No. Just no.

*A quick disclaimer: this is an angry one.*

Dearest UCT,

It was a dark and still summery night a few weeks back, and I got a phonecall from a student I tutored once upon a time. As she explained the reason for her call I moved from annoyance, to disbelief, and finally to anger. The conversation, admittedly more than roughly paraphrased, went something like this:

"I remember you spoke a lot about Khayelitsha when you tutored me. Do you know people there?"
"Er, yes. Why?"
"I am doing research there and I need to talk to people."
"Ok." I said, "and?"
"And I was hoping you could put me in touch with some people."
"Uhmmmm..."
"I don't need to talk to that many, just some."
Already my spidey senses are tingling, and I start to suspect that this conversation is not going to end well.
"Ok," I start, "let me just get this clear in my mind. You are doing research in Khayelitsha but you don't know anyone who lives there? Or works there? And you don't have anyone facilitating your entry?"
"No."
"Right." I pause to let that sink in a little, I'm hoping that she realises the flaw in her plan and puts down the phone. But she doesn't so I ask: "Ok, what is this research about?"
"It's about shack-flooding."
"Huh?"
"I'm researching, well, my group is researching what happens when it rains and shacks flood."

It's here that I entered my quiet phase of disbelief. Was someone pranking me? Was this woman for real? I had so many questions, I started with the most innocuous: "what group?"
"My group from class that the lecturer put us in."
Ah, so not a legitimate NGO then. Or think-tank. Or popular education passionistas. Or anyone vaguely qualified to do this work.
She continues: "We are planning on completing the research on Saturday."
It was Tuesday night. Again, I "uhmmed," and then overwhelmed by how clearly she was not thinking, just asked, "so do you have someone who speaks Xhosa in your group."
"No, I don't know. Maybe. Actually I think so."

It was at that point that I lost it. I tried to start off gently, I really did, but I was starting to get edgy.
"So you know this research project of yours, well now to you, it's just that. Research. To people, real people, it's their lives. Their shacks flood. Their whole lives. Their children. Their everything. It floods."
"Yes." She agreed. I don't think she understood. I don't think she's ever seen Lansdowne Road between Mew Way and Baden Powell during the winter. Don't think she's seen the shit--real not metaphorical--that tumbles and sticks to the shallow-water-covered road.
I have so many things to say. Things I want to make her understand. "Well, you can't just go in and treat Khayelitsha like a science lab and the people there like rats in your experiment."
Silence.
"I mean, there are organizations that spend years and years doing this kind of research, on-the-ground, with people. Research that has an impact. What's going to be the impact of your research?"
"We have to do it for class."

For class. For a grade. For a course, a degree. For graduation and Dr Max Price tapping your head with a funny black hat as you kneel in Jammie Hall. For black robes and striped hoods and lunch in Leslie Social; did you try the mini quiche, it's delicious.

I tell her: "it's Tuesday. You want to "do" this research on Saturday. You have planned nothing, you know no one there, you can't speak Xhosa and you don't know why this research is useful? So I'm sorry but I can't help you. I do know people in Khayelitsha, no well I don't just know people, I care about people. And I'm not asking them to talk to you."

I had said my speech. I took a breath. I expected some back-tracking, at the very least. What I got was:
"So you can't help me?"

There I stood, phone pressed against my angrily sweaty cheek, speechless. Until,
"No, I can't. I would seriously suggest you think about this research and why you're doing it and what is means but no, I can't help you."

I've been wanting to write this post since then, so why only today? Well, it's research ethics time for my students--and yes, they come from a university well-resourced enough for them to have a two-to-one ratio of student to research support staff so there's less scope for catastrophe, but I could go on about why it's not only the institutional resources that differ--and in this morning's seminar one of them mentioned that they hadn't met a researcher of the kind described in the readings on 'things to avoid doing'. I responded, "I have." And I told them the above story.

One of the readings we discussed--it's a little outdated and the context is different but the message is equally applicable I feel--made an argument that: "Researchers should not look upon Indians as curiosities... Professors and graduate students who have "always been interested in Indians" must understand that Indians do not exist just so they can acquire merit or graduate." Substitute "Indians" for "poor people" and reread.

I'm angered by my ex-tutling who was so unthinking, but I'm furious with her course convenor. Who encourages this kind of research? Who allows students to engage with marginalized people as objects to be studied; who sanctions projects where The Poor have their poverty described and then graded? University-community engagement is not a good in itself, particularly when it is done just to tick a box. And call me a cynic--I'm a seasoned one when it comes to the motives of the powerful--but I'm sure that's what it was. Social Responsiveness is becoming a way to say "Me! Pick me! Look at me leaving the Ivory Tower and getting my hands and my MacBook dirty on the Cape Flats. Look at me and praise me!" And by "praise me" I mean, let this count toward my next promotion.

Yeah well, I'm looking and I'm judging. I'm seeing academics who have lost touch through the postcolonial project of re-imagining the academy, lost touch not with reality necessarily, but with humanity. And oh yes, UCT, I'm looking at you. I'm looking at you sitting comfortably on the slopes of Devil's Peak, there on the land that Rhodes left you, with a bird's-eye view of the objects in your experimental playground, and I'm kind of ashamed to say that I'm one of yours. Ofcourse there are academics who do wonderful and sensitive engaged research and I'm not taking away from them. But those other lost academics are.

That's all. Rant over.

Bestest,
Jen


1. Devon Misehuah, 'Suggested Guidelines for Institutions with Scholars Who Conduct Research on American Indians'