Dear Miles (if calling you Miles is wrong please excuse, m99m just doesn't
do it for me) and the others,
You raise some very interesting and important issues. If I might be so bold
to exacerbate some of one's I see.
What is the responsibility of research/what are the pertinent research
questions?
Research is political. The personal is also political. If we don't listen to
the personal voice, how will we be able to know which research questions to
formulate? What will be the function of research, the meaning of doing it?
Yes, research should be valid, general and reliable. But this is done
through the method we do it by, isn't it? The meaning is in the questions we
pose about the social world. Shouldn't research contribute to more than
theoretical knowledge? In fact, doesn't it contribute extremely much to how
we design the practical structures in society?
Does a clear cut separation exist between researcher and researched?
If this is so, will a disabled person ever be able to do disability
research? Or is the rules of such research that I as a disabled person have
to negate all those parts of my identity belonging to disability to become
an identified (respected) researcher? On this list I have chosen to never
disclose my belonging by attaching markers to my name when I sign these
posts. It has been an interesting journey, because I have found that how I
write about a subject (any subject) and the discourse I use, very much
predicts the type of answers I get. So in a way, you all have unwillingly
taken part in a very personal study. This summer there was an extremely
agitated and hostile "debate", in which I contributed (I'm a bit ashamed to
admit this) a totally unacceptable and knee-jerk answer. However, I chose to
do this phrasing it in very academic language, even including a not very
useful reference (trying for a cloak of objectivity). To my utter surprise I
received no attacks or even hostile responses. I concluded that my discourse
was more important than the content of what I said. And if I wanted to
research this, my hypothesis would be that disabled people are perceived as
bitter because they unveil their disabled belonging while academics are
valued because they disclose their academic belonging.
At the same time I see, in other responses, that there is a myth of a total
"separateness" between disabled people and disability scholars. In my latest
post to the list I wrote: "The practical problems might be ours, but their
solution is bloody well the responsibility for everyone in society." The
responses made me wonder how people conceive the word "everyone" in this
sentence. For me "everyone" is the same as "all", including disabled as well
as non-disabled, researchers as well as non-researchers. If the message is
the media, the interpretation of this is surely personal, maybe even
private.
Even more interesting is the response to me writing: "I have this nagging
voice in my head saying "This is an academic list. What are you doing
preaching about this stuff in this forum? Shouldn't you just shut up?" The
dominant ideas within research shouts to me: "This is an academic forum.
It's not allowed to be personal." Another voice responds: "It's my life, my
right to participation that's researched, why shouldn't I be personal?"" I
used the verb "shout" in connection with the otherwise considered silent
message of the dominant ideas within research. I did this very deliberately
- another test. And the people reading my post interpreted it immediately as
the disabled out-crying voice was the one shouting. Is the conclusion that
disabled people are perceived as shouting their message while research is a
subtle and well thought through voice in this sea of cries? Can the opposite
never exist?
I might be mistaken about who Miles' directed this sentence to, but as the
quotes in the beginning where mine I assume it's to me. (I'm a language
freak - please not that I wrote "to" not "at". There's no attack in this
post.): "This disability-research list has provided some interested
non-researchers with the opportunity to express some of their pain and anger
and mistrust of researchers." As I said I have never disclosed what I am
when I sign these posts. So isn't it subjective to assume I'm not a
researcher? Does the fact that I disclose my belonging to the disabled
community imply I don't belong to the research community? If this is so my
posts will of course be read as totally irrelevant to research. This was not
my intention. What I tried to do, with the limited time for things like this
which indeed tend to colonize my life sphere :-) was to phrase some issues I
think should be researched around identity forming. I chose to do this by
presenting them as a personal voice. I could, by allowing more time for it,
have phrased exactly the same issues in a very objective way using academic
discourse and references. But I did not, because this would have excluded
precisely those voices (including mine) which would have contributed to
formulating the relevant questions. And because I don't want to belong to
the research community to the prize of ostracising parts of whom I am. I'll
be as valid, reliable and general as it takes when it comes to methodology.
But this isn't really all this list is about, is it?
I feel a very deep sadness when posts to this list and others tend to
dissolve into personal attacks and so dissolve the meaning with and
usefulness of the list. But in all fairness this is done as much from the
research perspective as the perspective of the advocates. The difference
might be in the discourse used and the markers after the signatures. I think
we should all make a communal effort to debate issues in a hard but fair
way. And stop being so sensitive and see attacks where they might not exist.
So with the highest regard for you all whatever you are and whoever you
identify as.
Susanne
-------------------------------------------------------
Susanne Berg
Luntmakargatan 86 A
113 51 STOCKHOLM
Sweden
telephone/fax +46 (0)8 15 73 54mobile phone +46 (0)70 515 73 56
e-mail [log in to unmask]
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