https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2617-0449
ABSTRACT
The journal Practical Theology piloted in 2021 a Buddy System to support authors who are writing in English as their second, third, or fourth academic language. Following 2 years of work and development, the Buddy System represents a strategic intervention in the field of Practical Theology that pursues three interrelated objectives: (1) to support research from authors who are working and writing beyond the anglophone world; (2) to expand pathways to publishing for majority world authors in Practical Theology; and (3) to expand the form(s) of epistemology that shape the content and readership of Practical Theology. The Buddy System pairs potential authors with a ‘Buddy’ who supports them in preparing a manuscript for submission and peer review. Following 2 years of development and learning, three people who were involved in the launch of the Buddy System participated in a conversation about the history, purpose, and consequence of this approach to knowledge, collaborative inquiry, and the craft of language. This article is an edited transcript of an interview the Practical Theology Editor, Dustin Benac, conducted with Calida Chu and Alison Le Cornu.
Dustin: Welcome. My name is Dustin Benac. I’m the Editor of Practical Theology, and I have the privilege to be joined by two brilliant colleagues who have been involved in the Buddy System. They have each been engaged with this in various ways, both from its conceptualisation to its implementation. The work that we're going to do to today is talk about the Buddy System: what it is, why it matters, and how this contributes to the future of the journal Practical Theology, and also to the future of the field more generally. So, first, Alison and Calida, could you just give a brief introduction to you, your work, and how you came to this conversation?
Alison: Well, thank you for the opportunity to be part of this discussion. I've been involved with Practical Theology for quite some time. Indeed, I was actually the editor of its sister journal, the Journal of Adult Theological Education, for a couple of years, and that journal was eventually amalgamated into the Journal Practical Theology. My field is Adult Theological Education in particular. Because I also have a strong background and indeed a present working context of teaching English as a foreign language, that took me directly into the helping, supporting, and monitoring of Practical Theologians who are not writing in their native language. As the Buddy Scheme began to be conceptualised and to be put into place, I was approached to see if I could work alongside these people. It's been a real privilege to do that.
I think I worked with four, possibly, each with different backgrounds. Most, I think, are retired, and that is probably one thing that I would have expected because retired people tend to have a little more time and, of course, are eager not to lose their contact with the subject discipline that they've been involved with for quite a while. So, it was a matter of making sure that these people were able and competent to perform the roles that we wanted them to do, because not every native speaker of English writes particularly good English. We had some initial Zoom meetings, and we decided on three or four who would be particularly appropriate.
Dustin: Practical theology is a collaborative field, and the journal is a collaborative journal. Calida, you've been heavily involved in the Buddy System since joining the journal as Associate Editor. Can you share an introduction to you, your work, and how you found your way to this conversation?
Calida: Hello. I'm Calida Chu, currently based in Nottingham. I just started picking up the Buddy System since I joined Practical Theology last October. So, one of the things that I find very unique, and I am also personally passionate about, is that the Buddy System is a good way to help non-English speakers to refine their language and also to get the work out. And I personally think that because Practical Theology is quite diverse and also perhaps, we say contextual. So, in some ways I found that sometimes when we are talking about the writing of journal articles in English, we may have missed some elements that perhaps people want to say in the non-anglophone world.
I think it is an important system to help us to understand Practical Theology broadly. And also in a way because this is, as Alison has said, free of charge. So, I think it also helps those with less fortunate economic backgrounds or less institutional support to get their writing out. I have tried to connect with mentors and mentees so far and usually the feedback is very good.
Dustin: The Buddy System is certainly something that has a strong history and a really promising future. Part of this conversation is to try to introduce folks to the Buddy System, what it is, why it matters, and how they can access it. We have talked about the Buddy System, but we haven't actually explained what it is. What is the buddy system and what can authors expect from this role and relationship?
Calida: The Buddy System is our new initiative to pair individual mentors with writers for whom English may be their second, third, or fourth language, and to assist them to improve their academic writing. The authors can use the system free of charge, and they are paired up with those who have some background with Practical Theology and English academic writing as well.
Alison: That's exactly how I would have conceptualised this as well. I think it was becoming apparent, even to me as my direct involvement with Practical Theology was beginning to wane. But it was definitely becoming apparent that this was a need that we should meet if at all possible. And I'm delighted that the Editorial Board took that on board and was able to rise to the challenge. I think it is a challenge in a number of ways. Practically, some of these authors may not be in the UK or even in Europe. So communicating with them by Zoom, or by Skype, or whatever, isn't always the most effective way. In those cases, it becomes text by email, which creates questions as to how formative it is. I think I've always worked with the idea that this needs to be formative and that the ultimate goal for the authors who are being supported and monitored is that they will get to the point where they feel competent and not only feel competent, but also that the Practical Theology editors consider that they are skilled enough, to fly solo.
There are, of course, challenges about how the communication takes place. What technological communication tools might be used, especially if an author is living in a country with poor wifi? The tools frequently used in the UK and the USA may not be practical in certain countries, which might mean the best way that a Buddy and an author can communicate is through email. There are challenges for the Buddies about time and, obviously, if the authors they’re working with are in different time zones. But basically I think the scheme has got a huge amount of potential. The Buddies were very enthusiastic about taking this on. Actually, I would love to invite their experiences. This is a big opportunity, we could and should be looking at recruiting slowly but surely, and training a bigger bank of these Buddies.
Dustin: Thank you, Alison and Calida. I think one of the things that's unique about this is that we're able to train these Buddies about how they can work with individuals who are writing in English as a second, third, or fourth academic language. Can you share a little bit about that training and why the training matters for the success of the system and relationship?
Alison: It was more a dialogue than a training, it has to be said. I was fortunate in that the people we had accepted as volunteers, were already well able, and had good ideas and a good understanding of the type of thing that would be helpful. So, I think the first thing we did was to consider together what the basic principles were. As I was saying before, this idea of being a formative experience for the authors was one of the key things. Obviously bringing their work up to a standard, which would mean that the article could be accepted for publication was another important thing. Many of the authors, I think it needs to be said, are hoping to publish for the first time, either never having published anything before or the first time for Practical Theology. And so, we're talking about working with people who are still developing their craft of journal writing, etc.
The language and the craft in a sense go together. And the same thing I think goes with the Buddies that they too are developing their own way of working. We also talked about the practicalities. How much time could an author be expecting to work with a buddy? When is it time to stop? And will the Buddies actually come to a point, let's say after perhaps 6 hours, when they might feel a time boundary was being pushed too far. Will the Buddies find it tricky to actually say, ‘Well, I still don't think this is up to scratch, but I'm afraid I can't offer you any more time’. These are some of the practicalities that we discussed. The buddy relationship requires lots of communication.
Dustin: I think the purposeful communication is particularly significant because it really is a relationship; that's certainly something we talked a lot about early on as we were formulating the Buddy System. This is a relationship. This is a relationship between potential authors, people who know the field of Practical Theology, and the broader editorial, the editorial team. As a relationship, one of the things we were also mindful of is that this isn't a substitute for peer review. So, for our potential authors, it is important to note that participation in the buddy system and completion of the buddy system is not a guarantee of publication, but it is an attempt to support the successful outcome of peer review. We will trust our reviewers at that stage because we want to honour that relationship at every aspect.
Dustin: Calida, why does the Buddy System matter for the field of Practical Theology and also for the future of the journal Practical Theology?
Calida: Thank you. I guess Alison raised some very good points about communications and also relationships. Additionally, the Buddy System requires considering the way that we are talking about theology and how we communicate to others. For some potential authors, their logic or their thinking is based on the language they speak, which is not always the same as that of anglophone speakers. In a way, they are doing something practical, it's practical on the ground, and it's also the experience of how theology works in the world. Because the journal Practical Theology is associated with BIAPT, which iwas originally founded in the UK, there are some tendencies that we have to focus on how we think things from the UK perspective. And sometimes other parts of the world also have different aspects to talk about Practical Theology. And of course, perhaps with different ethnic and cultural backgrounds that may be in western society or other parts of the world, we have different kinds of practical theologies in the making or they have a voice to speak but in a different way.
Much like Alison shared when talking about languages, I think it's very important to consider how we speak in a language that people can understand. This also applies when we write an essay. It's about the logic and the structure. Sometimes people highlight certain kind of things because it's how they process things. I tend to talk about how Asians usually think about things. They think in a logic like a story. They don't tell you the conclusion until the end. But in an academic journal article, it doesn't work that way so that people think, ‘Oh, so what are you arguing?’ So, they only say until the end, like a story. It’s a different logic that we try to help them to improve so that people in the anglophone world will understand their practical rheology and their lived experience.
Dustin: That is so helpful and so insightful, and I appreciate the way you drew attention to the different forms of logic, thinking, and structure that are connected to different linguistic practices and traditions. One of the things that I think is worth considering as a follow-up is the history of the field of Practical Theology. The field has prioritised context and the importance of local wisdom: it's a discipline that is contextually rooted, is attentive and committed to local communities. And yet, there is an irony in that the history of the field as an academic discipline is closely tied to the English-speaking world, even as the field is expanding beyond the anglophone world.
In light of what we have discussed about logic, the craft of language, and the forms of epistemology that emerge from non-anglophone contexts, how may privileging English in Practical Theology limit the forms of knowledge and inquiry we can pursue?
Calida: I would suggest that sometimes when we are talking about Practical Theology, we are trying to pigeonhole things on certain things about context because many of us are trained in systematic theology. Our logic will be inclined to categorise certain forms of Practical Theology into different categories. But sometimes, when we are working on Practical Theology, we are asking alternatives that are in the ground that someone is doing something differently. So, I guess this is the dilemma that we have to continuously challenge. Of course, we are not saying that the current system is not working and that we should do something else. At the same time, we are trying to say that when many English speakers are trying to consider how Practical Theology should be seen, should be taught, when English is assumed to be the only language of communication, then we may lose the elements of Practical Theology that emerge when we centre what is happening on the ground with the people that may be engaged in different ways.
Alison: Listening to Calida there, I was just thinking, ‘Goodness, this in its own right is actually a research project’. It's actually saying, ‘Is Practical Theology blazing a trail of bending, and reshaping, and reconfiguring how research is not only done, but how it's expressed, how it's reported, how it's written about?’ And I think the answer to that is of course that is what's going to happen. That's precisely what we need to happen. And if it wasn't happening, we'd probably not be doing our job properly. And, therefore, there's another project behind that, which is actually to stand back and evaluate that very process and see what's been going on, so that we have a better idea over time as to what we consider good practice where we consider perhaps some of the boundaries might lie. Because we can't move, evidently, we can't move to a point where anything goes. That's just not going to be possible. But I think we don't know yet where our boundaries are, what we find acceptable in all sorts of ways.
Calida: I'm also thinking about boundaries because we are trying to broaden in the sense that refines the language of first-time authors, but also what's the boundary that we want the anglophone readers to understand the work. We have to do so in a way that we don't just say, ‘Oh, you should talk about your story like this’, because then that's colonisation. So, there's some sort of tension that we have to focus on. And I really don't know the answer to be honest.
Dustin: I think that certainly describes the individual and collective learning journey we're on when this emerged as an attempt to serve the academic community, serve the field, also to serve potentially authors who were writing in English as their second, third, or fourth academic language. We didn't start this because we had a clear solution, we just started it because there was a sense that something needed to be done.
I want to explore one of the things you talked about, Calida, and you have actually raised for us in different ways, Alison, this sense of that there is a refined or proper forms of academic English. Can you each say more about how the Buddy System understands what counts as proper academic English and how the work of the journal in this enterprise might be trying to bend that genre, if ever so slightly?
Alison: I think the role of the buddy is absolutely crucial in that because it's the Buddies who are going to have the hands-on experience, and it's the Buddies who are going to have to wrestle with those questions on a potentially five times when they meet with their authors just asking, ‘Well, where do I ask for change and where do I suggest no change? Where do I keep them quiet? And what version of English am I working with?’ Each buddy has to consider, ‘Which version of English are we working with?’
And therefore, I think probably one of the things that Practical Theology may need to be looking at is trying to encourage authors who are coming from a wide range of different contexts and who are established authors who have already been publishing. If there are established authors who might come from African countries, for example, or perhaps any of the countries where there are forms of English, and forms of thinking, forms of approaching problems that are very, very different from what we do in the United Kingdom or perhaps in the European West, Buddies have to start by bringing those to the table and saying, ‘What do we think about this?’ And, therefore, it probably means that we need to be including the Buddies in regular conversations where these questions are teased out and the answers are even more teased out. And that won't happen overnight, but it will be a gradual evolving process.
Dustin: That's right. That’s part of our hope for this conversation and the article that will follow from this is to have a conversation. Not to offer a fully formed or complete process or project, but to invite people into the conversation. So, as folks are engaging this material, our hope is that you'd come to the conversation that you would help us improve it, that you would enrich it, that you'd serve in a meaningful way because the craft of language requires all of us.
Calida: Yes, these are good points. We are also trying to support authors as they shape the main argument in a way that is connecting with someone in other parts of the world who may not know your own context. We also want to shape it in a way that is very presentable and is also uplifting potential authors’ work in other contexts. If people don't know your context, people don’t know certain data, for example, then they don't know how to understand your work or even cite your work, then that's another issue.
Dustin: Before we think about the future of the buddy system, I want to take a bit of a step back and think about why the work and learning that we're trying to do in this Buddy System in the journal matters beyond Practical Theology. One of the things we're trying to explore is learning across differences in various ways: differences in context, differences in experience, differences in linguistic expression, differences in logic and thinking structure. This form of learning is not restricted to Practical Theology as a field, it happens broadly in the intellectual enterprise that we're all engaged in. So, for each of you, why does learning across and from differences matters for the work of Practical Theology and also intellectual inquiry more broadly?
Alison: Those are really big questions, aren't they? I can talk personally in that I speak two other languages and I know from the process both of learning those languages and speaking them, using them or they're not in an academic context, really, I know how much that enriches my knowledge of my language and enriches my ability to express and understand. So, I think there’s something of learning how other people think: the epistemologies of other nations, of other ethnic groups, and other whoever they are that we're working with that is necessarily. If we engage with it honestly and deeply, that is necessarily going to broaden our perspectives and help us understand our worlds and our goals in a sense more deeply.
Calida: For me, it matters because we may have some blind spots because of how we perceive the world, and sometimes we are not aware of that. So, one of the privileges in general in teaching or in this kind of mentality is that I always find that I would learn something from others. So, it's not a unidirectional relationship. I feel that through them, through their different perspectives, I also understand things in a new way. I realise, ‘Oh, that's how people see, let's say Christianity nowadays or how they do things differently in their churches’. As academics, we always try to broaden our horizons on different things.
Alison: I’m just going to add one thing because as I've been listening to us talk, and I’ve just been wondering whether there's a point at which we need to somehow find a way of educating the readership of Practical Theology because in many ways we are in a self-fulfilling circle. We have this expectation for people to write in a particular way that is met by the readership who understand it and like it, and it therefore continue to want to subscribe. And the whole thing goes around in this self-perpetuating cycle. I wonder whether actually this business of developing new epistemologies, merging epistemologies, seeing new things that are new ways of expressing, new ways of engaging with issues may not necessarily be understood well by the readership of Practical Theology in the first instance. So, I do wonder whether there's some way of gently educating the readership as to what's going on.
Dustin: That’s exactly right. One of the interesting things from my seat as Editor that I've gotten to see over the last two years is how there have been two concurrent experiments that have been working around this question of epistemology, language, the majority world. One was the Buddy System, and the other is the Special Issue on Majority World Epistemologies in Practical Theology, which was supported by a remarkable team of guest editors. In the wake the Majority World Epistemologies Special Issue, we've continued to receive strong contributions from the majority world.
The journal has always published articles from and about the majority world, but it does seem like part of the outcome of that special issue is that it started to educate our readership and help us learn as a journal and as readers about how to be more thoughtful at this intersection. In turn, I think it's expanded our readership and also expanded our authors because people are recognising this is a thoughtful space to do Practical Theology beyond the anglophone world, which really is our hope. We still have a lot of work and a lot of learning to do that better.
Dustin: One of the distinct things about the journal is it is a journal not solely for academics, it’s also a journal for practitioners. As we consider our readers who are practitioners, why does learning across differences matter for the work of ministry broadly as well?
Calida: I think it comes back to Alison's question about echo chambers that we are only talking to ourselves. Let's say in ministry you always encounter different people. Ideally, in all kind of church settings or Christian non-profit organisations, you meet different people in the world and also serve them according to their need, and, of course, everyone's needs are different. In a similar way, in certain periods of time, the church will only have similar types of people because maybe some participants feel that they don’t belong to that particular community. Amid this, I think we want at least to give a gesture that we are accepting different kinds of epistemology and to broaden the conversation. And this practice is also important for different Christian communities.
Alison: I think anything that helps the people who are the ministers, who are the readership of Practical Theology rather than the authors, anything that encourages them to engage profoundly with something very different is going to be a good thing. And my concern I think is perhaps small, but in comparison to the benefits, but I also think that we are in a busy world. Whether people are going to actually take the time to engage with what these differences are and perhaps reread an article two or three times before they start to get the points and before they start to get to understand what it's doing and why it's doing it. So, I think it's not going to be something that we are looking at happening overnight. It's not going to be a quick fix.
And it may be a matter of educating the readership of Practical Theology as much as the authors really. Which comes back to what we were saying earlier of Calida’s echo chamber and my sort of, are we in a self-perpetuating cycle there. So, I think the message is that ministry has got many, many different shapes, forms, and colours, and we need to be able to express those shapes, forms, and colours in as wide a variety and perhaps in as representative format as we possibly can, which to date has probably not been happening very well.
Dustin: We’ve talked a fair bit about the promise, the possibility, the potential of this buddy system and our hopes for its future, which I think it has a strong and bright future. I want to pause briefly and think about the opposite. What are the alarm bells that each of you have as you think about the future of this Buddy System?
Calida: I guess some concerns maybe, let's say maybe people think, ‘Oh, my argument and grammar are bad, then it doesn't matter if I submit it, someone will mentor me for certain’. Then I guess we need to remind them that, ‘You still need to do your part. Even though there may be mentors to help you along the way’. But my hope is that this will be at least the first few initiatives. I don't see this kind of system in other major theological journals. So, I hope that will be some changes in terms of, let's say the opportunities for first-time authors and especially those from non-anglophone environments. Some people did tell me that there may be some kind of barriers because of their identity. They weren't allowed to speak in certain ways. This is also one of the perceptions that I want to at least give an impression that in the field of Practical Theology, we are working hard to break those barriers, to help people to express their theology in our journal.
Alison: My concerns are things that I know from experience because I still do some monitoring and some accompanying, some tutoring in English for people who are writing their PhDs for example. And trying not to cultivate or allow a relationship of dependency to be cultivated is quite important. In my experience, the people that I have walked alongside and worked alongside have been so grateful. They want more, and more, and more, and more. And I think that is something that we need to be careful of, especially because that burden will fall upon the Buddies. And the whole scheme only works if the Buddies are on side and the Buddies are doing a good job. So, I think I would be saying we must be having regular support meetings with the Buddies where they can articulate some of their concerns as well as some of their joys and successes. Ways in which they can be sure that the journal is supporting them so that if there is a need, the journal or the editor will address issues that comes up.
I think the Buddies are right at the heart of this. A lot of what we’ve discussed needs to then come onto them and say, ‘How can we put this into place? What do you think? What are your experiential problems?’ We've articulated it more on an intellectual level. I think we need to be putting it back into the Buddies and asking them what they need and how we can help.
Dustin: This is a great place to note that our Associate Editor, Dr. Calida Chu is overseeing the Buddy System. There is in fact somebody designated on our team who is available, who is engaged, who is leading this process in this work.
As we conclude, as you consider the future of the journal Practical Theology and also this initiative, what are your hopes for how this initiative will grow and change in the months and years ahead?
Calida: I hope at some point that our purpose is not to let potential authors to continue to rely on the Buddies, but in a way that we actually want them to fly. We want authors to have the ability and confidence to write an article independently and to submit to any journals without any problem. So, that will be, I say, perhaps our goal, of course that is not only for articles in Practical Theology, but also for the future of theology.
Alison: One of the aspirations would be to do what we can to make Practical Theology grow and to be more influential. And I think that influence for me should and could be beyond the discipline of theology. I think the Buddy System is an initiative that other journals of other disciplines could be very interested to know about and to be willing to engage in conversations and even imitations benefiting from experience. And that's again, where I wonder whether we ought to be doing this sort of conversation regularly, to be honest, because this is a way in which we document how things are going. And it's documenting the history of this initiative.
I think another aspiration is what we've already articulated is actually to find or to be part of a conversation which actually changes and develops theology and Practical Theology in particular. But why should it be restricted only to Practical Theology? It should be saying that theology, however it's articulated, however it's expressed, is a worldwide, it's a universal thing that we participate in. And we have a chance to make this as a universal collaborative project.
If you would like to volunteer as a buddy or receive more information about the Buddy System as an author, please contact Practical Theology’s Associate Editor, Dr. Calida Chu, at [email protected].
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Dustin D. Benac
Dustin D. Benac (ThD, Duke University) is the Director and Co-founder of the Program for the Future Church at Baylor University's George W. Truett Theological Seminary. He is the author of Adaptive Church: Collaboration and Community in a Changing World (Baylor University Press 2022) and co-editor of Crisis and Care: Meditations on Faith and Philanthropy (Cascade 2021).
Calida Chu
Dr Calida Chu, born and raised in Hong Kong, is Teaching Associate in Sociology of Religion at the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Nottingham. She received her PhD in world Christianity at the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh. She is a member of the Theology Working Group of Lausanne Movement (Seoul 2024) and is Associate Editor of Practical Theology.
Alison Le Cornu
Alison Le Cornu was the Editor of the Journal of Adult Theological Education for a number of years, and now works freelance both in the field of Practical Theology as well as teaching English as a Foreign Language.