Do we embrace the above perspectives in our teaching and mentoring practices?

Takeaways

• We need to use this methodology more often in order to see what is happening at the margins of our work.
  • Related to all other keywords in this plenary session in inter-complicated and effective ways.
• In this way, we can better understand how our work is influenced by the outliers and their effects on our mentoring and teaching practices.
• Positive deviance is a way to challenge evidence and methodologies.
• Noted where positive deviants might actually intersect methodologically or theoretically with the other keywords, and the embodiment of data as a way of looking at outliers not necessarily as data but as the people embodied in those data points.
  • Employ rhetorical listening to understand them as embodied to amplify the stories or the messages that they might be telling us through the set, through their outline.

Future Considerations

• What counts as an outlier?
  • What about the outliers of the outlier? Or the scope? The medical gaze?
  • Think about the game of “how do I express to readers how important this is?”
  • Finding ways to convince stakeholders how to listen to this work as important.
    • Amplification connection in how people interact with these ideas is crucial to understanding how this methodology works.
  • What about the outliers and how these function methodologically between the ways these function with community and the data of the disenfranchised bodies?
  • Where do generosity and ethics fit in here in the methodology?
  • How can problem setting/framing help us make arguments for our data, especially when there is value in outlier data, and how do we use that problem setting- in methods/methodology to honor our ethical and reciprocal commitments to participatory research?
  • Finding ways to convince stakeholders how to listen to this work as important.