I'm from a "Western" country (US) but not a scholar so I can't respond
from that perspective.
One person here has claimed that you are in fact cited and suggested
this might happen more often than you realize. But if we accept that
perhaps there are other occasions when you should have been cited and
weren't (or that your fellow South Asian scholars experience this issue
more commonly), then in pure speculation, I raise the possibility that
there might be a form of privileging happening here in which it is
blithely assumed that we can (if needed) extrapolate from the
experience of a white male person within certain age range to the
experiences of others but cannot extrapolate from the experience of a
non-white person to a white person or from a female person to a male
person etc.
I don't mean to imply that this is necessarily a consciously made
assumption -- but it's how the research literature has historically
handled issues of differing race, gender, nationality, etc. So there
may be researchers who slip into certain habits in terms of how they
select the literature they cite simply because they assume this is "how
research is done" because "this is how it has always been done."
Thus, if someone is writing about the western experience then it is
assumed that the South Asian experience does not apply even if there
might be, in fact, some interesting insights to be extracted from that
research that could spark important new lines of inquiry for Western
research. Further, if you think you are writing primarily about and
for Westerners (itself an assumption that maybe should be challenged
more often), then there is a large existing body of literature to draw
upon for that background research. This reinforces the assumption that
there is no "need" to consult literature outside of that frame of
reference (again, particularly if there has been no history in your
field of making a point of re-checking assumptions by consulting a
geographical and cultural cross-section of literature, a habit that
would probably benefit all fields that study humanity whether in our
social aspects or our physical aspects).
Whereas, if you are writing outside the western perspective, then due
to the long-term effects of privileging of western research and the
effects of education privilege etc (where many people in developing
countries have been historically excluded from opportunities to go to
school and learn how to be scholars), the body of research among South
Asian scholars etc may be comparatively smaller, if not in every
thematic area then in at least some. This (in addition to the effects
of privileging of western experience) may make the benefits of
consulting outside your frame of reference more obvious -- which means
you not only might consult western works for your own research more
often than vice versa but, because you familiarize yourself more
thoroughly with western literature, the cross-national, cross-cultural
"citation gap" becomes more obvious to you than it would to a western
scholar who does not habitually read research literature outside of
Western publications.
All this is speculation on my part, to be considered or disregarded in
accordance to its consistency with your observations.
Andrea Shettle, MSW
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http://wecando.wordpress.com
http://cips.gallaudet.edu/wdi.xml
On Oct 12, 2009, at 2:15 AM, anita ghai wrote:
> Dear Friends
> I have learnt a lot from my fellow disabled and the scholars who are
> well
> known. What is sad is that when I go through research in west, I often
> find
> that though writings by the south Asian scholars is not considered
> worthy.
> I do understand the colonial powers. However even people who have
> reviewed
> my work for instance, do not bother to include the work. Is it because
> the
> work is bad, then there is all the more reason to criticise the
> writings.Would you really want to create a community of disability
> scholars,
> only from USA, UK and Australia ? Since I am kind of baffled, I
> thought
> if people can help me understand.
> Thanks
>
> --
> Anita Ghai
> Reader
> Department Of Psychology
> Jesus and Mary College
> Resi:- J12/68 B Rajouri Garden
> New Delhi, 110027 India
> 110027
>
> ________________End of message________________
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