VALUES, QUESTIONS, AND SCHEMATA

Researchers will often try to suppress their values during the research process; yet, values influence our work product, even in choosing what we study. While stridently supporting a social science program in which scientists do not approve or disapprove of what they observe, Weber (Reference Weber and Brodbeck1968) nevertheless accepts the inevitability of “value ideas” within the research process, insofar as only some potential variables will be identified as meaningful and, hence, worthy of investigation. After subsuming “social phenomena” under the rubric of “culture” he argues that:

Here, Weber states that only a fraction of reality will be studied, and that fraction will comprise only the elements of reality to which the individuals involved in the research process have granted significance. This is true of the social as well as the natural sciences. A physicist studying the thermal conductivity of silver does so because the physicist, or someone else, has identified this as a subject of inquiry with some significance. Hence, our values inform the questions we ask and, in turn, the variables we choose. Our value orientation becomes entangled with the objective research process. However, as Nagel (Reference Nagel and Brodbeck1968, 100) points out, “this fact, by itself, represents no obstacle to the successful pursuit of objectively controlled inquiry in any branch of study.”

Moreover, the research process will not suffer if investigators appreciate the relationships between not only value orientations and research questions, but also between value orientations and the investigator's standpoint. Several scholars have argued that standpoint, or one's place within a given system of social stratification, influences the questions chosen, methodologies employed, inferences made (Harding Reference Harding and Harding1987), and the populations chosen for investigation (Foucault Reference Foucault and Gordon1980). Within the subfield of comparative politics, researchers may potentially go astray with, for instance, an excessively state-centric analysis. Discussing research on the Ottoman Empire, Kasaba states that:

From a different standpoint, the focus of one's analysis may shift from elite behavior to behaviors elsewhere in the political system. Therefore, the construction of our schemata and our models is influenced by our standpoints. Hence, researchers must be both aware and wary of their standpoints, and the causes of those standpoints. A possible origin of one's standpoints is one's identities. Thus, while researchers enjoy broad freedoms in the selection of subjects of study, it is conceivable, perhaps at times desirable, that our standpoints, schemata, and questions will be directly related to our identities. Indeed, the inconsistent status of those identities can be a primary instigator of praxis and of “democratically transformative activism” (Brantlinger Reference Brantlinger1999).

IDENTITIES IN THE FIELD

Lenski (Reference Lenski1954) introduces the concepts of “status crystallization” and “status inconsistency.” Lenski accepts that individuals had multiple identities that he visualized as forming “parallel vertical hierarchies.” An individual's position across these hierarchies was often not consistent. Some individuals “may combine high standing with respect to certain status variables … with low standing with respect to others” (Lenski Reference Lenski1954, 405). In other words, a given person may have an income that grants high status, coupled with a low-status level of educational attainment. Status crystallization exists when individuals have consistently high or low status across the range of variables; status inconsistency exists when this is not the case. Moreover, empirically, Lenski finds that individuals experiencing status inconsistency are more likely to express “strongly liberal stands” regarding state intervention in society, including such areas as the economy and healthcare. However, some types of inconsistencies are more likely to produce liberalism than others. Lenski (Reference Lenski1956) makes use of the example of a black male doctor and a white male laborer. He suggests that if these men were forced to interact with one another that one or both of them may become “frustrated” if one or both felt that the other man was treating him according to his lowest status variable. This scenario is used to buttress Lenski's (Reference Lenski1954) earlier point that people experiencing status inconsistency may form a key source of leadership, activism, and revolutionary transformation.

In the field, as at home, many researchers will be confronted with their own status inconsistency; this status inconsistency further complicates our experiences with intersectionality. Some of our identities are readily apparent to those persons we interact with during the conduct of field research (e.g., sex, race), while others (e.g., education, citizenship) will become known only after they are purposely revealed. In the two countries that I conducted field research in, Ethiopia and Kenya, I was an insider on three identity variables: education, religion, and also race—for the most part. I include education because my status then as a doctoral candidate allowed the many university students I met in the field to, I believe, identify with my lifestyle and broad career goals. Also, I often equaled the educational attainment of the bureaucrats and businessmen I met. I include religion because I perceive myself as having been received as a Christian in these two countries where Christianity is the dominant religion, though I am not aware that I exhibited any explicitly Christian behavior. Though the demographic dominance of Christianity in Ethiopia may be small, its cultural dominance, certainly in the capital and in the north of the country, is larger. My Kenyan friends seemed to assume that I wanted to go to church with them on Sundays (every Sunday, in fact). Likewise my Ethiopian friends thought it would be natural for me to attend the (Christian) Timkat celebrations with them. Given my status as an educational and religious insider, I don't believe these identities carried any significant status implications within the populations I was navigating. However, this is at least partially a consequence of my research questions and the data I sought. Had I been conducting extensive interviews in Ethiopia's Somali Region or Kenya's Coast Province I would have found myself a religious outsider, adding complexity to my work.

I was clearly an outsider with respect to the identity variables of wealth and citizenship. Despite my educational/occupational near-parity with many of the individuals I met, a wealth gap persisted. A meeting between a researcher and a mid-career bureaucrat, where both parties suspect that the researcher (myself a graduate student at the time) enjoys a significantly higher income, presents potential for awkwardness. Not once did I experience overt corruption in either Ethiopia or Kenya. However, on occasion, a research acquaintance would let it be known that a tip would not be rejected. More bothersome were the numerous attempted hangers-on. An expatriate university professor in Nairobi summarized the position of many would-be hangers-on as this: “we can be friends; if we're friends, maybe you'll give me money.” Of course some would-be friends are more skillful and tactful than others; one may “generously” offer to pay your US$0.10 bus fare only to expect you to cover their US$4 bill for lunch or dinner. Researchers will have to use their own judgment regarding exchanges of material benefits for any type of access. A good interview with a knowledgeable informant is, after all, probably worth four bucks. Most troublesome were the numerous young men in Ethiopia who would stake out hotels, watch foreigners as they exited, intercept them on the sidewalk, and attempt to strike up casual conversations. “Do you have the time?” or “You look Habesha” (roughly, Ethiopian). The man who told me he had watched me earlier as I left a bank apparently considered his comment a form of innocent chitchat; I disagreed. Surmise it to say that a Western researcher in a developing country, as an outsider based on wealth, will likely be the subject of various types of attention, some more annoying than others.

Being a citizenship outsider, a foreigner, had a neutral to positive effect in both Ethiopia and Kenya regarding access to data and the ease of conducting research. I was warmly received by officials, businessmen, and young professionals, many eager to hear the details of my research. Gaining access to governments, and more specifically to bureaucracies, can be sporadic. At times the researcher will come face to face with the wall of bureaucracy, while at other times, even in the same country, a researcher may be granted almost unfettered access to a government office. My most troublesome experience with red tape, and the only time my citizenship was explicitly a hindrance, was when the deputy clerk of the Kenyan National Assembly insisted upon receiving a letter of introduction from the U.S. Embassy before granting me access to the parliamentary library—something the embassy in Nairobi would not do, and something that was not required by Kenya's research-clearance process. An older American Africanist explained to me that at times officials will force researchers to prove their seriousness and/or determination. Persistence and patience are mandatory. In this case, I coupled my persistence with contacts to local researchers. I made the acquaintance of one particular University of Nairobi professor who had studied parliamentary politics. It was largely through his intercession that I was granted access to the parliamentary library. Contacting local researchers, who have studied data similar or adjacent to one's own, as a general practice, is an excellent way of seeking help in navigating obstacles to the research process.

At other times, however, the doors of officialdom were swung open with alacrity, so much so that one can get lost inside. I once found myself receiving an excruciatingly detailed description of the record-keeping process at Ethiopia's Finance Ministry. Back in Nairobi, numerous civil servants took the time to walk me from office to office and from building to building, making sure that I found the people and information I was seeking. I've been given free copies of government reports, in a country where people are accustomed to paying for everything, even from the government. All this without direction from above but with, seemingly, a genuine desire to help a researcher and, perhaps, a dose of curiosity regarding this foreigner with a strange program of study. The ease of some of my experiences with government has led me to question the ways in which my experience differs from that of the wananchi, the ordinary Kenyan. The deputy clerk notwithstanding, I have received some forms of preferential treatment as a foreigner.

Naturally, as humans, we are not only concerned with business, the conduct of our research, but with quality-of-life issues as well—social comfort, for instance. Social comfort may be affected by the identities mentioned above but also by other aspects of culture and norms. The first time in my adult life that a man held my hand as we crossed the street left me surprised. But in places like Ethiopia, where heterosexual men are generally more physically warm with one another than are their Western counterparts, such actions are the norm. Also noteworthy is that the countries of East Africa, and numerous other research sites, are more socially conservative generally than most of the Western world. Hence, arranging to meet a member of the opposite sex away from their place of business tends to carry more gravity than it would in the United States. In Ethiopia, particularly, it is beneficial for a man to demonstrate his respect for and aversion towards taking advantage of women. A good signal of respect is acknowledging the woman's family. Asking about the health of the family and sending greetings to them, even if you've never met them, is a positive step. Also, when arranging to meet a woman outside of work, the location should be chosen with care. For instance, outside of the upper class, no “respectable” woman would be found in a bar.

Earlier, I had called myself a racial insider, generally; this insider status can be questioned further, especially in regards to my work in Ethiopia. Some Ethiopians refer to themselves as the poorest and proudest people in the world. Two thousand years of history, a centuries-old language, and their own alphabet have left many Ethiopians with a strong sense of the richness and vitality of their country. Of course, pride in one's country can manifest itself in both positive and negative fashions. Viewing Ethiopia as having had a historical arc distinct from the rest of Africa, some Ethiopians I met were not shy about exhibiting condescension or even disdain for other Africans and African Americans, the latter of which is my own ethnic group. To summarize my understanding of the cause of this: Their own sense of pride, coupled with stereotype-laden images received from American media rebroadcast in the country, produced a curious mix of attraction and repulsion towards African Americans. In the view of these individuals, African Americans were simultaneously fashionable, trendy, and hip, but also undisciplined and less successful than others. These dynamics had no discernable effect on my research and only the smallest effect on my social comfort. Indeed, I always felt warmly received, despite this disturbing undercurrent. Thus, I found myself experiencing a curious form of status inconsistency with my citizenship interpreted positively, my race being neutral, but my African American ethnicity, at times, being interpreted negatively.

IS THERE ROOM FOR PRAXIS?

In the field, or at home, the intersectionality of researchers may result in status inconsistency. It is possible for researchers to engage in reflexivity and to reflect upon how that status inconsistency affects their life, their work, and that of those around them. Lenski (Reference Lenski1954, 412) states that an individual who combines “roles of grossly discrepant status, is apt to be subjected with some frequency to social experiences of an unpleasant or frustrating nature” and that such an individual's experience with frustration may provide the spark needed to launch a transformative effort. We know that many groups with shared interests remain non-mobilized due to the collective-action problem (Olson Reference Olson1965). These latent interests often require an entrepreneur to become mobilized. The costs of entrepreneurship are often high but they are lower for academics. We in academia are expected to engage in writing and speaking, and we are indirectly compensated for it. Thus academics are well positioned to engage in praxis, in the integration of science and activism, and even in the blending of professional and personal lives. Brantlinger (Reference Brantlinger1999, 422) asks: “Why is ‘neutrality’ expected of those who know situations precisely because of studies? Given the ideals of democracy, is it reasonable that informed people should refrain from activism … ?” Indeed, objective science can be integrated inside larger statements regarding human societies. Strauss (Reference Strauss1951) warns that prohibitions against value judgments and strict adherence to factual description in the social sciences could produce studies that were nothing but “bitter satire.” Brantlinger (Reference Brantlinger1999, 416) continues, “I worry that rejecting metanarratives about human progress and freedom leaves us with few emancipatory plans” towards the realization of the Enlightenment goals of equality, liberty, and justice. Consequently, academics should form part of the community that is engaged in fashioning emancipatory plans for our societies.

Well-regarded methodologists (e.g., King, Keohane, and Verba Reference King, Keohane and Verba1994) have suggested that one purpose of fieldwork is to generate hypotheses. If so, then researchers in the field should feel comfortable allowing their reflexivity to inform the questions they ask, the theories they introduce, and the data they collect. There is no incompatibility between objective scholarship and scholarship with an agenda of transformative activism, especially given the inevitability of value judgments during the research process. Hence, my identity as an African American could conceivably provide the instigation for a study of Western media productions in Africa and their effect on relations within the African diaspora. My identity as a U.S. citizen could lead to the initiation of a study on the quality of bureaucratic service delivery and the personal characteristics of bureaucracies' clients. Moreover, I ask: Is it moral for a man to benefit from inequalities embedded in the status quo—such as receiving preferential treatment from the government—and to not challenge those inequalities? Are we academics not well positioned to launch challenges to the status quo, given our expertise and the reduced marginal cost for us to do so? Many academics, especially those who are young or are from historically marginalized communities, will experience status inconsistency. We can shrink from the challenges this poses, or we can proceed, feeling unencumbered to allow our reflexivity to inform our scholarship.