Given the widespread support I received from other research students and academics, I felt it pertinent to post an update on the status of the desk debacle described in my last entry.
How and why do things like this happen? Like most academics, I don't mind lashing out at central university administration/managers - notoriously motivated by financial concerns and profit margins - for making poor decisions that affect academic life. In this case, however, according to my university's regulations, as a fee-paying student nearing submission, I am still entitled to the equitable use of university. The "University administration" had not suggested otherwise. Instead, it was my department that had chosen to revoke the workspaces of its research students two months prior to the end of their registrations even though the university gives us the right to use its facilities. Through a gray and murky loophole in wording, the department had chosen to remove itself from the overarching category of "university facilities", restricting this to the university library alone.
To add insult to injury, the department had not taken any steps to notify or consult with students in the final months of their write-ups before making the decision to revoke their privileges within the building. This caused stress, anxiety and a feeling of helplessness amongst students. It is difficult enough entering this unsure time - with heightened deadline pressures and the weight of three to four years of exponentially untenable life/work balances compressing the spine - that losing workspaces should really not come into the equation.
When academics feel that something is rotten in HE, they go to their departmental staff for support. Where could we turn, given that this was an internal act?
Through email and consultation with our supervisors, we fought against the decision and had it overturned (more or less). After an inundation of requests and demands from students that we be allowed to stay in our offices until our registration periods expire, the department has relented and will allow this audacious behavior – working until we're done – to continue as expected. However, I have been forewarned that "furniture will need to be moved" in August, despite any disruption that this may cause. So, rather than shoving the old workhorses out the back door to make way for new recruits, we'll all be crammed into one room. It’s going to be a stuffy August.
The good part: I received unwavering support from my supervisor who was equally baffled by the decision. Student representatives and the student’s union got involved. Senior staff and student advisors know much more about the needs of students and it boggles the mind how these things get through the net without seeking advice and approval from supervisors or the students themselves. Plus, the whole affair has also brought some of the students together and allowed us to reflect on our academic environments, expectations and disappointments.
Of course, this is not just about desks. Problems with space on campuses are perennial and students are not unreasonable. We are likely to share desks, books and facilities and are very rarely proprietary about them. Instead of the issue at hand, it was the unilateral decision-making and disrespect that it implied which were toxic for my department. Some students remain worried about speaking out against the decision, and there is still talk of us losing our spaces, especially for those continuing to extend their work beyond a "standard" registration period. But students who are extending their courses are still paying fees for this reason; they are still students and they still need somewhere to work.
Furthermore, both the original decision and the revised position allowing us to stay at our desks were transmitted second- or third-hand. This has provoked a general sense of detachment. Various statements and allusions made by unnamed persons appear to imply that research students who need more time to write (i.e, failures) are somehow surreptitiously profiting off the department's lack of space by asking to stay at their desks until submission. It has made some of us feel uneasy and as if we were doing something wrong. Is it the fault of research students who have been accepted to undertake their PhDs in a department that the administration of said department has, through mismanagement, run out of space and offered no alternative?
Academics' complaining about a hard life is a joke to most working people, so I think we just tend to take the good with the bad and count ourselves lucky. The truth is that no one really wants to be the one to complain. I was pleased to learn that I wasn't the only one who felt this way and, more importantly, that I'm not the only one notices what academia will be reduced to if we're not careful. In comparison to most things, losing my desk is a small problem, but it is merely one representative example of a much larger problem that any one of us can be affected by.
By airing these views, I do not wish to shame my own department, whose academic members I greatly respect and appreciate, but to draw to light conditions endemic to higher education when fundamental tenets of workplace logic are forgotten or ignored by a few unchallenged managers. In the end, nothing I have said here is revolutionary in the least, unless respect, equality in the workplace and a vested interest in departmental conviviality are things that we shouldn't naturally expect.
I hope that others can learn from the unfortunate mistakes recounted here and choose instead to uphold the integrity of the academic process and support its bottom feeders (the students).
Showing posts with label anthropology. postgraduate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anthropology. postgraduate. Show all posts
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Like most PhD students, I can empathize with many of the typical scenarios amusingly depicted in Piled Higher and Deeper, but I enjoy working with my supervisor and I have been given plenty of encouragement to grow academically. I am challenged to explore my work independently while guidance is available to me if and when I need it. I fear, however, that core features of academic life are increasingly at risk within the vulnerable state of Higher Education in the UK today.
Here is a brief email exchange between my department and myself this morning:
Dear Fran,
I have been asked to write to inform you that from September you will no longer be eligible for workspace within the school and you should vacate the workspace you are currently using by 31st July at the very latest.
You are still entitled to use the University's library and computing facilities.
Many thanks,
xxxx
Dear xxxx,
As you know, my extension year ends on 30 September 2010. I therefore do not understand why I (and other full-time research students) should need to vacate our workspaces on the 31st of July. What happened to the other two months between 31 July and 30 September?
As a side note, I have consistently been told that departmental space is scarce, which I have always appreciated. My desk is basic (nigh on shoddy) and in a room with 8 other students. It doesn't even have drawers to keep things in [edit: There are empty tracks where drawers used to be. I asked for replacements, to no avail]. I had no privacy all year to conference with my undergraduate students. I have had to deal with people moving my computer, unplugging it when it was still switched on, leaving coffee stains on my papers and keyboard and numerous other inconveniences due to the complete lack of respect for my workspace all year. We have been doubling up on spaces as it is. I therefore find it particularly appalling that we are not only herded into too small a space, but quickly discarded to make room for the next herd. I do not have a solution to the department's spatial woes, but as a fee-paying student and a regular, paid member of staff with multiple responsibilities in any given academic year (teaching, IT admin, research), I hope the department does not take my lack of sympathy personally.
This complaint is not directed at you personally, but at the policy in place. I would therefore be very grateful if the powers that be could provide a more satisfactory explanation as to why my extension fees are now worth less than they were last month and why the School is so quick to want to wash their hands of me.
I wish to keep my current desk until my registration expires, or be provided with a decent alternative and secure space.
Kind regards,
Fran
I would normally not air such exchanges publicly, but I was inspired by a call to action from a fellow research student who, like myself, feels that PhD students too often put up with being ignored, let down, and treated like lesser academic citizens.
My concerns are also increasingly in response to the latest tide of fear flooding British HE which sees universities under fire to cut costs, save space and increase efficiency. While I was reading the above email in my student email account, over in my "staff" inbox (the fact that the two roles are incommensurate is telling in itself), I received a notice that the University is now accepting applications for "voluntary redundancy" settlements for positions that will remain permanently unfilled to help pay for more student enrollment:
The costs of the voluntary redundancy/early retirement will be recovered through permanent salary savings i.e. the post will not be replaced.
More students, less staff, less office space, more red tape, less time, less effort, less respect. Is this really where we want to go?
Can lowly PhD students make a difference, or are we as expendable as the email above implies?
In return for their rising tuition fees, students get access to a university library and computers and a well-established academic infrastructure (in addition to qualifications and hopefully chances to obtain fulfilling jobs).
Computing facilities are important. My department thankfully runs and maintains its own Apple computing lab (which I helped to set up and administer) with local servers and brand new machines that are excellent to work with, especially for photos and video. As for university-wide facilities, most students prefer to avoid the packed computer rooms if they can. Plus, not many of the bloated Win Vista public computer facilities on the Kent campus can match the speed of a decent low-cost laptop or netbook.
As for the library, the anthropology shelves are fairly comprehensive, but journal holdings range from good to appalling. I have borrowed less than 10 print books from the library this year - which I could have afforded for far less than my fees amount to - as most of my reading material is available online. But my tuition fees give me access to e-journals and online resources, a bargain compared to running into inflated pay walls. As an Open Access advocate, I hope that this will eventually become a non-problem. At present, there are a considerable number of ways to acquire many free, peer-reviewed journals online, with more on the horizon.
With Universities’ hold over computing facilities and academic literature being challenged by new availability, what allure will these old and archaic institutions have left? Why should research students continue investing in what we can buy for ourselves in PC World or procure freely on the web and with a lot less paperwork?
Put simply, computers and books are not why we should be embarking on academic research. These are accessories to learning, but they do not constitute learning.
The truly priceless asset of a university education – what we should be venturing to protect and nurture – is the academic environment. Departments, buildings and lecture halls are full of knowledge ready to be shared, full of enthusiastic researchers and sharpened thinking, full of collaborative spaces, new ideas, innovation, a sense of community and pride in collective efforts founded on individual autonomy and respect … or?
Take away our desks, close down our offices, replace privacy with open-plan zoos, remove our communal rest areas, put more distance between students and staff, eliminate our ability to share, learn and collaborate openly with our peers and all is lost. A university department should be lively and dynamic. We should see the friendly faces of our colleagues and students who feel happy, respected and comfortable, not the overworked faces of strangers sprinting along lifeless corridors from bookshelf to windowless corner before hopping on the bus home to work in peace. Research is a personal enterprise, one that needs space, time, and solitude. But it cannot truly thrive without the support of others.
We should be inducting new researchers into a pattern of working which values their autonomy and respects their contributions more than the pure monetary value of their office real estate. PhD students are an investment that universities cannot survive without. They will become the career academics who will need to choose whether or not to invest in others in the future. Do we really want to train a new generation to prefer empty desks over full ones and the "bottom line" over the greatest potential?
My department and my relationships within it have always been, for me, the justification for staying in higher education in the UK. But I am confident that I speak for other research students in saying that we would like to stop being made to feel like wastes of space.
Here is a brief email exchange between my department and myself this morning:
Dear Fran,
I have been asked to write to inform you that from September you will no longer be eligible for workspace within the school and you should vacate the workspace you are currently using by 31st July at the very latest.
You are still entitled to use the University's library and computing facilities.
Many thanks,
xxxx
Dear xxxx,
As you know, my extension year ends on 30 September 2010. I therefore do not understand why I (and other full-time research students) should need to vacate our workspaces on the 31st of July. What happened to the other two months between 31 July and 30 September?
As a side note, I have consistently been told that departmental space is scarce, which I have always appreciated. My desk is basic (nigh on shoddy) and in a room with 8 other students. It doesn't even have drawers to keep things in [edit: There are empty tracks where drawers used to be. I asked for replacements, to no avail]. I had no privacy all year to conference with my undergraduate students. I have had to deal with people moving my computer, unplugging it when it was still switched on, leaving coffee stains on my papers and keyboard and numerous other inconveniences due to the complete lack of respect for my workspace all year. We have been doubling up on spaces as it is. I therefore find it particularly appalling that we are not only herded into too small a space, but quickly discarded to make room for the next herd. I do not have a solution to the department's spatial woes, but as a fee-paying student and a regular, paid member of staff with multiple responsibilities in any given academic year (teaching, IT admin, research), I hope the department does not take my lack of sympathy personally.
This complaint is not directed at you personally, but at the policy in place. I would therefore be very grateful if the powers that be could provide a more satisfactory explanation as to why my extension fees are now worth less than they were last month and why the School is so quick to want to wash their hands of me.
I wish to keep my current desk until my registration expires, or be provided with a decent alternative and secure space.
Kind regards,
Fran
I would normally not air such exchanges publicly, but I was inspired by a call to action from a fellow research student who, like myself, feels that PhD students too often put up with being ignored, let down, and treated like lesser academic citizens.
My concerns are also increasingly in response to the latest tide of fear flooding British HE which sees universities under fire to cut costs, save space and increase efficiency. While I was reading the above email in my student email account, over in my "staff" inbox (the fact that the two roles are incommensurate is telling in itself), I received a notice that the University is now accepting applications for "voluntary redundancy" settlements for positions that will remain permanently unfilled to help pay for more student enrollment:
The costs of the voluntary redundancy/early retirement will be recovered through permanent salary savings i.e. the post will not be replaced.
More students, less staff, less office space, more red tape, less time, less effort, less respect. Is this really where we want to go?
Can lowly PhD students make a difference, or are we as expendable as the email above implies?
In return for their rising tuition fees, students get access to a university library and computers and a well-established academic infrastructure (in addition to qualifications and hopefully chances to obtain fulfilling jobs).
Computing facilities are important. My department thankfully runs and maintains its own Apple computing lab (which I helped to set up and administer) with local servers and brand new machines that are excellent to work with, especially for photos and video. As for university-wide facilities, most students prefer to avoid the packed computer rooms if they can. Plus, not many of the bloated Win Vista public computer facilities on the Kent campus can match the speed of a decent low-cost laptop or netbook.
As for the library, the anthropology shelves are fairly comprehensive, but journal holdings range from good to appalling. I have borrowed less than 10 print books from the library this year - which I could have afforded for far less than my fees amount to - as most of my reading material is available online. But my tuition fees give me access to e-journals and online resources, a bargain compared to running into inflated pay walls. As an Open Access advocate, I hope that this will eventually become a non-problem. At present, there are a considerable number of ways to acquire many free, peer-reviewed journals online, with more on the horizon.
With Universities’ hold over computing facilities and academic literature being challenged by new availability, what allure will these old and archaic institutions have left? Why should research students continue investing in what we can buy for ourselves in PC World or procure freely on the web and with a lot less paperwork?
Put simply, computers and books are not why we should be embarking on academic research. These are accessories to learning, but they do not constitute learning.
The truly priceless asset of a university education – what we should be venturing to protect and nurture – is the academic environment. Departments, buildings and lecture halls are full of knowledge ready to be shared, full of enthusiastic researchers and sharpened thinking, full of collaborative spaces, new ideas, innovation, a sense of community and pride in collective efforts founded on individual autonomy and respect … or?
Take away our desks, close down our offices, replace privacy with open-plan zoos, remove our communal rest areas, put more distance between students and staff, eliminate our ability to share, learn and collaborate openly with our peers and all is lost. A university department should be lively and dynamic. We should see the friendly faces of our colleagues and students who feel happy, respected and comfortable, not the overworked faces of strangers sprinting along lifeless corridors from bookshelf to windowless corner before hopping on the bus home to work in peace. Research is a personal enterprise, one that needs space, time, and solitude. But it cannot truly thrive without the support of others.
We should be inducting new researchers into a pattern of working which values their autonomy and respects their contributions more than the pure monetary value of their office real estate. PhD students are an investment that universities cannot survive without. They will become the career academics who will need to choose whether or not to invest in others in the future. Do we really want to train a new generation to prefer empty desks over full ones and the "bottom line" over the greatest potential?
My department and my relationships within it have always been, for me, the justification for staying in higher education in the UK. But I am confident that I speak for other research students in saying that we would like to stop being made to feel like wastes of space.
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On June 17th, I attended the PGRA 2010 Conference at Canterbury Christ Church University (PowerPoint after the jump; see previous posts for details on the paper I presented). The 9th annual postgraduate research conference sought to bring together researchers from different disciplines to discuss their experiences united under the theme, “The Adventure of Research: Is Research Enough of an Adventure?” The openness of the topic meant for an invigoratingly diverse series of panels devoted to all aspects of postgraduate research. Graduate students and organizers Baptiste Moniez and Tammy Dempster of CCCU did a very commendable job in constructing a brilliant full-day conference packed with information and discussion.
Some background notes: I have been at the University of Kent, which sits on a sprawling green campus atop a hill on the outskirts of the city of Canterbury, since 2002. The city’s other major educational establishment, Canterbury Christ Church University, has its main, compact campus closer to the city center in addition to newly acquired premises around Canterbury. It is natural that there remains some level of competition between Kent and CCCU in Canterbury. They may share a city, but, from my experience, they are much like two different worlds. I might even go as far as to suggest that the University of Kent peers down from its lofty hilltop at the city center university with some level of snobbery. In 8 years, this was sadly my first time at an event on the CCCU campus.
One notable feeling that I took away from the conference was a genuine sense of researcher community – especially across departments – that I have rarely witnessed at Kent. Perhaps this is because CCCU is considerably smaller, with fewer departments overall, so that the research students are likely to work in close proximity and with similar members of staff. There was an impressive and cohesive sense of a graduate/postgraduate entity. Kent’s recent addition of an American-style Grad School has some catching up to do. I also got the impression that, despite challenges along the way, everyone at CCCU really enjoyed their work, their colleagues and had strong relationships with members of staff. Many of the students had returned to higher education from various walks of life or from the sheer desire to “start anew”, which makes for refreshing perspectives sourced by lifelong learning.
In addition to the friendly atmosphere of the conference, it was also carefully planned. There were three sessions in the day, with three to four parallel panels per session and three presenters per panel, grouped into themes. So, for each hour, attendees could choose 3 of a possible 12 presentations to view. Unfortunately, this meant that you had to miss more than you actually saw, but that is the trade-off for other benefits of a single-day conference with plenty of presenters. Most of the attendees were from CCCU (hence the comfortable, “local” feel), but others were from Kent (like myself), Brighton and Brazil.
It was a relaxed day and the contributors and other attendees were genuinely interested to share each other's research and life stories. As one person in a morning session commented, some presentations were like “therapy for PhD students”, whereas others (including mine) were about more specific research projects, how they had developed and what they had learned. The most useful aspect for me was hearing from researchers in other disciplines. I also believe that the conference theme “The Adventure of Research” made for particularly engaging contributions.
I missed the earliest panels, but arrived in time for the second and third sessions. Here’s a brief synopsis of highlights from my day.
The first panel I attended consisted of three presentations offering interesting analogies for the PhD process: comparing it to a journey on a ship (Baptiste Moniez, CCCU), a roller coaster (Paul Hudson, CCCU), and various fairy tales (Maria Lehane, CCCU). Each of these presentations was an informative and very personal look at the doctoral research journey from the unique perspectives of three different fields, including two mature students. I could empathize with both the sailing and rollercoaster analogies, although it tends to be my life around the PhD that is full of turbulent seas and winding tracks, while the research process, bureaucracy, student requirements and supervision have been relatively straightforward and even unproblematic. Maybe I’m the odd one out, but I’ve never felt overwhelmed by the pragmatics and practicalities of doing a PhD. It is life and financial matters that get in the way and threaten to sink the ship. Nevertheless, it is always reassuring to speak with other research students about what are usually quite similar experiences. Commiserating on one’s personal failures is a necessary task for a researchers pursuing academic careers.
Immediately after lunch (the free food was excellent, and not just because it was free), was my turn to present. The response was very positive, and I got the impression that my internet research was both a new subject and a new approach for many listeners, which made it extra enjoyable for me. It is a challenge to present discipline-specific methods and topics to an open audience, but it was well-received. The follow-up questions opened up an interesting dialogue about popular media impressions of the internet, how/why to study technology users and non-users, theoretical concerns behind the “real” and the “virtual” dichotomy, and doing anthropological fieldwork.
After my presentation was Fanny Chan (University of Kent) who discussed her research from the very early stages of her PhD in Marketing/Business. Since anthropologists generally find it unfathomable to consider the marketability and earning potential of their research, listening to business students is like entering a world of mystery and wonder. This presentation focused on television advertising in Hong Kong and the UK, both of which have only recently jumped on the product placement bandwagon as pioneered by the mavericks of televised capitalism over in the USA.
The response from the conference audience to this was fascinating. Virtually all the comments came from the perspective that product placement is wrong and research to encourage its spread borders on sinister. Why do we generally find product placement so repugnant, and new legislation allowing it to take place on TV so off-putting?
Maybe because I’m American and my entertainment background was not shaped by ad-free programming and the BBC (save PBS), I’m perplexed by the uproar. To allow product placement in 2009 does not seem like a radical thing to do. At this point, most people are so used to ads on the internet which enable them to acquire free (and sometimes better-than-paid) services. Acknowledging that money makes the world go ‘round, we develop our own built-in visual filters to skim over things like product placement. While I find it fairly easy to ignore in most American programs, the short clip that Fanny showed from a local HK program was strikingly different. Actors emphatically waved around branded soft drink bottles and rustled a brightly-colored bag of snacks while ecstatically munching on its contents. Are there culture-specific thresholds for this kind of advertising?
Suren Raghavan (Politics/IR, University of Kent) closed the session with his presentation on Sri Lankan politics, religion and violence. Interestingly, he spoke of Political Anthropology – not the “anthropology of politics” as I have come to know it, but as the “politics of anthropology” – and its ramifications for the people who are represented in anthropological work. In face of some of the inadvertent (sometimes negative) impacts that anthropologists can have on the people and places they encounter, Suren calls for re-evaluating the received wisdom from oriental anthropology with regard to Sri Lanka. In particularly, he seemed to emphasize that anthropologists in this area have not adequately perceived the “contexts” of localized politics and have thereby unwittingly fed into ongoing conflicts. Instead, he argues, more attention should be paid to primordial identities. Suren admits that several of his assertions were made to provoke the audience; namely, that violence, religion and nationalism are essentially “in the blood” of all Sri Lankans and that Sri Lanka is in a “pre-modern” state of being, not ready for liberal ideals and certainly not able, at this stage, to “progress”, hence the inherently violent nature of its people.
Religion and nationalism are two of the most dangerous byproducts of humanity. Primordialist, religious, ethno-nationalist, yet also informed and persuasive, academics are therefore a frightening prospect. I had to press Suren on the fact that he did not do justice to “his people” (often using the label “we” and “us” to describe his data) in making primordialist claims. He relied heavily on Anthony Smith and dismissed all suggestions of the constructed nature of identity, projecting the idea of nation back in time as an explanatory factor. Suren was a good sport in the face of my criticisms, but I worry about the applications of these perspectives on local politics, of which he is no doubt an expert and in an ideal position to make essential contributions to Sri Lankan issues. Taking a fatalist approach to inevitable violence and an evolutionary approach to social development seems destined to perpetuate the products of what he attributes to a new version of Buddhism that promotes war and delays peace in Sri Lanka. However, I am sure that his perceptions of all sides of these issues run deeper than could be condensed into a short presentation.
Between sessions and after the close of the day, conference attendees had plenty of time to continue their discussions. An after-conference drink might have been nice, too, but I suppose for those who arrived at 9:00, the day was long enough. I met several interesting research students, none of whom were anthropologists. I like my anthro colleagues, but sometimes a change of outlook is refreshing. The research students from Christ Church were engaged, friendly and inviting. I’m not sure I’ve previously used any of these words to describe their equivalents at my own University in the same city. How does that happen? Perhaps CCCU and Kent students should meet half way up the hill from time to time and next year’s conference could be two-day joint venture.
Some background notes: I have been at the University of Kent, which sits on a sprawling green campus atop a hill on the outskirts of the city of Canterbury, since 2002. The city’s other major educational establishment, Canterbury Christ Church University, has its main, compact campus closer to the city center in addition to newly acquired premises around Canterbury. It is natural that there remains some level of competition between Kent and CCCU in Canterbury. They may share a city, but, from my experience, they are much like two different worlds. I might even go as far as to suggest that the University of Kent peers down from its lofty hilltop at the city center university with some level of snobbery. In 8 years, this was sadly my first time at an event on the CCCU campus.
One notable feeling that I took away from the conference was a genuine sense of researcher community – especially across departments – that I have rarely witnessed at Kent. Perhaps this is because CCCU is considerably smaller, with fewer departments overall, so that the research students are likely to work in close proximity and with similar members of staff. There was an impressive and cohesive sense of a graduate/postgraduate entity. Kent’s recent addition of an American-style Grad School has some catching up to do. I also got the impression that, despite challenges along the way, everyone at CCCU really enjoyed their work, their colleagues and had strong relationships with members of staff. Many of the students had returned to higher education from various walks of life or from the sheer desire to “start anew”, which makes for refreshing perspectives sourced by lifelong learning.
In addition to the friendly atmosphere of the conference, it was also carefully planned. There were three sessions in the day, with three to four parallel panels per session and three presenters per panel, grouped into themes. So, for each hour, attendees could choose 3 of a possible 12 presentations to view. Unfortunately, this meant that you had to miss more than you actually saw, but that is the trade-off for other benefits of a single-day conference with plenty of presenters. Most of the attendees were from CCCU (hence the comfortable, “local” feel), but others were from Kent (like myself), Brighton and Brazil.
It was a relaxed day and the contributors and other attendees were genuinely interested to share each other's research and life stories. As one person in a morning session commented, some presentations were like “therapy for PhD students”, whereas others (including mine) were about more specific research projects, how they had developed and what they had learned. The most useful aspect for me was hearing from researchers in other disciplines. I also believe that the conference theme “The Adventure of Research” made for particularly engaging contributions.
I missed the earliest panels, but arrived in time for the second and third sessions. Here’s a brief synopsis of highlights from my day.
The first panel I attended consisted of three presentations offering interesting analogies for the PhD process: comparing it to a journey on a ship (Baptiste Moniez, CCCU), a roller coaster (Paul Hudson, CCCU), and various fairy tales (Maria Lehane, CCCU). Each of these presentations was an informative and very personal look at the doctoral research journey from the unique perspectives of three different fields, including two mature students. I could empathize with both the sailing and rollercoaster analogies, although it tends to be my life around the PhD that is full of turbulent seas and winding tracks, while the research process, bureaucracy, student requirements and supervision have been relatively straightforward and even unproblematic. Maybe I’m the odd one out, but I’ve never felt overwhelmed by the pragmatics and practicalities of doing a PhD. It is life and financial matters that get in the way and threaten to sink the ship. Nevertheless, it is always reassuring to speak with other research students about what are usually quite similar experiences. Commiserating on one’s personal failures is a necessary task for a researchers pursuing academic careers.
Immediately after lunch (the free food was excellent, and not just because it was free), was my turn to present. The response was very positive, and I got the impression that my internet research was both a new subject and a new approach for many listeners, which made it extra enjoyable for me. It is a challenge to present discipline-specific methods and topics to an open audience, but it was well-received. The follow-up questions opened up an interesting dialogue about popular media impressions of the internet, how/why to study technology users and non-users, theoretical concerns behind the “real” and the “virtual” dichotomy, and doing anthropological fieldwork.
After my presentation was Fanny Chan (University of Kent) who discussed her research from the very early stages of her PhD in Marketing/Business. Since anthropologists generally find it unfathomable to consider the marketability and earning potential of their research, listening to business students is like entering a world of mystery and wonder. This presentation focused on television advertising in Hong Kong and the UK, both of which have only recently jumped on the product placement bandwagon as pioneered by the mavericks of televised capitalism over in the USA.
The response from the conference audience to this was fascinating. Virtually all the comments came from the perspective that product placement is wrong and research to encourage its spread borders on sinister. Why do we generally find product placement so repugnant, and new legislation allowing it to take place on TV so off-putting?
Maybe because I’m American and my entertainment background was not shaped by ad-free programming and the BBC (save PBS), I’m perplexed by the uproar. To allow product placement in 2009 does not seem like a radical thing to do. At this point, most people are so used to ads on the internet which enable them to acquire free (and sometimes better-than-paid) services. Acknowledging that money makes the world go ‘round, we develop our own built-in visual filters to skim over things like product placement. While I find it fairly easy to ignore in most American programs, the short clip that Fanny showed from a local HK program was strikingly different. Actors emphatically waved around branded soft drink bottles and rustled a brightly-colored bag of snacks while ecstatically munching on its contents. Are there culture-specific thresholds for this kind of advertising?
Suren Raghavan (Politics/IR, University of Kent) closed the session with his presentation on Sri Lankan politics, religion and violence. Interestingly, he spoke of Political Anthropology – not the “anthropology of politics” as I have come to know it, but as the “politics of anthropology” – and its ramifications for the people who are represented in anthropological work. In face of some of the inadvertent (sometimes negative) impacts that anthropologists can have on the people and places they encounter, Suren calls for re-evaluating the received wisdom from oriental anthropology with regard to Sri Lanka. In particularly, he seemed to emphasize that anthropologists in this area have not adequately perceived the “contexts” of localized politics and have thereby unwittingly fed into ongoing conflicts. Instead, he argues, more attention should be paid to primordial identities. Suren admits that several of his assertions were made to provoke the audience; namely, that violence, religion and nationalism are essentially “in the blood” of all Sri Lankans and that Sri Lanka is in a “pre-modern” state of being, not ready for liberal ideals and certainly not able, at this stage, to “progress”, hence the inherently violent nature of its people.
Religion and nationalism are two of the most dangerous byproducts of humanity. Primordialist, religious, ethno-nationalist, yet also informed and persuasive, academics are therefore a frightening prospect. I had to press Suren on the fact that he did not do justice to “his people” (often using the label “we” and “us” to describe his data) in making primordialist claims. He relied heavily on Anthony Smith and dismissed all suggestions of the constructed nature of identity, projecting the idea of nation back in time as an explanatory factor. Suren was a good sport in the face of my criticisms, but I worry about the applications of these perspectives on local politics, of which he is no doubt an expert and in an ideal position to make essential contributions to Sri Lankan issues. Taking a fatalist approach to inevitable violence and an evolutionary approach to social development seems destined to perpetuate the products of what he attributes to a new version of Buddhism that promotes war and delays peace in Sri Lanka. However, I am sure that his perceptions of all sides of these issues run deeper than could be condensed into a short presentation.
Between sessions and after the close of the day, conference attendees had plenty of time to continue their discussions. An after-conference drink might have been nice, too, but I suppose for those who arrived at 9:00, the day was long enough. I met several interesting research students, none of whom were anthropologists. I like my anthro colleagues, but sometimes a change of outlook is refreshing. The research students from Christ Church were engaged, friendly and inviting. I’m not sure I’ve previously used any of these words to describe their equivalents at my own University in the same city. How does that happen? Perhaps CCCU and Kent students should meet half way up the hill from time to time and next year’s conference could be two-day joint venture.
Filed under:
academic,
anthropology. postgraduate,
Canterbury,
CCCU,
conference,
experience,
notes,
PGRA,
research,
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