The two
aspects of Visweswaran’s book that I relate to most are her discussions of
“betrayal” and the role of identity in ethnography. I appreciated both of the
chapters devoted to these issues, because I am constantly reflecting on issues
of power when conducting my own work. My identity as a 4.5-generation Chicano will
no doubt result in various issues of identity when working with Latinas. In
what ways is power unequally slanted towards me due to gender differences? How
do I address this? Also, how do I deal with issues of perceived difference and
commonality, both on my part and those I work with, when the feel may or may
not be mutual?
Visweswaran illustrates the various
ways that betrayal may occur during the research process. Visweswaran learned
that her interlocutors had kept secrets from her about their pasts, but she
also confronted her interlocutors with knowledge she had learned about them
from other sources. In both cases there were acts of betrayal. To do good work,
means to respect individuals’ humanity and right of consent. We are often
trained to find the “truth” by any means up to the point that IRB would have a
problem. Betrayal is not seen as a legitimate harm by the IRB. So, we often may
end up using our power in ways that harm those we are working with. Perhaps we should
consider omissions and contradictions as aspects of truth rather than obstacles
to it. The fact that Uma and Janaki were not forthright about their marriages
says something possibly more important, truer than “the truth”.
I appreciate Visweswaran’s call to
claim silence as a tool of feminist ethnography. She notes how refusals to
speak are acts of resistance and agency. She continues, “If we do not know how
to ‘hear’ silence, we cannot apprehend what is being spoken, how speech is
framed” (51). Of course, researchers hold a great amount of power when we
attempt to interpret silence. My various identities, especially those
privileged ones, must be checked in order to not reinforce structures of
oppression. If my interlocutor chooses silence, then perhaps it would be better
to work towards understanding the silence itself without attempting to sneak my
way past to what it is possibly “hiding”. To do the latter would to exercise my
power as a man and academic, which would maintain and re-create systems of
oppression.
The chapter, “Identifying
Ethnography,” discusses how her identity as a second-generation Indian-American
affects her understanding of the world and the ways others understand her.
Second-generation Indian-Americans must confront questions of citizenship,
Americanness, cultural belonging, and race often on their own, because the
first generation does not equip them with tools to deal with these issues. I
can relate to what she is describing when I reflect on my own personal journey.
Growing up as a 4.5 generation Chicano in a middle-class, predominantly white
neighborhood, the hyphen has different meaning to me. The hyphen in
Mexican-American represented the tension between how others, white and Latino,
saw me and the way I felt and wished for them to see me. Like Visweswaran explains,
my parents, due to their class positioning, failed to prepare me to deal with
questions of belonging. Despite the troubles this caused me growing up, I think
it prepared me well to be a reflexive researcher, because I am always aware of
how I perceive myself and others and how they may perceive me based on my
identities. Just as Visweswaran claims that hyphenated identities create
various dilemmas while doing research, I, too, feel that issues of
accountability, responsibility, and power are constantly a part of my research
experiences. She says, “those of us engaged in identifying ethnography may be
moved by different sets of questions concerning power, domination, and
representation; how we may ourselves be positioned (and not always by choice)
in opposition to dominant discourse and structures of power” (140).
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