I have very much appreciated reading these comments that began with Sylvia's willingness to share. Much appreciated.
A graduate student of mine, Dave Overfelt, and I published a piece years ago labeling this "Documenting Dystopia".
http://societieswithoutborders.com/2009/11/20/sociology-as-documenting-dystopia-imagining-a-sociology-without-borders-a-critical-dialogue/
Peace.
Dr. David L. Brunsma
Professor of Sociology
Department of Sociology
Virginia Tech
560 McBryde Hall (0137)
225 Stanger Street
Blacksburg, VA 24061
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Executive Officer, Southern Sociological Society
Founding Co-Editor of Sociology of Race and Ethnicity
Co-Editor of Societies Without Borders: Human Rights and the Social Sciences
Race and Ethnicity Section Editor, Sociology Compass
Treasurer, Sociologists Without Borders
(573) 355-0599 [cell]
"I may never prove what I know to be true, but I know that I still have to try." -Dream Theatre
From: Jerry Krase <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Reply-To: Jerry Krase <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Date: Friday, November 15, 2013 9:50 AM
To: "[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Subject: Re: finding research offensive
this has been a long term problem in our disciplines where we are not credited, or even discredited, for acting to eliminating social problems rather than studying them. organizations such as sssp and humanist sociology have been some attempts to professionalize a contrary view. in the mid 1970s i was denied tenure, essentially because, as one of my senior professors put it, i was doing 'good works' but not 'good work.' i therefore became a schizoid sociologist separating my 'scholarship' from my activism. some other profession-wide schisms are 'applied sociology,' social work, etc... key to the problem, in my opinion is that we continue to give higher value to a statistical analysis of why poor children don't do well in school than to helping a poor child do better in school. perhaps this is irreconcilable but important for us to be vigilant about.
when you interview people for jobs, or promotions, or tenure who do you favor? how are departments rated? one way by which i have tried to meld good works with good work is using autoethnograhic approaches to social problems.
at the extreme, as silvia notes, is the fact that we often find ourselves seeking funding from organizations that are the source of the problems we see in the world.
Jerome Krase, Ph.D.
Emeritus and Murray Koppelman Professor
Brooklyn College
The City University of New York
Seeing Cities Change: http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409428787
Website: http://brooklynsoc.tumblr.com/
Urbanities: http://www.anthrojournal-urbanities.com<http://www.anthrojournal-urbanities.com/>
Cidades: http://cidades.dinamiacet.iscte-iul.pt/index.php/CCT/index
-----Original Message-----
From: Tugrul Keskin <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
To: HUMANRIGHTS <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Sent: Thu, Nov 14, 2013 10:54 pm
Subject: Re: finding research offensive
Dear Silvia, Kai, Douglas and all,
US government has been supporting a similar kind of research in Middle east Studies since 1955. The first Middle East Studies Centers were established as follows: Harvard (1955), Princeton (1955) and Portland State (1959).Nothing new here, NSF is funding research on Women issues in the Middle East, the department of education funds Women's related issues in Muslim societies. Western Modern science and universities have collaborated with the security establishment of the state. I think one of the best examples of this is the collaboration between Nazi Germany and Social and Natural sciences departments. If we look at how SOAS was established we could better understand the roots of modern social sciences in the west. Your example ( or experience) is just a small portion of the iceberg.
Middle East Studies Centers in the US are supported and financed by Department of Education Title VI grants, and that includes approximately 2 to 4 million dollars of financial support. They hire new assistant professors who are career-oriented, rather than those whose work is based on humanistic values. They provide department of defense funding for graduate and undergraduate students as well; this is an example of the educational industrial complex. Everyone is happy; for example a professor who receives funding, and a graduate/undergraduate student who receives a scholarship to finish his education. These are so-called prestigious scholarships, fellowships or grants.
I think this is a negative trend within american academia, which kills critical thinking - if there was critical thinking at the first place, Blacks, Hispanics, Muslim, and so on are the post-colonial subjects for research in the modern era of american neoliberalism. Most importantly, in oder to eliminate "bias" in qualitative research, we are moving towards quantitative forms of research in the fields of political science, sociology, anthropology, geography, and etc….
These are just my thoughts to provoke some discussion on this subject…
Best,
--
Tugrul
From: Douglas Parker <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Reply-To: Douglas Parker <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Date: Thursday, November 14, 2013 7:46 PM
To: Human Rights <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Subject: Re: finding research offensive
Silvia: I agree with your position. Research is all about empathy (as Michael Marmot stated at the American Public Health Association meetings in Boston last week) and it is also about curiosity, creativity, concern and commitment (as Jean-Paul Sartre would add) and care (as Kai-Lit pointed out). Best, Doug
________________________________
From: Kai-Lit Phua <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2013 7:11 PM
Subject: Re: finding research offensive
Dear Professor Dominguez
I attended a meeting in Salzburg a few years ago.
At this meeting, a researcher discussed research on vaccines that was being done
on the Coptic Christian minority in Egypt who were working as
rubbish scavengers.
When I raised my hand and asked what was being done to help the
scavengers (i.e. even if the scavengers have no other job options, they can still be helped
in other ways), the researcher said that he is "just a scientist" and therefore does not
do anything else for the scavengers.
P.S. In my opinion, the scavengers can, at least, be given gloves and be taught to recognise
and not handle especially hazardous kinds of wastes such as medical wastes.
P.P.S. There is a British group of progressive statisticians who publish the
journal "Radical Statistics" to debunk abuse of statistics by governments
(and dishonest use by ideologically-motivated academics).
Cheers,
Kai
________________________________
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 02:33:44 +0000
From: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: finding research offensive
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Hi everyone
I heard and saw this presentation yesterday by a graduating student from Chicago who demonstrated models for trying to understand the relationship of neighborhood violence to educational attainment in Chicago.The presentation was flawless and complex showing maps of Chicago in the process.
We have seen these maps over and over again and these neighborhoods have been showcased by WJ Wilson in Truly Disadvantaged and When Work Disappears. So the new generation of this unemployment and dislocation of jobs etc is actually self destroying itself through gun violence, death and trauma that is transferred intergeneration ally and cuts down the next couple of generation's life chances. As a humanist, I felt very alien to the other sociologists in the room and their zealousness in twitching the statistical and positivists models.
I commented on this from the perspective that all of it was dismal and according to Robert Varga's research not changing because of the budgets and election power plays in Chicago. The graduate student said that this was true but that it was useful for developing statistical models.
I found the whole display of offensive to all those young black men and their families. It is incredibly wrong for academics to look at this as an exercise and forget the human beings involved…..
At no moments was inequality and the absence of jobs paying living wage brought up……from a humanist perspective this is offensive.
Why aren't students being taught to develop statistical models of the negotiations among the 1 or 2 % or others who are not suffering by death and destruction the results of inequality? Why are we not educating students to feel empathy and not opportunity.
I welcome a discussion……
Silvia Dominguez, Phd
Chair – Elect Race and Ethnic Minorities ASA
Past - Chair of the Latino Section of ASA
Ford Fellow
Woodrow Wilson Fellow
Associate Professor
Sociology and Human Services
Northeastern University
Boston, MA 02115
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Mixed Methods Social Networks Research: Design and Applications.<http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/sociology/research-methods-sociology-and-criminology/mixed-methods-social-networks-research-design-and-applications>
Getting Ahead: Social Mobility, Public Housing and Immigrant Networks<http://nyupress.org/books/book-details.aspx?bookId=5501#.Unx2DI3QE5I>,
http://www.drsilviadominguez.com<http://www.drsilviadominguez.com/>/
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." MLK.
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