Part of it will be my own research, and other components will be for the classes we are formally enrolled in while there: "PCOM641 Supervised Field Study" and "PCOM638 Contemporary Issues in Communication." 638 will involve visits with various NGOs (non gov't organizations) in Ahmedabad, and 641 will be about our own research and simply being out there interacting with locals and other tourists. For 641 we are required to build a documentary project to take our experience public, and mine will be a website I'll publish for Nov 15.
I should probably make some introductions, too, since you'll be hearing their names a lot: Phillip, Wendy, and Tina. Phillip is the head of our program overall, leader of our India trip, and prof for 641. Wendy is our prof for 638, and she has done development work all over the world. Rupinder (Tina) is Phillip's teaching assistant and our go to girl for all things India. Tina graduated our program last year. April is Phillip's wife, prof for the class we just finished, and champion of teaching us all how to take our indecent research topics and proposals to rock star status. Her name may come up, but unfortunately she isn't coming to India.
So, my research. After a rather arduous process of figuring out a research topic for which I'll spare you the details, I landed on observing how Indian street kids use humor to bond and cajole with Western tourists to land a few rupees. Essentially, a cross-cultural humor study, and looking at humor as tourist product and form of economic exchange. OK great. Well many times during the proposal process I nearly turfed the entire project, seeing myself as using street kids for my silly research and thus going straight to hell. I collected myself however and, done well and ethically, I hope this will be a project that can do some good in raising awareness and inciting change in tourist/local interactions. It all sounds so tidy on paper.
I have a vision in my head of what this might look like, which I realize, of course, is quite romantic. Laughing and bonding with kids, giving them a few rupees, even getting to know a few even, their skin and big brown eyes...oh my how we laughed and what times we had!
....[insert sound of needle scratching across a record]......loudly.
I'm also well aware that the movie Slumdog Millionaire is not entirely fictitious. April said yeah, go ahead and give the rupees they ask for but be careful about giving more. I was relieved, because I had been thinking that if the university said no to giving rupees I was going to turf the project for sure. What good is a pencil crayon or some Canada sticker when your stomach is empty and/or you're going to get beaten at the end of the day if you don't fill your quota?
Back to romance and my soft spot for kids. On some of our class discussions Phillip and my friend Kathyrn both were a little concerned about my giving money at all, and likely sniffing out my soft spot. For context, the school budgets about $100 each for us in order to take us out for a special celebration night as a group or whatnot. Phillip asked us though how we would like to spend that money, and most of us are going for giving it to one of the NGOs we'll visit. I also piped in that if we don't do that ah, I'll just convert mine to rupees and give it to the kids.
....[insert sound of needle scratching across a record]......loudly.
I also think you should be careful with handing out money in the streets. You might get a mob of kids and the kids that don't receive anything will get really upset (their parents, passer-bys...) I have never been to India, but I am assuming that it could be quite intense. My parents had a friend who did that in India and he learned quite quickly that his compassion was actually not appreciated (think of the vast population of kids that you will run into.)
Philip, I would be happy to donate my 100.00 to a NGO. Especially one that focuses on education for children (and helps girls have the opportunity to attend school. )
-Kathryn"
Thank god we aren't doing this alone, and Phillip said right from the beginning you are going to need to lean on each other, a LOT. So far I'm wise on one thing: going early, hanging out in Mumbai with France, who works in children's aid, and taking the time to get my game on and get used to the place...and get my street smarts.
I can't wait to hear about all your stories from over there, Kim!! I think I'd do the same as you and give money to the kids. It would break my heart not to!
ReplyDeleteThere is no raitional or univerisal explanation that can guide you. Morals and ethics are not trade marked or a collective enterprise. Yes, plese beware of your own safety at all times but you also have to remember that ethnographers create relationships, even for a brief moment or a brief encounter.
ReplyDelete"Before the rational community,there was the encounter with the other, the intruder. The encounter begins with the one who exposes himself to the demands and contestation of the other. Beneath the rational community, its common discourse of which each lucid mind is but the representative and its enterprises in which the efforts and passions of each are absorbed and depersonalized, is another community, the community that demands that the one that has his own communal identity, who produces his own nature, expose itself to the one who he has nothing in common, the stranger.
The other community, is not simply absorbed into the rational community; it recurs, it troubles the rational community, as its double or its shadow" (Lingis)
"Community forms when one exposes oneself to the naked one, the destitute one, the outcast, the dying one..."
Kim, one should not ignore their sensibility. Let us not always ponder rational effects of events/encounters but rather the affect.
Ethics and morals need to move beyond effects.
There is never one right answer but always a multitude.
You will know when not to give and when such a gesture is deemed appropriate.
April
thank you April...now that I'm here my perspective is altered and as you say, there is never one answer and what is sensible in one situation is not in another. giving money has been no big deal, the amount varies, and sometimes I don't give depending on where I am and what's going on. And I love the last quote you wrote about forming community with the overlooked, the desitute....and in the words of Madison I'm OK with putting my self and body on the line to be an ethnographer and to engage. It's a price I'll pay.
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