I showed up to one of my high schools today, and was introduced to another researcher, there to observe the same class. My first reaction: they’ve come here too.
They, as in the army of researchers and journalists who are interested in the same affirmative action policy that my thesis is on. The ones I try to avoid as I choose my high schools, and I conduct my interviews. One of my interviewees has already talked to three researchers, and she’s tired. “We’re starting to feel like wild animals. I can only hope that your theses will change attitudes about us.”
Of course, I don’t see myself as part of this body. I’m not voyeuristic, I tell myself. I’m not coming in with ridiculous stereotypes about the French banlieue—hell, I live in the banlieue. Yes, I go to these schools alone, without pepper spray and everything. I’m not shocked when these kids say intelligent things.
But aren’t I one of “them,” all the same? I am an outsider, trying to understand the lives of these students and teachers by talking to them and ‘observing them in their natural environment.’ We researchers are carving up the banlieue to study it, so interested in understanding how it works, yet in doing so we are contributing to the stigma.
An inevitable catch-22?
1 comment:
the exception I can think of is when researching/studying one's home setting perhaps?
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