The choice is a tough one and I prefer the former. A bad book is a sign that one lacks imagination. Plagiarism is proof that you’ve some imagination. I prefer being accused of some imagination to none. An honest person would rather write a bad book. Honesty is a sign of lack of imagination. It’s not a coincidence that most criminals are imaginative people who stay in the public eye while the honest ones are condemned to die unknown. The worst thing about the honest is that they’re unbearably boring. They neither gossip nor slander – that bread and wine of the imagination!

The ones that “fabricate” the past are the writers I admire the most. Postmodern writing to its credit has turned fabrication into a virtue. No one experiences everything they write about. Dostoevsky is not all the four Karamazov brothers in the novel The Brothers Karamazov. A writer imagines such a possibility. Story-telling is an art that places demands on those who undertake it. The performer is on stage and must do everything possible to compel the audience to stay engrossed. Remember the rowdy crowd at the Barafonda Theater in Fellini’s Roma where the performers and audience are actually in a dialogue even when they hurl words and objects at each other!

The first performers in history were the prostitutes. For the most obvious reason that they could do what you would not expect from “respectable” women – simulate an orgasm. The first simulation was dissimulation and theater gained a lease of energy after the disastrous transition from a communal way of life to the stage of private property. In the matriarchal societies where religion was married to performance, the theater did not have an esoteric quality to it. Daily life was the theater and men and women the players. Class society declared a war on performance. Ideology or keeping the masses drugged with lies became intertwined with performance. Performance lost its spiritual quality but the soul of the performers did not rest in peace. They continued to protest ever since.

The magic of performance is not about virtue. If dissimulation is accepted as a dimension of living from which there is no escape I see no reason why it should not be so in art. The temptation to plagiarize comes from the need to be someone other than yourself. How can you be yourself in a system that places copyrights and patents ideas attaching a name to a concept? If we accept that as being right, plagiarism far from being something to be ashamed of, is something to be admired and emulated.

There is another possibility. You can plagiarize and still write a bad book. That is unforgivable and the mediocre of the world fall in this category. I remember a teacher at school scolding a boy caught for cheating in the exams. He scolded the boy for cheating without knowing how to cheat. Maybe he was ironic but the teacher knew that cheating was an art or he would not have ended up being a teacher. Einstein has a point: “The secret of creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” No writer understood this little trade secret better than Shakespeare who came up with countless characters and each one unique and bearing the stamp of creative genius.

Amy Louise Webber is a Phd student in Ageing, Transport & Society at the University of the West of England. She alsodescribes herself as ethnographer, artist, philanthropist, and aspiring Social Entrepreneur. You can read her blog about life in (and beyond) PhD study here: http://amylouisewebber.com

(…Contd.)

The epiphany…

Oddly enough one of the most difficult things I have struggled with is almost an existential one. Often people say that a PhD starts with research questions, but I say it starts with a person. The researcher. Whilst I’ve managed to pass my first year, my research outputs or study focus is not where it should be due to time lost. Whilst some commentators say this is due to too many other things going on, I attribute it to a basic loss of engagement and motivation due to a) strange relations with my supervisors and my own pre-occupation with my unhappiness about the process and b) having to negotiate this pending ‘new identity’  that Phillips & Pugh (2005) speak of.

I sat in front of a computer, staring at a blank screen unable to write for months before finally being signed off work with depression. It was through therapy (together with a two week arts intervention experience ‘The Fortnight Project’ which ran in Bristol as part of the ‘Mayfest’ theatre festival in May) I began to explore my real motivations for doing a PhD – beyond that which was written on the application form or CV. Having got to know more and more students I discovered that behind each of them was a story. All of us were genuinely interested in our subjects and believed in what we were doing, but there was always something else. The expectations of a parent, or the rivalry of a sibling, the chance to escape domestic drudgery in a different country, avoidance of the ‘real’ world, the passions of a working class girl who saw the lawns of Cambridge one day and wanted a different life.  There were many stories amongst the research proposals that were not always openly acknowledged. So what was mine?

I realised that education had mostly, done a lot for me on behalf of my parents, and I realise now that it’s how I learnt to grow up. So perhaps this is my final push to do that. I never really totally learnt how to negotiate problems, differences or defend myself well or speak my mind in all circumstances, or believe in myself enough to go for what I want. Perhaps I’m here doing this so I can finally learn.  I’m also acutely aware of how, leaving school with just my few GCSES, that for seven years I was often treated as I were stupid, less of a person or (literally at times!) patted on the head and told a ‘girl like me’ wouldn’t need to go to university as I could just find a rich man.

The situation is also a bit of a double edged sword. The new PhD identity will obviously eclipse the old one.. but what will that mean in terms or how I relate to my family? With every course I take I am increasingly viewed as a strange and foreign entity and the title ‘doctor’ will be the final allienatory straw breaking the donkeys back. Whilst my family (complicated) are happy for me, they just don’t get it, or really believe in or value it. So which identify do I use when I’m a Doctoral graduate? The old one so I can relate to them, or the new one, when I can sneer alongside the best of high status professors?  Fundamentally, I believe that people should be recognised for their achievements but I don’t really recognise the social hierarchy. Who am I to say that I am higher status due to those words ‘Dr’ before my name? In some way I almost felt guilty. If I go back to the Wimpy now, after however many years it is – am I really so different? and psssst….   most importantly – Am I going to end up being completely boring, wearing elbow patches with no idea how to be silly or fun or believe in anything without reams of ‘evidence’ to substantiate it? (oh okay that’s an exaggeration, no one really wears elbow patches anymore, and okay some academics are fun (my supervisor is that’s half our problem)

The future

So. It seems I have passed my first year, although it’s not been without incident or a few pilot weeks on prescription drugs (I had a bad reaction to them and gave them up for art and theatre instead) I guess there is nothing else I can do but re-address my expectations of the PhD process, plan my next six months thoroughly, catch up to where I feel I should rightly be and try and hope things with my team improve (Although anecdotally it’s supposed to get really hard at this point). Having spoken to numerous PhD students and graduates it is fair to say none of them have really raved about the process and most seem, by the end of their projects to be bloody glad to be rid of their thesis. Academia is indeed a strange creature, and this odd, Oz like journey appears to be just as concerned with endurance and determination and negotiating relationships as it is with actual research. I decided that what I need to survive, (along with a sense of play and embracing creativity and art outside of work) is a mantra, thus quoted by Magnus above:

I’ve started… so I’ll finish.

(repeat twice a day, every day, until thesis completion)

However I feel, (good or bad) today, next week or this time next year, it won’t last forever – the time has flown and I received my bursary payment schedule recently and looking at those 24 payment dates …. well two years does not seem that long at all.

I’d better get on with it then.

Amy Louise Webber is a Phd student in Ageing, Transport & Society at the University of the West of England. She alsodescribes herself as ethnographer, artist, philanthropist, and aspiring Social Entrepreneur. You can read her blog about life in (and beyond) PhD study here: http://amylouisewebber.com

‘Successful post graduates emerge with a new identity as competent professionals, able to argue their viewpoint with anyone regardless of status, confident in their own knowledge but also aware of its boundaries…to arrive at this point, is what being a postgraduate research student is really all about…’ Phillips & Pugh, 2005.

I’ve started, so I’ll finish….  Magnus Magnusson.

‘Academia: It’s like negotiating the land of OZ ……minus the good shoes’ Webber, 2011.

One year on…

I’ve had some time off from my blog due to work commitments recently and writing this next entry has proved to be a bit of a challenge to produce. Coming to the end of the academic year, and having recently passed my first year progression exam the time is right to reflect on my experiences and attempt to evaluate as reflexively as I can, what’s worked well and also not so well in order to improve and or maintain my performance and experience for the coming year. One thing I am often told is that a PhD is a journey, so as such, this account resembles a snapshot of that journey, taken at a particular point in time. Perhaps my perspectives and opinions will change as I progress. Perhaps they will become more engrained. Who can tell? Overall, I have mixed feelings at the end of year one, and if this was an ofsted report, I would probably grade this year as ‘satisfactory’. Here’s why:

Great expectations..

So, over 365 days have passed since my application for voluntary redundancy was accepted and I left my consultancy job for a life in academia.  After two refused funding applications and many years of wanting to undertake a PhD I arrived at my desk in the Autumn of 2010, full of enthusiasm and high expectations for what was to come and a clear idea of what life as a PhD student would be like. I had envisioned something which was not in retrospect, exactly that realistic.
I had imagined academia as a world of dynamic modern creatives, striving together to battle the ills of society by attempting to solve or draw attention to its shortcomings. Motivated by a passionate and relentless shared altruistic desire for the pursuit of knowledge and together working in a close team in an environment of trust, my supervisory team (perhaps in the manner of the A-team, or the outlaws of Sherwood forest or similar) together with my supervisor (who could impart a wealth of knowledge about my study and was perhaps a combination of Mr/s Majeika and say, Yoda) would form a band of scholarly rebels an together we would embark on investigation of my research topic, in the manner of an apprenticeship perhaps not dissimilar to those taken by Jedi Knights or Starfleet cadets, which eventually after three joyful years, enabled academic enlightenment which would then be passed to me. Of course all this would be supported by numerous mindbending, stimulating philosophical and theoretical conversations with my peers around life, death, love and the universe carried out in the bar until the early hours of the morning. I might even be able to impart my existing knowledge and experience on a group of bright eyed and bushy tailed students.

 Okay, so I’m exaggerating slightly in the account above, but it’s true to say the reality of academia has not stood up to my initial ideals, which has led me to a lack of motivation in terms of my research, however it’s also fair to say the year has not been without its notable achievements.

The good

So what positive things can I take from this year? Just being here I guess is one. The landscape of higher education is undergoing radical change and having a scholarship to undertake PhD training is likely to become even rarer in the times to come. Like most people I certainly would never have been able to afford it otherwise. Undertaking a PhD will enable me to benefit society, develop new skills, gain a qualification and change my career direction.

On a practical level having the flexibility to manage your own time is a major perk, as is the chance to be completely selfish in terms of your own training. The opportunities for real development at my previous organisations were reasonably limited. This year I have undergone a great deal of training which I just wouldn’t have been exposed to otherwise. I’ve completed 90 credits (three) masters level research modules and undergone valuable additional skills training via seven short courses or workshops which support my development as a social researcher. I’ve attended nine professional/academic conferences and presented my previous MSc research at three of these, which are all at an international level.

I’ve made some amazing friends, been a representative on the postgraduate research (PGR)  students committee and volunteered to represent the PGR students at faculty research degree board committee meetings. I assisted in organising the annual PGR student conference and was awarded a first prize for my presentation. Having had a ten year break from any kind of performing, I joined the UWE Centre for Performing Arts (CPA) and auditioned (successfully) for a UWE music scholarship. I then undertook formal singing lessons and I am preparing for my grade 8 musical theatre exam in November. I was genuinely surprised to be cast as a principle role in the university musical (also a journey in itself) which enjoyed a sell-out run at the Redgrave Theatre, Bristol and over the year, in my role as a CPA scholar, I have supported the CPA by singing or giving readings at (approximately) ten public concerts.

I’ve learnt a lot about myself. That sounds dramatic but it’s true, in ways that I couldn’t have anticipated. My skills are improving, although this has been a slow process. Whilst it is a continuing source of worry and bone of contention surviving on a budget has made me richer in other ways. It’s surprising how your identity can develop through creating, observing and appreciating things when you get off of the conveyer belt of consumption that blinds you to them so easily. It’s easy to think when you have been used to earning a certain income that when your circumstances change and you stop work that the world may end. It doesn’t. You have to find a way to adapt, reassess, negotiate but somehow life has gone on. I’m still here. Slightly shabbier looking, a bit fatter but mostly smiling and often covered in paint or glue rather than the trendy (ish) labels.

The bad

So. Where did the struggles occur? For me, concerns began to arise from the outset, as I had not been consulted regarding the appointment of my supervisory team, all of whom seemed excellent academics but I had not been assigned anyone that had in-depth knowledge of the theory I wished to draw upon, or any experience or knowledge in the methodology I wished to use. This has been an ongoing concern and I am told will not be resolved due to resourcing issues.

As I mentioned before expectations were pretty high when I arrived and certain things disappointed me, aspects of the process sometimes seemed ridiculously old fashioned and not the best way to get the best out of students. Some senior academics seemed incredibly blinkered, demonstrating clear bias toward method, philosophy or approach and disparaged the work of their well respected colleagues. All of which is apparently common in academia but not something I had expected or respected. I sort of found it unprofessional and again, old fashioned. Interdisciplinary postgraduate training had previously taught me to have an open mind to various approaches and it came as a complete shock to find that generally this didn’t seem the case in reality. Don’t get me wrong, academics are incredibly exceptional people but I was wondering that if arguing a particular thesis so repeatedly throughout your career actually makes you more blinkered? I lost motivation and the academic pedestal begun to waver as I questioned ‘was I ready to become that narrow minded? The only thing my years of education had taught me was that none of us really ‘know’ anything at all, but it was like nobody actually wanted to admit that. Instead, flags waved from methodological and philosophical islands, and the reality was far different from that I had hoped for. Beneath that I felt was fear and insecurity of difference and the unknown.
Suddenly, the emperor was before me, and I could see his dangly bits.

My poor supervisor didn’t live up to my expectations either. I am his first PhD student and it often felt like a case of the blind leading the blind particularly in the early months. He is just a few years older than me, and is very nice and kind and we drank a lot of coffee, tweeted and text and ate cake and everything was fine. Fine for months. He was very reassuring, there was no nagging and he often wrote/re-wrote chunks of my text for me. As every PhD student-supervisory relationship is different I didn’t question it, until eventually I began to wonder if that’s how everybody else’s meetings went. Turns out they didn’t, and I don’t think things are ever supposed to be ‘fine’ until that last draft has finally been submitted.  So we have to renegotiate the way things are done. No doubt I’ve done nothing but complain and kick and harass various members of staff this year over various things and they are probably all enjoying the break from the crazy Webber girl.

I found the monthly meeting process in general difficult – (this I have been told is in part due to my lack/volume of written output which is a fair criticism). The initial meetings seemed rather odd almost like a kind of role play at times.. (cue schizophrenic breakdown as I began to question the reality of the situation – am I in a play within a play?) I was told I was not playing the ‘game’ several times. Which was somewhat confusing for me as I felt I was there for a meeting about my project, and it’s a bit rubbish if I don’t know what the rules are and no one tells me. As Phillips & Pugh (2005) state above, a large part of the PhD process is learning how to negotiate and present your argument with those of high status. So, part of this meeting process involves the big-wigs belittling you as best they can so you can get used to responding in a professional way. I think I’m okay with criticism if the point made can be fully justified, but I have struggled with the way it has been delivered. Currently the sneeryness  has me yo-yo-ing between wanting to give two types of responses a) melting into a tearful heap on the floor screaming ‘high status suity man, your words, how they burn’ or b) jumping around throwing tables out of windows shouting ‘come and ‘ave a go if you think you’re ‘ard enough’. Again this type of questioning encouraged a lack of motivation not just because it wasn’t particularly pleasant but also it seemed poorly justified and old fashioned. What exactly is so special about academics/academia which qualifies them to behave in a way which would ultimately be seen as unprofessional in commercial or other types of public practice?

(To Be Continued in tomorrow’s SI)

It was a surprise and somehow a welcome relief when my supervisor at the University of Nottingham, Prof Carol Hall, encouraged me to ‘write the I’ into my MA dissertation about emotional intelligence in teaching and learning. The six (long, tough) years I’d spent between 2000-06 as a mature, part-time under-graduate student at the University of Warwick, had drilled into my psyche the importance of ‘validity’ and ‘academic rigour’: words which, only now, I feel brave enough to include within italics. As many educationalists have noted (e.g. Merrill, 1999; West, 1998; Willis, 1977) because of my age, experience and working-class background, assimilating these methodological concepts was a hard battle and so choosing to subsequently relinquish them produced its own personal challenges.

However, by the end of my Masters, I felt this approach had opened-up a positive, new, creative world. Its reflexive nature promotes a refreshing consolidation of research, instinct and emotions, or as C. Wright Mills (1959) has written: “Scholarship is a choice of how to live as well as a choice of career” (p196). The paradigm change empowered me and provides me with a new sense of confidence and self-identity: yes, I carry my own validity and my academic rigour is provided by my own (and my colleagues’) sheer hard work!

But, as with any change, bringing the ‘body’ of the researcher – our own personal experiences and perspectives into our research – produces new dilemmas and risks. It creates tensions between the subjective/objective; quantitative/qualitative or the planning and rational thinking that is required in research project design. It can also be a source of disagreement between us and our supervisors! However, it is these very risks which create their own worth, because, by its very nature, writing the ‘I’ into our research produces unpredictable and destabilizing effects on our data, our work and on us as researchers (Hoult, 2010). Importantly, I believe this allows a voice to be given to the disenfranchised self (and those I represent) from my personal past, or as Aronowitz (2003) puts it: “the ongoing debate about the relationship of scholarship to social commitment”. In our journey towards seeking new knowledge, the elements of risk and uncertainty, and the inherent affectivity within, play a crucial part.

These dilemmas are issues that individuals have struggled with for decades and are only ever resolved on a personal level. It seems slightly ironic that only in the Appendix in Mills’ ‘Sociological Imagination’ does the author provide practical suggestions for ‘beginning students’. But these recommendations are still crucial today, and ones that I always pass on to my own students. For example, by creating a portfolio of personal items, discussing our research with others and keeping a journal of our emotional learning journey we can “…keep our inner world awake” (p197).

So, in this age of increasing multi/inter/cross-disciplinary approaches, and in an atmosphere of increased sensitivities to ethical and cultural issues, writing the ‘I’ into our research provides a creative, valuable and innovative tool that has the potential to stretch beyond barriers, providing new insights. And, although sadly, many sociologists have been “deterred by fear and careerism from following his path” (Aronowitz, 2003), there’s no doubt that Mills’ philosophy has been successfully transformed by the blogging, tweeting and social and academic networking environment that today so many of us take for granted. But we’ve entered a new millennium since Mills’ seminal publication, an era which has also produced a polarisation of inequalities and alarming environmental and economic pressures. I imagine Mills would be fascinated but saddened at this paradox

In this context of faster technological advances how can Mills’ ideas be taken forward? What practical methods are you utilising to write the ‘I’ into your work?

References:

Aronowitz, S. (2003) A Mills’ Revival? Available online at : http://www.logosjournal.com/aronowitz.htm accessed 12/09/11

Hoult, E. C. (In Press) Adult Learning and la Recherche Féminine: Reading Resilience and Helene Cixous. London: Palgrave Macmillan

Merrill, B. (1999) learners in University in Gender Change and Identity open University Press: Bucks Chap 3 pp 134-171

Mills, C. W. (1959) The Sociological Imagination Oxford: Oxford University Press

Willis, P. (1977) Learning to Labour: How working class kids get working class jobs Farnborough: Saxon House

West, L. (1998) The Edge of a New Story? On paradox, postmodernism and the cultural psychology of experiential learning Studies in Continuing Education 20(2): 235-249

 

María Martínez Aldana was born in 1939 in Ixtlahuaca, a small village located in the municipality of San Martín de las Piramides in the state of Mexico.  María does not know exactly the day of her birth, “I have two birthdays”, she says, smiling, but what she knows is that this year she will celebrate her 71st. birthday. Although she has slowed down in recent years, Mariquita, as she is normally called, still runs the family house and looks after two of her eleven grandchildren as their primary carer.

Growing up after the Mexican Revolution at the time when the Mexican government launched a de-indigenisation movement of the population in order to create a unique Mexican identity, María lived through the time when many indigenous men and women migrated to the urban areas of Mexico as the only option to improve their living conditions (CDI 2006, Oehmichen Bazan 2005, Reyes Ruiz 2010).

María Martínez is my grandmother and my chief inspiration for conducting sociological research in the areas of gender, indigenous people and migration.  Since my parents were both finishing their professional training and working at the same time, I lived most of my childhood at my grandparents’ house. In fact, it could be said that I was essentially raised by my grandmother. Given my long personal association with María, the story I tell here may be different from those recorded by oral historians or journalists who usually interview their subjects in two or three sessions. The tale I tell here is one I experienced and heard many times while growing up at María’s home, and through more recent deep conversations with her. For the purposes of this work María agreed to be taped and to make public her life-experiences. I also recall conversations that I held with María’s mother, Altagracia (my great-grandmother) in my frequent visits to her place before she died in 1996. Thus, the close relationship and affection that we feel for each other has given me the courage to risk writing the story of this indigenous woman in my own words but relying on hers for descriptions of the most dramatic events in her life.

Feminist scholars, anthropologists, and others have been debating the value of recording life histories for many years. Women’s lives stories, under a feminist approach, may allow to document their lives and activities, which were previously largely seen as marginal and subsidiary to men’s, and to understand women in context (Bryman 2008, Friedlander 1994). Nevertheless life stories can also be seen as exploitative and of limited generalisability (see Skeggs 2001). I must admit that I had great reservation in making my grandmother’s and family history public for the purpose of an article, but I decided to proceed for two main reasons.

First, I see María’s story as a way to contextualize issues about gender relations among indigenous communities in Mexico, indigenous identity and de-indigenisation in Mexico, and especially the struggles of indigenous women in the realms of rapid and almost forced modernisation and development in Latin America. In this work I refer to María as an indigenous woman, even though the story I tell does not focus entirely in her indigenous origins. If this sounds contradictory, it should, for that is precisely the point. The fact that María was born in a poor peasant community with pre-Hispanic vestiges and that she was denied the right to learn the indigenous language marks her as descendant of those whose culture was diminished five hundred years ago and who have since been condemned to occupy the bottom rung of Mexico’s socio-economic ladder. While María never expresses shame about her indigenous origins, she sees her life and the lives of her relatives as a steady struggle to improve their socio-economic circumstances, a struggle often requiring the rejection of those traditions identified as “indian” [sic] and acquire, when possible, attributes associated with upward mobility which involved (and still involve) the aspirations of the white western society.

My second reason for writing about María’s story is simple and direct: she had a tough but wonderful story to tell which gave texture and inspiration to the ‘social aspects’ I want to explore and analyze.

Thus, in this work I present María’s story in two sections. The first one is dedicated to María’s childhood and her upbringing. Here I relate the social environment where María grow up and the opportunities and/or disadvantages that, as indigenous person and woman, she faced. The second section relates to her migration to Mexico City and her incorporation to the labour force, again under the circumstances that her indigenity and gender represents. In this section, I also recount María’s hasty partnership and maternity, and then I briefly end with her current life situation.

María’s story

Childhood

María Martínez Aldana is the 12th of 14 children. Her name at birth was María Ascención Martínez Aldana García, but later on she regularised her birth certificate and decided to be officially named María Martínez Aldana. María’ story reaches back to the days of her grandparents, one of whom was still alive when she was a young girl (her father’s mother Dominga). María’s grandparents lived through the Mexican Revolution of 1910. She said that they were not originally from Ixtlahuaca (she does not know where exactly they came from) but they were forced to move to this previously  isolated region  because María’s grandfather did not want to be recruited by the Mexican army or by the Zapata’s army during the revolution: “they [her grandparents] did not like to be involve with guns”.

María’s mother, Altagracia, married with Vicente (María’s father) when she was fourteen. Altagracia did not go to school and as María points out “she was all the time pregnant”. Altagracia had fourteen children but, according to María, she may have being pregnant more than twenty times. Unfortunately some of her children died soon after they were born. Altagracia started work when María was around six years old selling aprons and clothes in small quantities at the market of San Juan, a two hours commute from Ixtlahuaca by donkey.

Vicente was originally from San Luis, a village near to Ixtlahuaca. Since a young age, Vicente worked in an hacienda[i] that produced pulque[ii].Vicente was in charge of extracting the aguamiel[iii] from the cactuses and of the fermentation process. Apart from his work in the hacienda, Vicente owned a small piece of land where corn, beans and squash was cultivated for family consumption. Meat consumption was rare but when this was affordable mostly came from Altagracia’s flocks of chickens and turkeys.

The family home was very modest; the house consisted of one room with a thatched roof and dirt floor. Vicente, Altagracia and their fourteen children lived there, they slept in petates [iv] or wooden boards and cooked in a corner of the room. They did not have any water, electricity or drainage services until 1996, the last time I visited the town. In my frequent visits to “el rancho” (as we used to call Ixtlahuaca) I remember collecting potable water from a community pipe and going to the toilet in a latrine located around fifty meters away from the main house. María recalls daily life in Ixtlahuaca with humour: “look, at the end of the day it was easier. We did not have to do any household work apart from cooking. Not even sweeping the floor! It could not be dirty…it was made of dirt!”

Neither men nor women in the family wore shoes or sandals. Women used to wear naguas (skirts) and men dressed in white trousers and tops, a typical outfit worn at that time by indigenous men and campesinos (peasants) through Mexico.  Nobody in the family worn underwear and they had at most three changes of clothes.

When María talks about her childhood, she refers to it with mixed feelings. She highlights extreme poverty as part of her upbringing but she also recognises that she had unforgettable happy moments. Since María was one of the youngest children, she emphasized the figure of one of her eldest sisters, Irene, almost fifteen years older than her, who taught her many things:

My mum was very busy with the other children and her sales. My mum was all the time pregnant, so my sister was like my second mum. My mum said that at the same time I was born Irene also had her first baby and she used to breast feed me because my mum did not have enough milk for the other children.

María never have a doll or toy, but she created her own by painting faces on long flat stones, along with her younger sisters Mercedes and Juana. “We also used to play with pinto beans. Those with white spots were our ‘cows’ and we built barnyards with little pebbles for our ‘cows’”.

One of María’s greatest memories refers to January 6 of every year when the family celebrated Altagracia’s birthday. As María mentioned, this was the date when they ate a traditional mole[v], played music and danced: “I think that was the only day when my parents had some fun. I used to have fun too! I stepped on my father’s sandals and I danced with him”.

María has nothing but great admiration for her grandmother Dominga, whom she describes as a woman with strong personality but with a great heart because “she used to defend my mum from my father’s abuses”. María recalls one occasion when Dominga beat in public her own son Vicente because he beat Altagracia. Once, María says, Dominga even put her son in jail when Vicente beat Altagracia so harshly that Altagracia bled from her head:

My grandmother Dominga and my sister Erminia went and talked with the judge… or like the police in the community [the village was ruled under customary law] and he took my father to the jail. Dominga would do everything to defend my mum.

María remembers with sadness that her father discharged his rage or solved his problems by getting drunk with pulque and beating María’s mum: “Mercedes and I tried to stop him, but he was very strong…he beat my mum in the face”.

María went to school until third year. Her mother was against it. Altragracia wondered, if none of María’s previous brothers and sisters went to school so why should María have to go? But María’s father realised that she was interested in learning and allowed her to go to school: “I sat under the sun next to my father when he was reading something. He knew how to read… a little bit, so I asked him all the time about the meaning of the letters”. She started school when she was nine years old and she walked (without shoes) every day around six kilometres to the nearest primary school. “I loved going to school. I even remember that the name of the school was María Elena Vargas de Cruz. I was a very good student, I got great marks but one day my parents decided that enough was enough”.

María stopped going to primary school in order to look after her younger siblings and to start working.  Altagracia found María a job as a baby sitter; she used to look after a little girl. María remembers that with her first payment she bought herself a pair of plastic sandals and a dress for her mum.

In her teens, María became a problem for the family when she became fourteen years old and showed no signs of “becoming a woman”. With no sign of having a period, Altagracia took María to the doctor of San Martin de las Piramides because she was worried that something was wrong with María. María remembers very well that the doctor told her mum: “everything is fine with her; there are women that get their first period until they are 16 or 17. Let her enjoy her childhood, she will be fine”.

Going to Mexico City and getting married

With so many in the family and not enough income to cover their basic needs, María was sent to Mexico City to work as a maid in wealthy houses. First she was sent to learn the skills with her sister Irene who was already a full time cleaner of two wealthy single men that lived in Colonia Anzures[vi].

María recalls the first time she went to Mexico City or El Distrito, as she calls it, with a mix of melancholy and astonishment in her eyes. María saw the city as a big monster which intimidated her but at the same time captivated her.

Can you imagine getting off from a donkey and getting into a bus? (she laughs) Then when I arrived at El Distrito I saw people living in a different way. They had water, electricity, all the services… I liked that. I also saw that women in the city were different, very elegant with stilettos and nice clothes! And me (she laughs) I was wearing my sandals and my naguas like India [sic] María[vii].

It was at that time when Irene cut María’s braids, and according to María it helped her to disguise her origins and to keep her hair tidy.

While working as a maid in Colonia Anzures, María kept visiting Ixtlahuaca every so often to bring money to her family and to work in the fields when there was not enough work in Mexico City. Then, during one of her frequent returns to her town she met the man who is now her husband.  María was sixteen years old when she eloped with Carlos (my grandfather). María narrates that she met Carlos through her brother in law, Margaro. Margaro was married with Marciana,  María’s sister, and Carlos was Margaro’s nephew.

Getting married, or more accurately, taking a partner and having children for María seems to have been a rite of passage. As she says, “every woman in el rancho had to have a man. So I thought … I also have to get married. There was no other option; my destiny was to get married”.

A few months after María eloped with Carlos she fell pregnant with her first child: “one should have babies, although I was scared because I was very young and I did not know what it meant to be a mum”. She also stopped working as a maid and settled down with Carlos in Mexico City. Carlos and María got married few weeks before the arrival of their first child because at that time the Mexican government required that parents were married in order to register a child.

Along with her six children, María kept working in ‘informal’ jobs such as selling wool in los tianguis (flea markets), knitting jumpers, or cooking typical Mexican snacks that her children sold door to door.

As a housewife, as she calls herself, María remembers the rewarding experience of selling Avon beauty products: “I enjoyed selling beauty products. We [the fellow sellers] used to meet every so often and have breakfast together, and the best seller obtained prizes. I once got a hanging clock as a prize”.

Nowadays María still lives with Carlos, has eleven grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and two more will be born soon. She nowadays battles diabetes and her recently diagnosed senile dementia.

[i] Hacienda is a Spanish word for an estate. Some haciendas were plantations, mines, or even business factories. Haciendas originated in land grants, mostly made to Spanish conquerors in Latin America.

[ii] Pulque is a milk-coloured, somewhat viscous alcoholic beverage made from the fermented sap of the maguey plant (cactus), and is a traditional native beverage of Mexico.

[iii] Aguamiel is the sap of the maguey plant. Also called honeywater, it has been used in Mexico as a medicine. In its fermented state this produces pulque.

[iv] Petate is a bedroll used in Central America and Mexico. Its name comes from the nahuatl word petlatl. The petate is woven from the fibers of the palm of petate.

[v] Mole from the nahuatl  mulli or molli (sauce or concoction) is the generic name for several sauces used in Mexican cuisine, as well as for dishes based on these sauces. In contemporary Mexico, the term is used for a number of sauces, some quite dissimilar to one another, including black, red, yellow, and green moles.

[vi] Colonia Anzures is a upper middle class area in Mexico City.

[vii] La India Maria was a character on TV that portrays and ridicules indigenous people in urban areas of Mexico. The character speaks a mix of Spanish and indigenous languages and it is dressed in traditional garb consisting of traditionally braided and ribboned hair, colourful native-type blouses and skirts.

References

Bryman, A. (2008) Social Research Methods, Third Edition ed., Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press.

CDI, C. N. p. e. D. d. l. P. I. (2006) Percepción de la imagen del indígena en México : diagnóstico cualitativo ycuantitativo, Mexico City: CDI, Comision Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indigenas.

Friedlander, J. (1994) ‘Dona Zeferina Barreto: Biographical Sketch of an Indian Woman from the State of Morelos’ in H. Fowler-Salamini, and M.K. Vaughan, eds., Women of the Mexican Countryside, 1850-1990., Tucson & London: The University of Arizona Press, 125-139.

Oehmichen Bazan, C. (2005) Identidad, Genero y Relaciones Interetnicas. Mazahuas en la Ciudad de Mexico., Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.

Reyes Ruiz, I. (2010) ‘Relato de un Zapoteco en proceso de aculturación’, available: http://www.mty.itesm.mx/dhcs/deptos/ri/ri-802/lecturas/lecvmx112.html [accessed 22-January-2010]

Skeggs, B. (2001) ‘Feminist Ethnography’, in P. Atkinson, A. Coffey, S. Delamont, J. Lofland, and L.    Lofland, eds., Handbook of Ethnography., London: SAGE

In 2006, when I began research into Australian football and sexual assault for my doctoral thesis, I was a footy fan. No, I was an Australian Football League fanatic: a ‘Proud, Passionate and Paid Up’ member of the Hawthorn Football Club, as numerous bumper stickers on my old car attest. At the games, week in, week out, rain, hail or shine, with my dad, my sister and my brother, my mood for days wholly dependent on the outcome of those two short hours on the weekend. When it came to umpiring, although I wasn’t as one-eyed as some supporters, and could on occasion concede that a free kick paid against the Hawks was warranted, more often than not I was yelling about the ‘soft’ decisions that went against ‘us’ and the ‘obvious’ rule-breaking thuggery of the opposition that the umpires ignored. It’s probably a mentality that most fans share, at least to some extent − as you stand up for your best friends or family against anyone else, and believe in them, I believed in and defended my ‘teammates’ against accusations of weakness, softness, unfair play and any number of on-field indiscretions.

When the first highly-publicised cases of sexual assault came to my attention in 2004, I, like many others, took this loyalty a step further: I sided with the accused footballers against all outsiders, namely the women who made rape complaints against them. I recall now with shame the way I dismissed the complaints as false when I heard that, in both cases, the women had initially had consensual sex with one player. My research was in part motivated by that shame, and the desire to fully understand what I was involved with as a football fan. I also sought to explain how a series of seemingly simple newspaper narratives could so easily convince a professed feminist such as myself to dismiss women’s words out of hand.

Examining the media portrayals of cases involving players from both the AFL and National Rugby League, I began to uncover structures within the football leagues − discursive and practical − which protect footballers against being held accountable for sexual assault (see Waterhouse-Watson 2007; 2009; 2010a; 2010b). Football representatives, as well as many journalists and media commentators, construct narratives which portray the complainants as ‘gold diggers’, ‘women scorned’, ‘predatory women’ and/or ‘groupies’; all blame is therefore deflected away from the footballers and onto the women involved. The women are portrayed as vindictive liars. Despite more than twenty cases being reported in the media since 1999, involving at least fifty-six players and officials, not one person involved in elite Australian football has yet been made to stand trial on a charge of sexual assault. The cases are effectively prosecuted through the media and result in acquittal. I further uncovered a broad system of interlocking discourses and narrative patterns that endorse masculine violence, construct women’s and footballers’ bodies, their roles and capacities, and describe a ‘rape culture’ − that is, an environment which condones and facilitates rape.

Although I remained a member of the Hawthorn football club and still enjoyed the game into the 2008 season, my enthusiasm for football waned as my research progressed − a possible consequence of which I was aware before I commenced my PhD studies. It became increasingly difficult to maintain my position as a fan the more I discovered about the ‘rape culture’ inscribed in football and its systematic maintenance through the mainstream media. Fans are ‘part of the team’ and as such they are implicated in its players’ actions off the field as well as on. Just as a fan can say to a rival supporter ‘we thrashed you on Saturday’, supporters of the Canterbury Bulldogs, involved in the most infamous sexual assault case, reported being taunted as rapists themselves during the 2004 police investigation (Brown 2004), as if the fans, too, had been involved in the incident. Female fans in a study by Peter Mewett and Kim Toffoletti (2008) had to develop strategies for reconciling the alleged rapes in order to continue participating in the games as supporters: they blamed the allegations on the actions of Rogue Men, Predatory Women, and uncontrollable male sexuality, as a means of justifying footballers’ behaviour, exonerating the culture of football from blame, and/or dismissing the allegations. To do otherwise would call into question the integrity of their own teams and the game itself, as well as implicating the fans themselves in the alleged rapes. My strategy was to tell myself that all the problems ‘really’ lay with other clubs, but not with ‘my’ team. My Hawthorn would never behave like those other clubs.

My ‘love affair’ with football ended suddenly and irrevocably − in the greatest of all football ironies − during 2008, the year when my once-beloved Hawks took out the premiership cup for the first time in seventeen years. The catalyst: my discovery of the details of a 1999 case in which at least two Hawthorn players and a club official allegedly raped a woman in Hawaii (Murphy 2004). I had been (dimly) aware that such a case existed, but, given the findings of my research, I did not have the option of laying blame on Rogue Men or Predatory Women. In maintaining the subject position of fan I was unable to admit the possibility that ‘my’ team could have done anything wrong. But, like Mewett and Toffoletti’s interviewees, I (subconsciously) constructed other explanations for the existence of the case, telling myself that as it had received scant publicity it must not have been very serious, or was completely unsubstantiated. But one day, wearing my Hawthorn membership scarf as I worked, I finally read the articles that gave details of the alleged victim’s police statement and the responses of Hawthorn officials. I was utterly betrayed. What the players and team official allegedly did to the woman was horrific. And there were the same patterns of denial and blame I identified in the other cases, the same thinly veiled accusations of lying even though it is uncertain what possible benefits a Californian woman might have to gain by inventing a story of rape by Australian footballers, in Hawaii, and declining to press charges. The incident did not even become public in Australia until five years after it occurred. And unlike the other cases I investigated, as a member of the team responsible, I was implicated.

I took off my membership scarf. I have not watched another football game. I did not renew my membership in 2009 and will not again. And I cried, a lot, because my ‘teammates’ destroyed the thing that I loved.

The sheer numbers of cases, and the attitudes of the clubs and leagues, have caused internal conflict for many fans, although the majority have not abandoned the sports entirely, as I did, but found alternative strategies for negotiating their fandom. In 2004, a group of rugby league and Australian Rules supporters set up Football Fans Against Sexual Assault, an organisation ‘aimed… at positive action, the sorts of things they’d like to see football codes do to restore the game to an esteemed place in their hearts and minds’. The group, led by rugby league supporter Kath Haines, has had some measure of success, with both major leagues adopting at least some of the recommendations that FFASA put forward in Towards Champions, an open submission. FFASA members clearly see their active work to fight sexual assault from ‘within’ football as a legitimate means of maintaining their fandom, and their successes testify to this. Real fandom is a matter of the heart, not the head, and if the heart wishes to remain loyal to football, the head make the necessary negotiations. It is highly likely that, had I never read about the Hawthorn case, I would be a fan to this day − albeit a somewhat cynical one.

I cannot, and do not wish to make grand pronouncements about how fans should negotiate their position in light of the high rate of alleged sexual assault perpetrated by footballers. It would be unfair, hypocritical, and probably quite untrue for me to suggest that to remain loyal is to condone sexual assault. What I can say, however, is that public opinion matters to the leagues, so large numbers of fans continuing to express their disgust may prompt the AFL and NRL to take greater action to change the culture of the sports, thus challenging the ‘rape culture’. There is certainly something to be said for working for change from within. For myself, I will continue to write about it, and hope to convince at least some people of what needs to be changed in football. But my fan days are over.

References

Brown, A. (2004). ‘Fan Cuts Loose as His Dogs Run Free’. The Sydney Morning Herald. Sydney, p. 35.

Mewett, P. and K. Toffoletti (2008), ‘Rogue Men and Predatory Women: Female Fans’ Perceptions of Australian Footballers’ Sexual Conduct’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport vol. 43, no. 2, pp. 165-80.

Murphy, P. (2004). I Was Drugged, Says AFL “Gang Rape Victim”‘. The Australian. Sydney, p. 5.

Waterhouse-Watson, D. (2007), ‘All Women Are Sluts: Australian Rules Football and Representations of the Feminine’, Australian Feminist Law Journal vol. 27, pp. 155-62.

Waterhouse-Watson, D. (2009), ‘Playing Defence in a Sexual Assault ‘Trial by Media’: The Male Footballer’s Imaginary Body’, Australian Feminist Law Journal vol. 30, pp. 109-29.

Waterhouse-Watson, D. (2010). ‘Narrative Immunity: Australian Footballers’ Defence in Sexual Assault “Trial by Media”’. Good Sex, Bad Sex, Budapest, Interdisciplinary.Net.

Waterhouse-Watson, D. (in press). ‘Silencing or Validating Traumatic Testimony: Footballers’ Narrative Immunity against Allegations of Sexual Assault’, Trauma, Media, Art: New Perspectives M. Broderick and A. Traverso. Fremantle, Cambridge Scholars.

What does it mean to see the world through Indigenous eyes, to come to understand the ontological worldview that Indigenous peoples assert as an essential component of their existences? These questions have more than just theoretical relevance; for Settler peoples, understanding Indigenous ways of knowing is necessary for understanding the nature and causes of Indigenous-Settler conflicts.  Eminent Lakota scholar Vine Deloria Jr. asserted from the 1960s through to his passing in 2005 that colonial conflicts are rooted in deep philosophical and ideological disjunctures between colonizing Settler peoples and Indigenous resisters (see for example: (Deloria, 2006, 2003, 1997, 1988). Maori scholar Makere Stewart Harawira (2005) has linked divergent ontological and epistemological production of knowledge to the creation of very real social and political conflicts between Indigenous and Settler peoples.

Global networks of power have and do support colonialism, and interconnected networks of state and capital have and continue to concentrate the profits of colonization into the hands of imperial elites while improverishing and oppressing others. This situation is untenable, unjust and must change. As Settler academics the relevance of Indigenous ways of knowing and being has extended beyond the academic or the material; it has become a deeply personal project, necessary to critical engagement with our histories, our biases and unquestioned assumptions, and our privileges and responsibilities, both individually and as members of larger Settler society. We call on researchers in all disciplines to engage with Indigenous ways of knowing and doing in order to improve research practices, and to rebalance Indigenous-Settler relations worldwide.

Setting the Terms

Many words are and have been used to discuss the groupings of people involved in the colonization of what are now settler states: Indian, Native, Aboriginal, First Nations, Euro-American, white, non-Aboriginal, non-Native. Today, the dynamic discussions and use of two terms has become central to both how and what is being described and interrogated: Indigenous and Settler. Both are at their most useful when used as positional political identities, deriving from culture, self-identification and community identification. Choosing to employ the term ‘Indigenous,’ in addition to being an attempt to move away from other collective terms now considered offensive, works to foreground historical and on-going contestation of colonialism. Scholars of Indigenous politics, Jeff Corntassel (Tsalagi) and Taiaiake Alfred (Kanienkehaka) argue this is central to contemporary Indigenous identities:

Indigenousness is an identity constructed, shaped and lived in the politicized context of contemporary colonialism. The communities, clans, nations and tribes we call Indigenous peoples are just that: Indigenous to the lands they inhabit, in contrast to and in contention with the colonial societies and states that have spread out from Europe and other centres of empire. It is this oppositional, place-based existence, along with the consciousness of being in struggle against the dispossessing and demeaning facts of colonization by foreign peoples, that fundamentally distinguishes Indigenous peoples (Alfred and Corntassel, 2005).

Following Corntassel and Alfred’s definition, and in this paper, the term ‘Indigenous peoples’ in the context of North America and comparable settler states refers to peoples whose societies predated European colonization, who exist in complex social and spiritual relationships to land, and who remain primary targets of colonialism.  Continuing debate and discussion around the term ‘Indigenous’ helps to ensure that the concept remains flexible, responsive and useful.

The term ‘Settler’ is also helps to move beyond essentializing or imprecise terms. Often, the inversion ‘non-indigenous’ or ‘non-native’ is used to denote Euro-Western peoples in North America. Political theorist Adam Barker (Settler) has identified that such inversions tend towards ignoring the complexities of Settler societies and normalizing non-Indigenous society; both preclude important analysis and action. Engaging with the developing field of Settler colonialism (Veracini and Cavanagh, 2010), Barker defines Settler people as including: “most peoples who occupy lands previously stolen or in the process of being taken from their Indigenous inhabitants or who are otherwise members of the ‘Settler society,’ which is founded on co-opted lands and resources” (Barker, 2009). In this way, the term ‘Settler’ is not an ethical or moral judgment but rather a descriptive term intended to recognize “the historical and contemporary realities of imperialism that very clearly separate the lives of Indigenous peoples from the lives of later-comers” (Barker, 2009).

Indigenous Knowledge

The rise of Indigenous knowledge within the academy in the North American context began in the 1960s. This decade marks the beginning of the American Indian and Red Power Movements, commonly associated with the New Social Movements of the middle-to-late 20th century (Day, 2005). Inspired by international anti-colonial struggles, these groups brought Indigenous peoples together from diverse backgrounds to call for governments to honour treaties signed with Indigenous nations, and to challenge cruel treatment and oppression of Indigenous peoples across the continent. The occupation of Alcatraz Island and the town of Wounded Knee, and protests like the Trail of Broken Treaties and the Mohawk blockade of the St. Regis Bridge remain enduring emblems of these struggles. This period also saw the beginning of an ‘Indian renaissance’ in literature, led most notably by Lakota scholar Vine Deloria, Jr.’s Custer Died for your Sins: An Indian Manifesto (1988 [1969]).  Focused on the goal of sovereignty without political and social assimilation for Indigenous peoples, this work represents a strong assertion of Indigenous knowledge in the academy and concerted contestation of the intellectual paradigms perpetuating subordination of Indigenous peoples. Through the 1970s and 1980s, Indigenous intellectual leaders, including Deloria, Ward Churchill and Hawai’ian scholar and activist Hauani-Kay Trask, became well-known experts and commentators on Indigenous perspectives and struggles (Deloria, 1994, Deloria, 1997, Deloria et al., 1999, Churchill, 2002, Trask, 1999). Their groundbreaking work helped to create space in the academy for Indigenous students and scholars to begin studying and researching from explicitly Indigenous perspectives and paradigms. It is important to note, however, that this process has not been smooth; rather, it is the result of ongoing social, political, and intellectual engagement between Indigenous activists and academics on one hand, and institutions regarded as colonial but also potential sources of agency, on the other.

In the past twenty years, Indigenous scholars have built upon, challenged, deconstructed, and reconstructed earlier work, and have combined new points of view and types of analyses into a vibrant and diverse intellectual and cultural discourse.  New concepts established through post-colonial studies, post-structural analyses, and the expansion of a “global” Indigenous consciousness (Niezen, 2003) have contributed to a growing academic and discursive field, that has also featured the mastering of ‘traditional’ academic disciplines in order to articulate and advance Indigenous knowledge within and outside the academy. Distinguished scholars such as Alfred and Corntassel in Political Science, Waziyatawin (Dakota) in History, and Linda Tuhiwai Smith (Maori) in Education put Indigenous knowledge, methodologies, priorities, and protocols at the core of their work (See: Smith, 1999, Alfred, 2006, Waziyatawin, 2008). As Smith describes,

[t]he past, our stories local and global, the present, our communities, cultures, languages and social practices – all may be spaces of marginalization, but they have also become spaces of resistance and hope. It is from within these spaces that increasing numbers of indigenous academic and researchers have begun to address social issues within the wider framework of self-determination, decolonization and social justice (1999).

Alternatively considered too political, too subjective, too exclusive, or not intellectually rigorous, Indigenous knowledge is often still segregated from ‘traditional’ disciplines and contained in “Indigenous/Native/American/Indian Studies” programs. This has the effect of limiting the impact of the challenge of Indigenous knowledge and methodologies to the colonial knowledge production of the academy.[1] Although Indigenous knowledge and histories have been a place from which trenchant critiques of Western and Settler society have been developed (see for example: Stewart-Harawira, 2005, Smith 1999), they are most often employed as additions to dominating narratives or as a comparisons from which to investigate or denigrate aspects of Euro-American/ Settler/capitalist/consumerist culture. Both involve using Indigenous knowledge, but not on its own terms and most often to support or re-centre non-Indigenous epistemologies and social structures. What follows is an effort to give a brief explanatory sketch of four key characteristics of Indigenous knowledge.

Indigenous knowledge is place-based in that Indigenous ontologies are rooted in particular places that have spiritual significance and provide the ecological resource base of Indigenous societies. Deloria contrasts Indigenous and Western/Christian ways of knowing as the difference between spatial and temporal forms of knowledge (1994). Blackfoot scholar Leroy Little Bear goes so far as to posit place as the source of all Blackfoot (and, he generalizes, other Indigenous peoples) identity (2000). This close relationship to land and the recursive functions of nature have established Indigenous knowledge as functioning on circular, integrated dynamics, rather than the linear, extrapolative dynamics of (Western) “scientific” knowledge (Jojola, 2003). As such, Indigenous knowledge is knowledge that arises in particular ways, from particular experiences, with particular places and non-human life.  It should be no surprise, then, that colonization, especially in its settler colonial form, is a contest for control of space through the redefinition of social and cultural relationships to specific places. Colonial power that disconnects peoples from their lands not only serves the purpose of invalidating and disrupting the generation of Indigenous knowledge; it also frees places from the powerful, counter-definitional force of collective Indigenous understanding. Indigenous places can only be exploited by temporally-driven colonial understandings after the Indigenous-place relationship has been disrupted.

This relationship to place establishes the basis for the second characteristic: Indigenous knowledge is experiential. Indigenous ways of knowing were traditionally critiqued in the academy for a lack of “rigor” in that they did not follow the Western scientific method of hypothesizing and testing against a body of evidence (Deloria, 1997). This critique was based in ignorance of Indigenous methods of gathering, hypothesizing about and analyzing bodies of evidence. Rather than decontextualize pieces of evidence for easy analysis, Indigenous ways of knowing are based in the experiences of each individual on and with the rest of the world (Deloria and Wildcat, 2001, Jojola, 2003). This experiential process is the source of, among other things, the oft-noted depth of ecological and biological knowledge in most Indigenous traditions (Alfred, 2005). This experiential method of generating knowledge made knowledge production an individual responsibility and also a social necessity; one’s own experiences were analyzed through comparison and synthesis with the experiences of others. Further, concerns, contradictions, or questions arising from this social analysis required further experience to address, setting up a cyclical system of knowledge that mirrors the cyclical dynamics of Indigenous sacred places (Deloria et al., 1999, Jojola, 2003). Stemming from colonial severing of relationships to land, Indigenous peoples in a literal sense lose the ability to experience the sources of Indigenous knowledge. Indigenous academics in the 20th century have worked diligently to find ways to recreate these experiences in spite of and directly in opposition to colonial interference (Deloria and Wildcat, 2001, Smith, 1999).

The social necessity of Indigenous knowledge production leads to a discussion of it’s relational characteristic. As described above, individual experiences comprise the “evidence” in Indigenous knowledge production, while the analysis is both personally and collectively reflective; this collectivity is part of what generates Indigenous peoples cultural and social cohesion (Alfred, 2005). However, the relational characteristic of Indigenous knowledge implies far more than just relationships between humans. Indigenous ontology[2] is premised on the understanding that all life possess its own intelligence which can be learned from and interacted with; it is further premised on the understanding that all things in the natural world are alive or, more accurately, participate in the life energy of the universe. This includes “inanimate” objects from the smallest rocks to the earth as a whole (Stewart-Harawira, 2005). As such, dreams and visions are considered important sources of knowledge production as they are seen as a way of relating to the spirit/immaterial consciousness of places (Deloria et al., 1999). Long-standing relationships to place are seen as essential to the experiences that generate Indigenous knowledge. Indigenous peoples’ objections to environmental destruction – or more accurately, environmental exploitation – are often misread due to the application of environmentalist ethics backwards through time, reading a contemporary, contested ideology onto peoples for whom the very concept of “environmentalism” as it is understood now would be incoherent (Cronon, White 1993). Rather, Indigenous peoples’ relationships to place are more akin to relations between sentient beings worthy of equal respect, and dependent upon each other for survival. Little Bear describes Blackfoot “rituals of renewal” as essential for the continuation of both Blackfoot society and the ecological systems in which Blackfoot society is embedded (Little Bear, 2004).  These rituals serve to continually reinforce relationships to place, and deepen ties of respect, understanding, and intimate knowledge.[3]

The specificity of Indigenous knowledge is a function of the other three characteristics. Because Indigenous peoples perceive knowledge as deriving from specific places, often through specific experiential actions (such as ceremony) which enact the relationships to specific beings – human and otherwise – all knowledge is considered valid only within the scope which created it (Little Bear, 2000, Jojola, 2003). Even a piece of knowledge that is vital to the identity of a people, such as Holm et al’s conceptualization of “sacred history” as an intrinsic component of Indigenous “peoplehood” (Holm et al., 2003), would only be considered true for the Indigenous peoples of a particular place. In Indigenous knowledges, there are no contradictions, but there is almost always a proliferation of truths.

From Knowledge to Praxis

Published in 1999, Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples remains one of the most comprehensive works yet written on the uses and abuses of Indigenous knowledge in the academy. Smith establishes that viewing and researching Indigenous peoples and societies solely through the ontological and epistemological framework of “the academy” – the established, rationalist, positivist, Western-scholarship framework – is inherently racist and oppressive (1999). As such, research structures which rely solely on these concepts need to be understood as impacting negatively on Indigenous peoples, and also as structuring Indigenous and Settler peoples into oppositional, hierarchical identities founded on racist notions of “progress”, and thus they must be rebuilt. In Indigenizing the Academy: Transforming Scholarship and Empowering Communities editors Waziyatawin (aka Angela Cavender Wilson) and Devon Abbott Mihesuah (Choctaw) expand on Smith’s work by undertaking specific analyses of the ways that Settler and other non-Indigenous academics have collaborated with deeply colonial projects, as well as suggesting necessary changes in the academy to challenge current oppressions and create space for Indigenous peoples, histories, and methodologies in the academy (2004).  Waziyatawin states:

Many [scholars] have assisted in our colonization and the perpetuation of our oppression in myriad ways, including celebrating the myth of Manifest Destiny, making light of the genocide and terrorism experienced by our people, and holding firm to a progressive notion of history that forever locks our people’s past and our “primitive” existence into a hierarchy where we occupy the bottom.  More recently, many historians are guilty of… focusing solely on the resiliency of Indigenous people while refusing to offer an honest and critical indictment of state and federal governments, leaders, and all the citizens of America who have been complicit in our bodily extermination, cultural eradication, and assaults on our lands and resources. Most historians have been accomplices in a great conspiracy to ensure Indigenous subordination (2004).

To counter this, Smith calls for a reclamation of control over Indigenous ways of knowing and being through Indigenized research paradigms (1999).

It is important to note that the current discussions as to what an Indigenous research framework actually is and how it functions in practice remain vibrant, dynamic and contested. Given the relatively recent assertion of the validity of Indigenous knowledge these discussions are far from complete. The form of Indigenous research paradigms are fluid and flexible, and are based on the following principles:

• Intent. The motivation and intent of a project must be clearly articulated. As Smith notes, research is never neutral, it is always political (1999); the politics, aims, potential impacts (including representation, construction of authority, voice, social struggle) must be considered, and clearly discussed at every stage of the project. Drawing on the importance of relationality to Indigenous knowledge, researchers must identify the networks of accountability in which they operate. This awareness helps to ensure that work is ethical, consistent with the goals of self-determination and decolonization. Ethical research must take into account the impact of the study far beyond conventional considerations, including a need to assess the consequences for ancestors, future generations, and the non-human world.

• Reciprocity. Indigenous knowledge is relational and therefore demands a commitment to reciprocity within the basic theoretical framing of a research project; Indigenous peoples oppression and exploitation under colonialism and by Settler society demands an equally material and ethical commitment to reciprocity. The parallels between the physical reshaping of colonized space to extract wealth and the conceptual colonization of Indigenous knowledge to extract value in the forms of both exploitable techniques and methods for ensuring obedience are clear. Extraction models of research are inappropriate, and at all stages, researchers must be willing to share their work and results, and to engage in discussion with the groups/individuals involved in the project or who may be impacted by the work.

• Respect. Indigenous knowledge and pedagogies differ in source, process, and content to Euro-American epistemologies. Researchers must develop understanding of the specific cultural, spatial, and spiritual contexts of their work, and must consider sources of knowledge including stories, visions, oral histories, modes of speech, places, and non-human actors. It is the responsibility of the researcher to learn appropriate protocols, and to be aware that authority will change depending on context.

• Decentring and denormalizing. Indigenous knowledge, in so much that it is bounded and specific, rarely asserts claims of universality; Western academic knowledge has not extended the same respect. The greatest imposition upon Indigenous knowledge is Western assertions of universal and exclusive knowledge that render Indigenous understandings irrelevant or disempowered regardless of how they are generated or articulated. As an example, in our own researches, we focus on the tension between Indigenous and Settler societies, rather than researching an exotic Indigenous other, therefore attempting to situate Indigenous and Settler knowledges as mutually interacting and challenging perspectives.

An Indigenous research paradigm operates as a dynamic process (Jojola, 2003); it does not allow for universal statements or absolute truths. Part of the intent of Indigenous epistemologies is that knowledge production remains in tension between individual and social perceptions, meaning that the value of the knowledge generated is found in the further knowledge that can be generated through critique and consideration.

Indigenous to Indigenize

The Indigenous scholars we have cited in this paper are working to support Indigenous students, researchers, academics, and communities, and they call explicitly on non-Indigenous and Settler academics to join in the project of decolonizing knowledge production in the academy (Mihesuah, 1998, Mihesuah and Wilson, 2004). If the issues raised in this paper seem far removed from your specific area of research, consider the following: colonial exploitation of Indigenous societies resulted in the resources and wealth, which drove the Industrial Revolution and empowered the neoliberal capitalist state to become the standard bearer of military, economic, political and juridical power. In a very real way, the present wealth and power of the United Kingdom and other G8 states, as well as the current material and social deprivation of Indigenous peoples in settler colonial states, are intimately connected through the primacy of a particular way of coming to know and understand the world, ourselves, and our perceived others (Niezen, 2003). Colonialism continues today, and so does colonial oppression, violence, dispossession, and the assertion of a narrow range of possibilities for human social action and interaction. As Settler scholars Adam Barker (2007) and Paulette Regan (2006) have both identified, ignorance – especially intentional ignorance – is necessary for continuing, contemporary colonialism. As Regan notes, “what we deny is our complicity” (2006). Shifting to an Indigenized method of knowledge production – that is, to take on the challenge and possibilities of engaging with Indigenous ways of knowing – has the potential to starkly reveal these ignored complicities; making room for Indigenous modes of inquiry within the academy ensures structural support for such an endeavour. Alfred cites “a framework of Euro-American arrogance” as fundamental to contemporary colonization (2005). Few actions could go as far, both symbolically and in reality, to dismantle this framework as understanding, acknowledging, and advancing Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing which can “move scholars toward a stronger sense of professional and ethical accountability” (Weber-Pillwax, 1999).

The importance of this two stage process – first revealing “ignored complicities” and then addressing them in part through the use of Indigenized research paradigms and methodologies – cannot be understated. Further, this type of “Indigenized” research does more than simply contrast hidden colonialism or tick boxes of professional and ethical accountability. Engaging with Indigenous knowledge can help to reveal a suite of possibilities for reconsidering our understanding of social and political life today. This method of conducting research is achievable and usable by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous (including Settler) peoples, and the very act of adopting this methodology and positionality is the first step in asserting the validity of Indigenous knowledges as contemporary, vibrant, and even necessary to a nuanced understanding of how we can coexist as peoples, now and in the future.

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[1] The inclusion of some Indigenous material is happening in many areas in the academy, but is often limited to superficial consideration, such that it is not considered a serious critique or challenge to the ‘normal’ way of doing things. Wildcat and Deloria (2001) discuss this in detail.

[2] Of course, Indigenous ontologies are heterogeneous and multiple; however, as per Stewart-Harawira (2005), I am generalizing with respect to the common, basic elements of an Indigenous ontology which are generally accepted as shared.

[3] We differentiate “intimate knowledge” – the knowledge generated of, with, and by place through interaction – from the Western scientific ideal of “objective knowledge” – knowledge gained through impartial and dispassionate observation – for two reasons.  First, intimate knowledge relies on a continuous and dynamic set of relationships; this implies that intimate knowledge is constantly changing as relational conditions change, rather than concretized Western knowledge.  Second, objectivity – as many commentators have noted – does not truly exist; objective knowledge often reflects the preconceived biases and expectations which humans carry over from their interactions within hierarchical human societies.

Y’all call me Bubba.  Some years ago — never mind how long precisely — having little or no money, and nothing particular to interest me in Southeast Missouri, I thought I would move away, get an education, get a job, and join former Labor Secretary Robert Reich’s “knowledge workers” feasting at the table of the global economy.  I was just like everyone else – reaching out to grasp my own little share of the rusty old American Dream of personal prosperity and the consumer goods that came along with it… but, a funny thing happened on the way to the forum… I mean, at Will Rogers Auditorium… that changed everything for me.

In the winter of 2000, I bought tickets to the “Blue Collar Comedy Tour” and got to hear Jeff Foxworthy tell redneck jokes up close and in person.  I also got to hear Larry the Cable Guy explain that Al Gore lost the election because a handful of rednecks from a Dade County, Florida trailer park didn’t know how to operate a voting machine.  I suppose if those same machines were designed to look like those video poker “eight liners” or a cigarette machine that our political landscape would have been a whole lot different in the first decade of the 21st century.  Essentially, George W. Bush won the election because a handful of rednecks could find “Jones” on a jukebox but couldn’t find “Gore” on a punch card.  If ballots had only looked more like those Bingo cards, the disaster of George W. Bush’s presidency could have been averted – that is, assuming that us rednecks had the good sense to vote with our wallets and not cast ballots based on the emotional manipulations of a Karl Rove or a Lee Atwater.

I enjoyed the show because I am a redneck and the show helped to alleviate the homesickness that I felt being so far away from my kinfolk back in Missouri.  “The Blue Collar Comedy Tour” gave me the nostalgic feeling of being back home in Missouri on my grandma’s back porch clowning around with my uncle and cousins.  It resonated with the self-deprecating humor that has been culturally ingrained in me.  It reminded me of what I would later discover to be “Rabelasian Carnivale.” Gail Sweeney discussed this in “The King of White Trash Culture,” a chapter in the book, White Trash: Race and Class in America. For Sweeney, “carnival is a place of laughter, bad taste, loud and irreverent music, parody, free speech, bodily functions, eating and feasting, a place where excess is glorified” (254).  Sweeney goes on to paraphrase the literary theorist, Mikhail Bahktin when she writes:

the carnivalesque inhabits the space that counters and subverts institutions of authority and repression, the dominant hegemonies of Church, State, and, in capitalist democracies, Industry.  The pleasures of the carnival are subordinate pleasures: unruly and lower class, vulgar, undisciplined.  During carnival, the working class are not working; they are out of their place and out of line (254).

“The Blue Collar Comedy Tour” is a representation of that “Rabelasian Carnivale” and I suppose that is what made me want to go in the first place.  While I enjoyed the show, at the same time, I was offended by the obviously upper middle class couple that was sitting in front of me and laughing louder than I was.  They weren’t rednecks… they weren’t white trash… why were these interlopers laughing at my jokes… at my kin?  Having been raised in a community that is known more for its ability to raise up sawmill and factory workers, truck drivers and Wal Mart employees, than bankers and other captains of capitalist industry (those same “knowledge workers” that I had hoped to join at the global economic trough), I wanted to jump over my seat and ask them what they thought was so damn funny.  What gave them the right to make fun of us rednecks?

For the first time in my life, I think I fully understood how the “n word” functioned in African-American culture.  Self-deprecating humor is one thing, but making fun of “the other” is an entirely different can of worms.  That self-realization led to me to another question: “Why does it seem like it is OK to make fun of rednecks?”  “Why are us hillbilly, white trash, lint head, cracker, rednecks any different than any other group in our supposedly politically correct, diverse, and inclusive society?”

My experience at “The Blue Collar Comedy Tour” enabled me to start thinking about my own redneck identity on a peripheral level, but it took the tragedy of the World Trade Center bombings on September 11th, 2001 to really bring my academic/ political interest in my redneck, white trash, hillbilly, cracker identity to the center of my intellectual and political life.  Many people have memories of where they were and what they were doing when the twin towers fell on September 11th.  I slept through it.  I was finishing my Bachelor’s Degree at the time and in order for me to graduate, I had to take classes during the day a couple days per week and take another class online.  The only way to keep the lights on and food in the fridge while I was doing it was to work all night long at a night club as a disc jockey.  I woke up about noon and discovered that all hell had broke loose in New York and all classes were cancelled in Texas.  I saw all of the replays of the events on the television and felt sympathy for the families who had lost their loved ones that morning.  I also tried to come to grips with my own fear about what could happen next and, just like everybody else, had that special anxiety of waiting for the next shoe to fall.  Then I went to work.

All was quiet at the night club that evening.  I guess no one really felt much like suspending the social order and engaging in the Rabelasian Carnivale of Kentucky Whiskey, Budweiser Beer, and country music in light of the events of September 11th.  As a result, I got off of work a little early and drove back to my apartment at the university about two o’clock that morning.  Not only was I a poor college student, but I was a poor college student from a poor family.  While some of the more well to do college students could live nearby the campus or even across town in some of the nicer apartments, I lived in the least expensive university housing I could find.  My roommate (a good ole boy from Arkansas) and I were the only two American students in our housing unit.  Everyone else was from either India or Pakistan.  When I got home from work that night, I noticed a university police officer walking around my apartment complex.  Out of concern for my roommate and my neighbors, I asked him why he was there and was shocked when the officer explained that there were a lot of international students in my building and the administration was concerned that some of the “rednecks” might want to avenge the terrorist attacks so they asked the police to patrol the housing unit to make sure that no one got hurt.

Since very few, if any, of the folks from the larger community knew that our university even had international students much less where those international students lived, I wasn’t exactly sure if that meant that the officer and/ or the administration was concerned about me, personally, or my “good ole boy” roommate from Arkansas, but it really didn’t matter, I was still insulted.  I guess that move shows how much faith that folks actually have in the politically correct society that we live in and the diverse curriculum of the public schools.  Many of our students were young and had spent their entire lives learning that although everyone is different in their own way, everyone matters, and yet, the administration still believed that those students that they “allowed” to enter their university because those students had a high school diploma, the proper prerequisites, and the right SAT scores were still capable of a good old fashioned lynching.  September 11th taught me that everyone matters and that everyone should be given a chance… that is, everyone except for us rednecks because no matter how much they teach us, how much we learn, and how much we are exposed to other cultures, they still believe that when push comes to shove, we will still lynch people because that is just who we are, that is just our nature.

As a result of September 11th, I could no longer see instances where folks that I did not consider “one of my kind” used terms like redneck, cracker, hillbilly, or white trash as being just a matter of what many would see as just “language” in 21st century America.  Suddenly, I became acutely aware of an undeniable reality that I wish I could choose to ignore.  I left Missouri to get an education, get a job, and, as my grandma says “be somebody.”  I was too blind to see that I already was “somebody” and that all of the institutions that I had hoped to join when I completed my education and became a “somebody” would never see me as being a “somebody” in the first place.  I would always be a redneck, hillbilly, white trash, cracker to them no matter what I did and that they believed that all of the kinfolk that I left behind in Missouri to come to college in the first place, were less human than themselves.  At that point, I decided that I would rather be anybody than their kind of “somebody”.

I was mad that I had busted my ass for the last several years, making good grades, winning literary awards, and being what I considered to be the best student that I could be, just to discover that I was society’s “other.”  The redneck, hillbilly, cracker, white trash “other” was not just any kind of “other.”  We weren’t “pigmentally challenged” in that one could not see how we differed from your ordinary run of the mill “whiteness.”  We were not “other” because of the visible characteristic of skin color.  Our lot in life was much worse.  We had some cancerous dark spot on our souls that made us rednecks – something that was born in us and could never be removed through either operation or education – a cancerous dark spot that must be concealed and suppressed – an identity that must be subliminated.  In spite of our outward appearance of whiteness, we were, as Dorothy Allison writes in her book, Trash, “men who drank and couldn’t keep a job; women, invariably pregnant before marriage, who quickly became worn, fat, and old from working too many hours… and children with runny noses, watery eyes, and the wrong attitudes” (vii.).

I can assure you that after 9/11 I had an attitude.  For me, a redneck who wanted to move up beyond his raisin’, I had already experienced what Icarus experienced when he flew too close to the sun.  I had crashed and burned as result of my own hillbilly hubris and knew that no matter how high I flied, I would never be anything more than the redneck, white trash, hillbilly, cracker that came to the university with a pocket full of tuition and would likely leave with nothing more than a pocket full of broken dreams.  After all, I would always be a redneck, white trash, hillbilly, cracker.  What good were those dreams to me now?   Those dreams were for others and not me because I was trash and the best I could do was “claim [my] heritage with a full appreciation of how often it has been disdained” (Allison xvi).

I was not William Matthew McCarter, I was a redneck, white trash, hillbilly, cracker… an interchangeable adjective or noun that applies to me and mine and ours indiscriminately.  I might as well be Montgomory Ward Snopes, a character in William Faulkner’s novel, The Mansion, who says:

I don’t remember just when it was, I was probably pretty young, when I realized that I had come from what you might call a family, a clan, a race, maybe even a species, of pure sons of bitches. So I said, Okay, okay, if that’s the way it is, we’ll just show them. They call the best of lawyers, lawyers’ lawyers and the best of actors an actor’s actor and the best of athletes a ballplayer’s ballplayer. All right, that’s what we’ll do: every Snopes will make it his private and personal aim to have the whole world recognize him as THE son of a bitch’s son of a bitch (html).

That’s a job that rednecks can do well…be Snopses… The son of a bitch’s son of a bitch…but aren’t there enough of us rednecks trying to do that?  Does the world need another Montgomory Ward Snopes?  Perhaps I could stay in school, read everything I could get my hands on, and then one day be an academic’s academic?  Ordinarily I would say that it is possible, but 9/11 reminds me that I am a redneck.  Perhaps I could become a redneck’s redneck.  But, what about an academic’s redneck or a redneck’s academic – a hybrid?  Maybe I will be a son of a bitch’s son of a bitch, an academic’s redneck or a redneck’s academic before I complete this article, I don’t know, although I am sure that you, my audience, will have established an opinion on this matter by the time that you have finished it.  I can say one thing, I won’t pretend to be something I’m not while I write this so called academic discourse or at anytime thereafter.  Socrates says to “know thyself” and in order to “know thyself” one must first engage in what educational philosopher Paulo Freire calls “conscientization,” which is the process of becoming critically conscious of the sociohistorical world (html).  Through that “conscientization” us rednecks can “speak [our] word and that by “naming the world,” we can “achieve significance as human beings” (Freire, html).  Therefore, I will sound my “rebel yell” – my “barbaric yawp” and achieve my human existence through that naming.  “I am redneck, hear me roar.”

I never, ever wanted to be a journalist. But when an editor of a niche entertainment magazine about to go monthly came knocking at my door about a year and a half after receiving my bachelor’s degree, I was in no financial position to refuse. My newfound writing job put me on the periphery of the cultural industries in the United States, writing primarily about the then burgeoning sector of book publishing which was translating Japanese comics (called ‘manga’) for English-language release. It was, all things considered, a good fit with my undergraduate study in English literature and East Asian area studies, and in the past five years since I have begun freelancing, one lucky break has led to other opportunities, and I have written over a thousands magazine features, news articles, reviews, and more.

Although the pay was terrible and impossible to live on, this work was accompanied by one unexpected perk: I got a front-row seat at one of the most amazing spectacles of transnational cultural flow (from Japan to the United States and then onto the rest of the English-speaking world) in recent historical memory. The phenomenon captivated me, baffled me, and eventually brought me back to the academy in search of answers, first at New York University for a master’s degree, and then across the Atlantic to begin a PhD course in the Department of Sociology in the University of Cambridge. My doctoral research topic is manga publishing and the transnational production of print culture.

Relatively few people, I would presume, have written extensively on the same topics from the perspectives of both journalist and sociologist, and Sociological Imagination has asked me to share some of the insights gleaned from this experience. First of all, perhaps unsurprisingly, there is not the slightest doubt in my mind that my experience as a journalist has made me a better academic professional. Unfortunately, this is by no means a popular view. It is common practice to denigrate journalism and journalists in the academy—to say that a piece of scholarship is ‘too journalistic’, for example, is to render a grave insult. Yet behind this insult, I believe, are strong feelings of jealousy toward journalists, for journalists are extremely good at two important things with which many career academics struggle with daily: 1) Journalists know how to communicate ideas to large and diverse publics, and 2) they know how to crank out publishable pieces of writing at speed.

An extremely productive sociologist might succeed in publishing between two to four solo-authored journal articles per year. A full-time journalist barely scrapes by with many more times than that volume of prose each and every month. As a freelancer, I was never doing even a fraction of that, but I estimate that during my busiest year, when I was also a full time student at NYU, I succeeded in publishing approximately 150,000 words and wrote significantly more than that. One learns, by living this sort of life, that writing is ordinary routinized labour, and figuring out how to survive—even thrive—in that daily grind, with its non-stop conveyor belt of looming deadlines, will make one the envy of the academic world.

Well then, one might ask, is the inverse also true? Does experience as a sociologist make one a better journalist? Unfortunately, I do not think that the answer to that question is a particularly strong affirmative, and the epistemological orientation making a successful sociologist does not necessarily translate into success as a journalist. Hands down the most important distinction in my experience is that journalists simply do not relate to knowledge in the same way that sociologists do. The thrust of a positivist research agenda is to seek empirical evidence to be generalized as much as possible across time and geographic space; as such, sociologists seek to describe and analyze broad social formations, structures, and forces. Journalists, on the other hand, are fixated on the immediate, the novel, and the event. In their eyes, the patterns of history and society take a backseat to the simple question, ‘What’s happening right now?’

Furthermore, there are practical as well as philosophical considerations: I cannot in good conscience recommend that professional sociologists further contribute to the casualization of journalistic labour. In the five years that I have been writing freelance, I have watched my average per word pay rate drop like a stone by over two-thirds, and journalists in every sector of the industry are under constant, accelerating pressure to write more for less money. In fact, it’s to the point now where journalism is becoming a life stage for twenty-somethings like myself who, after finishing their bachelor’s degree, do it for a few years…until the pitiable salaries become intolerable. Many, again including myself, never make enough to live on and can only write insofar as they have income via other means, e.g. a different full-time job, support of a spouse or parents, or independent wealth. Salaried researchers who do a bit of journalism on the side are ultimately complicit in the erosion of a professional field.

Naturally, an army of inexperienced and disempowered journalists does not foster a particularly vibrant fourth estate. I would argue, therefore, that any assault upon professional standards is against the public interest, and it would be immoral for concerned sociologists to collectively take up professional journalism. Of course, sometimes it is impossible in practice to stake out the high ground, particularly if you need extra funds just to get by, but those fortunate enough to have a choice to make need to be realistic: Any contribution to the public good you make is likely to be modest at best, and the potential to do good for others must be carefully weighed against the certain long-term harm it will do to working journalistic professionals and the health of their profession.

It does not follow, however, that sociologists ought to abandon the world of journalism entirely. Quite the contrary; sociologists should be actively engaged with journalists and the journalistic field. Work to make yourself known—and known for something. Become familiar with those who write about topics related to what you do and where they publish. Get yourself on their proverbial Rolodexes and make yourself available as a reliable expert resource, a source of knowledge on call—or, even better yet, quotes. If your research has produced findings which you believe to be relevant to a wider audience, you might choose to write and distribute your own press release. Becoming a resource in the work of article and news creation makes the job of the journalist easier, and as someone who knows firsthand how stressful that can be, this is what I believe we as sociologists must do: make their job easier, not take it away from them.

Casey Brienza is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Cambridge.

Dickson-Smith et al (2009: 61) suggest that ‘undertaking qualitative research is an embodied experience and that researchers may be emotionally affected by the work that they do’. They also state that this ‘emotional work’ (Hochschild 1983) is rarely theoretically or empirically investigated (Dickson-Smith et al 2009). Throughout this article I take a distinctly un-academic approach (and voice) to provide a personal account of my experiences of doing emotional work while conducting my PhD fieldwork. To add context, my PhD research focuses on disabled peoples’ experiences of sexuality and relationships. The research begins from the idea that disabled peoples’ sexualities are constructed in ways which may be disempowering, that their bodies and lives are largely degendered and desexualised, and that their sexual politics and cultures are inhibited within an ablest/disablist society. Thus, through collecting disabled peoples’ sexual stories (in a variety of ways), the research seeks to explore experiences and understandings of sexuality, both in terms of these constructions, and the ways in which disabled people manage and negotiate them.

Throughout the article I provide some reflections. Firstly, on the considerable emotional challenges encountered during the research process and the ways in which these were managed through both successful and unsuccessful coping strategies. Secondly, I detail the ways in which my (disabled) identity and biography impacted upon this emotional management and my relationships with participants. In order to embody such discussions I use excerpts from my own research diary and quotes from participants. The article concludes by asking the ways in which we, as a community of (postgraduate) researchers, can do more to share our research experiences with each other for the benefit of ourselves and our work.

Emotional management

The emotional challenges experienced throughout my field work year and beyond were not something which I had seriously anticipated. Naively, I never contemplated that listening to the stories of others, through which tales of isolation, loneliness, self hatred, and great sadness were not uncommon, would be as difficult and impactful as it turned out to be. I certainly never thought that it would affect my well-being or make me question aspects of my own life and identity as a disabled person. Many of the stories I was told were ones of pride, self-confidence, resistance, and personal strength. However, many were not and (for me) embodied the oppression, discrimination, and prejudice many disabled people face as part of their daily lives. For example, I was particularly touched by one interviewee called Sally*:

“I feel my disability has a huge impact on my self confidence and self esteem. I lack the confidence to make new friends or to approach people. I don’t like going out places I know there will be a lot of people as I feel like everyone is staring at and judging me. I avoid eye contact and only talk to new people if they talk to me first. As a result of my disability, [I am] extremely self conscious – I cover up with baggy hoody jumpers & scarves – and rarely leave the house…

But, in my head I have the ideal me – how I’d imagine myself to look and behave if I were ‘normal’ – not disabled. I’d have loads of friends – both male & female – I’d laugh lots and be daring, stay out late & be independent. I’d also have boyfriends, go out clubbing, to pubs, to festivals, & have real relationships…. My life would be radically different… I wouldn’t want to get involved with someone like me as I wouldn’t want to miss out on life or be held back, so I can’t expect anyone else to…”

- Sally, 21

To provide more of a background, my interview with Sally was carried out via email over several months. On reflection, this extended time period gave me the chance to emotionally invest in her story in ways that I didn’t fully appreciate at the time. Sally’s was a story which, with each email update, moved me to tears and kept me awake at night. I found it difficult to switch off from thinking about her. This was compounded by our interview coming to an abrupt and unnatural end – one day Sally didn’t reply and I never heard from her again. My coping strategy with this was predominantly through reflecting on why Sally’s story touched me so much. I’d heard similar themes regarding oppression and isolation from most other people in my sample, but something stood out about Sally.

I can now see that Sally’s story, and the stories of the other young disabled people I interviewed, particularly resonated with me because many of the core themes were things I have felt/experienced prior to ‘coming out’ as a disabled person, thus linking with my own biography. Disabled academic Tom Shakespeare helpfully uses the analogy of ‘coming out of the closet’ within lesbian/gay cultures to refer to people with impairments identifying with the disabled label and ‘taking it on’ as a social identity (Shakespeare et el 1996). My ‘condition’ – muscular dystrophy – is congenital (from birth), and I experience it daily in a very real way in terms of a significant mobility impairment. However, after spending my childhood in a wheelchair, special buggies, or on my dad’s back, as a teenager I strived to be ‘normal’. This, arguably, is the norm for most teenagers, but for me as a disabled person it meant hiding from whom and what I am. For example, I wouldn’t attend social events where I knew I couldn’t hide my difficulties (I ashamedly still do this now, but with much less frequency and for different reasons), rejected walking aids (a move which has resulted in me experiencing more pain as an adult), stopped walking if I saw a boy I liked (if I didn’t move, he’d never be able to tell), not park in disabled bays when I desperately needed to, and generally pretend I wasn’t one of ‘them’. This continued until my early twenties when I began working with disabled people as part of my career, made disabled friends, and began to learn about the extensive political and cultural aspects of disability – for example, the disability rights movement and disability and Deaf arts.

Looking back, there was a real honesty in the way Sally spoke which unnerved me. It not only made me feel uncomfortable about my own past, but also meant I wanted (as arrogant as I now realise it to be) to help her, talk to her, empower her, politicise her, and share with her our similarities. I felt incredibly restrained and powerless in my role as a researcher at this point – I was there to listen, record, and ask questions, nothing more. Our relationship was boundaried, restricted to its context, and, I felt at the time, did absolutely nothing for her.

However, there were other stories which weren’t linked to my own experiences or biography that I also found distressing to hear. For example, Grace, a Deaf woman who chose to share her experiences with me via writing her story down in a journal, had been physically and sexually abused by her partner for many years:

“Over the years he became very abusive. I was treated like meat, raped, sodomised. He told me I was boring and useless, only good for a fuck. I started to almost believe it. My confidence was at rock bottom. In my heart I knew that what he was saying was wrong but I felt helpless. And there was my deafness. I had left school with no qualifications, no career. A dead end job and an early marriage and children meant I had hardly any skills outside the home. He isolated me from my friends. He could not cope with me being deaf; as my deafness increased, he found it harder. He did not want a deaf wife.”

- Grace, 58

Understandably, I found Grace’s recounting of this time in her life very difficult to read. I can vividly remember dreading receiving her (emailed) journal entries as I knew the content would be gruelling to manage. As soon as an update would hit my inbox I would get an unsettling feeling in my stomach. Sometimes I resisted opening them for a few days, hoping that if I left them they may disappear. Suffice to say they didn’t, and that avoidance wasn’t an appropriate, or professional, coping strategy.

I also found I got close to participants who, if it weren’t for the researcher/researched relationship, could have become great friends. One spinally cord injured woman, Lucille, wrote her story via a journal and talked extensively about how (she felt) her disabled identity shadowed her sense of femininity and gender identity: her choices of clothing and footwear were dominated by her body, she felt “less of a wife” as she could no longer carry out a domestic role in the way she once had, and she felt invisible as a woman. Lucille found writing her story a cathartic activity which gave her courage and allowed her to explore parts of her life she had shut down after her injury. On our last contact, she told me that telling her story had empowered her in ways she hadn’t imagined possible; for example, she wore a skirt for the first time since her accident (10 years earlier) because she “finally felt comfortable as a disabled woman”. Similarly, another interviewee called Abram got back in touch after taking part to tell me that talking about his oppression had invigorated him to change the aspects of his life with which he had not been happy: he had felt dominated by his overbearing parents who he said controlled his life and didn’t allow him privacy. He reported that expressing his thoughts, ideas, and feelings in the interview gave him the strength to take control of his finances and set new boundaries with his parents. While in hindsight I take no credit for these acts of considerable determination and courage, at the time I experienced these (emotional) connections in a very powerful way. I felt as if my research (and therefore, me) had become integral within these narratives of emancipation, or at the very least was experienced as a catalyst for change.

Harm

At other points I experienced hearing the stories of others as harmful in terms of my own well-being. As a person with muscular dystrophy, my work was embraced by the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign which resulted in publicity (see here, pgs 16-18, The Sex Factor 2009) and a fantastic chance for me to gain access to participants. As a result, a significant number of my sample had the same umbrella condition as me. The term ‘muscular dystrophy’ (hereby MD) refers to a wide variety of conditions which are characterised by a degeneration of muscle in the body over time. Types of the condition differ in terms of speed of progression, severity, particular muscles, time of onset, and trajectory. Many types are life limiting or shortening, though some are not.

Significantly, despite being diagnosed with MD as a baby, my specific ‘type’ has always been undiagnosed. The fact that I have experienced very little identifiable progression means doctors have estimated that it’s unlikely to be extensively progressive, or at best, that progression will be slow and possibly limited to certain bodily areas/functions. Though, as with anything, there are no guarantees. This is not, oddly, something that regularly enters my consciousness (though I would be lying if I said it didn’t arise when when I think about my future: long-term career prospects, motherhood etc). However, this changed when I began interviewing others with MD. All but one had a progressive form of MD and this often came out in their narratives in a variety of ways – young men like Mark, Robert, and Abram wanting to experience sex before further progression, women like Rhona and Jane talking about avoiding future motherhood, and husbands leaving wives upon diagnosis and/or progression, like Ann. The excerpt below is taken from my personal research diary on the day that I met Ann:

Research diary entry: 6th June 2009

Hearing Ann’s sad story of her husband rejecting her at the onset of her disability because he ‘didn’t want a disabled wife’ was disturbing. She hid nothing from me and it upset me greatly. Later that evening at home I broke down to my partner, partly through relief that the day was over, but more out of insecurity that he could, in theory anyway, leave me in much the same way. Ann reported a strong relationship, a ‘great man’ who loved her very much, yet I had all of these things and so what would stop my partner running should the ‘shit hit the fan’, as Ann put it? I was, for the first time, doubting my partner. “What makes us so different?” “How can you say you won’t leave?”… Realistically and logically, I don’t think that will ever be my life. I genuinely believe in, and have more faith in my partner than that, but when it’s emotively in front of you all day it’s impossible not to be affected by it. It was at this juncture that I suddenly realised that my research could be harmful. Not just for those whose stories I hoped to hear, but harmful to me, my sense of self, my relationships, and those around me. As I heard Ann’s words I realised that she was voicing my worst fears.  This was not going to be an easy thing to listen to everyday in interviews, nor to come home with and pretend that my ‘day was fine’. I have to find a way to manage these feelings better than I did that day. I may find elements of stories that remind me of my worst fears, or echo my feelings about myself and my body on the darkest days… How will I deal with this? Talking to supervisors? Talking to my partner? Talking to a counsellor? This is something I am going to monitor closely.

This diary excerpt was written following a particularly bad day, and while I am cringing at the thought of others reading it, it does raise the issue of where and with whom to share such upsetting experiences while carrying out field work, particularly as postgraduate/early career researchers. The threat of progression had suddenly become very ‘real’, and it filled me with a terror that I didn’t really know how to handle. Unfortunately, my partner took the brunt of it when he shouldn’t have done – another problematic coping strategy. I did discuss these feelings with my (incredibly supportive) supervisers, but the superviser/supervisee relationship is, ultimately, a professional one and is not conducive to such sharing in terms of both context and time. The most productive way of managing the emotions which arose, I quickly discovered, was writing it down in a research diary. This allowed me to express fear, irrationality, frustration, and sadness in a way which didn’t harm anybody else or my work. I wrote in the research diary at the points where it became too much. These kinds of strategies, I believe, should be made more public by researchers and that we, as a community, should recognise the importance of sharing our experiences.

A way forward?

To conclude, writing this article has not been easy – five drafts on and I’m ready to be exposed! As, researchers we collect, gather, manage and analyse data, but rarely reflect on how data impacts upon us. We may also experience a range of emotions, from feeling restrained to powerless, powerful, fearful, sad, joyful, and frustrated, meaning we carry out extensive emotional work (Dickson-Smith et al 2009) – yet we rarely share it. While I can accept that both my research and my situation are unique, and that the themes within this article may not be relevant to everybody who reads it (much of it may even seem quite alien), it does highlight a need to reflect on our fieldwork experiences and share these as a community. My (sometimes, clumsy) coping strategies got me through – just – but there must be better ways, and I propose that we can find these in one another. Sharing our emotions, journeys, management/coping strategies and thus creating informal support networks, I propose, may just be the answer towards lessening the burden of emotional work we all experience throughout the research process.

* All names have been changed.

References:

• Dickson-Smith, V. et al (2009) ‘Researching sensitive topics: qualitative research as emotion work’, Qualitative Research, 9: 1, 61-79
• Finlay, L. (2002) ‘Negotiating the swamp: the opportunity and challenge of reflexivity in research practice’, Qualitative Research, 2:2, 209-230
• Hochschild, A. (1983) The Managed Heart: The Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
• Shakespeare, T., Gillespie-Sells, K., Davies, D., (1996) Untold Desires: The Sexual Politics of Disability. London and New York: Cassell

Kirsty Liddiard

k.liddiard@warwick.ac.uk

University of Warwick

Eportfolio: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/sociology/pg/current/phdstudents/current/sypgbj/

As I sit in my quiet but chaotic study, staring out of the window and wondering whether I can justify stopping for another cup of tea, I find myself wondering why I have spent the last three years doing social research for my PhD. It is a question that I often see (or imagine I see) on people’s faces when they ask what I do, especially since a friend blustered in response to my explanation: “And are my hard-earned taxes funding you?”

My PhD is looking at secondary school pupils’ constructions of social justice. I have learnt not to tell the general inquirer this, as it is open to a number of misinterpretations, including the assumption that I am studying youth offending and that I am a radical communist. In fact, what I want to understand is how young people apply principles of fairness and justice to the social order that they see around them. I want to understand the different ways in which young people deploy concepts of fairness and justice to talk about their school and their society. I am attempting to do this by conducting a series of group interviews with small groups of 11 and 14 year olds in a range of different schools. I began with 110 participants, although there has been some attrition, so only about 80 have taken part in all three interviews. So far the groups have discussed what they think makes a fair or unfair school, examples of fairness and unfairness they see on the television and around them, whether they think a fair world is possible or desirable and what they think needs to happen to make the world fairer.

I often explain to my interviewees that my interest in my topic stems from my time working in education policy research, where I observed that many policy makers seemed to have no idea why I was so concerned about educational inequalities. While this is true, I think the interest in my topic can be traced much further back in my past. I might go back to the short period I spent living overseas as a child, my involvement in the Jubilee 2000 “Drop the Debt” campaign as a teenager, time living in and working in a deprived area of South Wales, or my experiences living in a diverse area of South London. As I learnt more and more sociology I began to make sense of these experiences using theories of habitus, structure, culture, agency and ethics. I became convinced that I live in a deeply unequal nation in a massively unequal world. I also began to understand that my actions contribute to maintaining and recreating that world order. I wrote in my initial research proposal that studying constructions of social justice is important because “constructions of social justice may be used to justify the reproduction of inequality, but they may also be used to challenge and transform unjust social structures”. So I began my research with the aspiration that it would prompt people to consider and debate constructions of social justice and thus take a step towards a fairer society and a fairer world.

Of course, I didn’t know when I set out to do the research that 2010 would be such an interesting time to be studying young people’s ideas about social justice. “Fairness” is trumpeted as the key principle behind decisions about cuts, and is also becoming a rallying call for protesting students. Within my secondary school participants, one group that two years ago told me they were unlikely to do anything to stop unfairness have joined the “Save our School” campaign, which they justify using the language of fairness and justice. Another group spoke passionately about the impact student fees might have on them, denouncing the proposals as unfair. I am still convinced when I go back to the foundation of the research that it is worthwhile and important.

And sometimes when I am in school with young people, I remember this and am encouraged. I look forward to days when a conversation with a teacher prompts them to say “I’ve never thought about it like that before,” or when a student says “I enjoyed talking about that, we never discuss that kind of thing in school.” But more often I find it is a struggle to convince myself that the research is worth doing. On days when casual acquaintances suggest that political affiliation is all in the genes, or when tell me there’s no point in researching fairness because Britain is a land of opportunity, I despair. On these days I worry that understanding young people’s ideas about social justice will make no difference to the world at all, let alone contribute to making it fairer. I guess ultimately it will be desperation that drives me to finish, rather than naive idealism. As for the impact of the research – we will all have to wait and see.

Sarah is a  PhD researcher in Sociology at the University of Reading.