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Research, sharing and secrets
July 12, 2005
Here in week two at ye olde Amsterdam summer institute, things are staying interesting. I’ve been basking in the light of nerd-o-rama, which has been more than awesome (games about punctuation are hot). It’s pretty great to be around folks who are extremely smart in general and also smart about and interested in sexuality in particular. The days are long and the reading is ample, but the discussions have been interesting and heartfelt.
As I get to know the other participants in the institute, it’s interesting to see layers in people - professional, personal, research interests, personal interests. In sexuality research it’s in some ways difficult to not wrap these all up together; not just because sex itself can be such a personal thing, but because many people who make sex part of their careers in some way are intensely passionate believers in the value of what they do. In many ways, I intentionally make a mess of that whole thing. I like the mess, I think it makes me an interesting person for sure. However, that mess also puts me on two different sides of a line - I am researcher and researched, something I’m very much aware of in the context of this institute. It’s interesting to see other people struggle with that a bit.
I struggle with it myself. I’ve read so many studies and ethnographies and seen so many documentaries in which the researcher just doesn’t get the people he or she is studying. There’s always a slightly stressful relationship between the researcher and the researched. Even if there is a good degree of understanding, there is always a point of tension around ownership of the story.
I have a unique position in that I can speak in regards to the communities I’m involved in as a participant, not a participant-observer. Though I do think critically about the communities I’m a part of, I’m not participating in them as research (yes, I’ve been asked about that). I don’t think I have to convince any of you of the sincerity of my obsession with and participation in various sexual subcultures. Getting re-acquainted with my academic life has made me realize that although I have a relationship with the academic world and will continue to participate in it in some way at least until I’m done with my master’s, my primary allegiance is not to academia, it is to myself as a part of the communities I’m involved with. “Academic” is not a primary identity to me, though at one point not so many years ago, it was wholeheartedly.
I feel protective of the hard-won knowledge I have - and it doesn’t feel like the kind of protective I used to feel about my various obscure research topics. It’s a kind of protective in which I realize that much of the knowledge base I operate from these days comes from lived experiences that are close to my heart. Furthermore, I’ve gained a lot of my knowledge from knowing other people, whose stories and secrets I don’t want to trade away to other academics as examples of XYZ phenomenon. I feel that I should safeguard the confidential nature of things I know and that I shouldn’t necessarily offer that up to be analyzed in a classroom.
Although I’m not knocking the value of academic discourse (much), something that I didn’t quite realize when I was immersed in academia (and not much else) is that there is a powerful discourse and analysis that happens inside of communities. On a daily basis, people in all kinds of communities ponder meaning, power, and all sorts of other things that academics think about. I’m not saying that academics shouldn’t do what they do, but I am saying that sometimes academics should defer to the voices of the communities they study - and not just by putting quotes into context of a paper for some journal, but by actually listening.
Posted by Dacia at July 12, 2005 06:15 AM
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Comments
If it’s not phrased in academic speak, I think they have trouble listening effectivley.
Posted by: sinboy at July 12, 2005 10:06 PM
Hell yeah academia is littered with the bodies of stiff, objective souls who have all the knowledge in the world, but not an inch of experience to match it to. Knowledge without experience is theory. There needs to be an example. This pisses me off too because I spend my time trying to convince the old guard in the world of history that social and cultural history is important, or why grafitti is improtant to art, etc, etc. Keep being true to what you believe…
Posted by: nh carey jr at July 13, 2005 09:28 AM
Dacia, I have not commented lately through your series of introspective posts, but I want to say (and I’m probably not the only one) that as a reader, I feel privileged that you’ll work through this stuff right out front where we can see it. As much as it gives back to you to do it this way, I know it also takes a lot of commitment. Thanks.
Posted by: Thomas at July 13, 2005 12:44 PM
Be a member of the community and do NOT research there. Personal insights are fine, and they should be kept personal. Without going into a lot of research methodology and philosophy of science, if you research in your community, the responses you get from the participants in your research will be tainted.
Witness the Hawthorne Studies in the ’30s at General Electric. The researchers were attempting to provide that workers were less productive in poor lighting than in good lighting. The data suggested the opposite, to everyones amazement. The folks being researched were subsequently found to be over-achieving to win approval from the researchers.
The other insight comes from the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal which says if you are on an object you can either tell it’s speed but not its location, or its location but not its speed. I trust this is self-evident.
As for academic-speak, sir, scientific methodology has produced everything tangible and a lot more. What do you have that’s better?
Posted by: Monty Parker at July 14, 2005 11:32 PM
