As a student of Global Studies and Sociology, my learning often centres on people and social structures. This involves a fair amount of generalising and theorising about people whom I have no lived experiences with. For example, when we were asked to make a documentary about any cultural group’s struggles in New Zealand, an interesting debate was sparked when one student raised the necessity of approaching someone from the group we’d like to research and asking for their “blessing”. After her explanation that to equitably tell someone’s story on their behalf requires their consent, I realised that I didn’t have the right or the knowledge to tell just anyone’s story in a way that I would like to present it. The assignment essentially asked us to marginalise the group we chose to research and because of this, I didn’t know what kind of story to tell. Carisa Showden explained this issue quite well when she stated the importance of being reflexive and aware of one’s own position, in order to gain an unbiased understanding of all research results. 

 

My degree has me studying groups in society from what feels like quite a distance. Therefore, there is a distinct otherness between me, the learner, and those I am learning about. So, Jemaima Tiatia-Smith’s idea that research should always seek to help those being researched really resonated with me. It is quite hard to feel that you’re working towards positive change as a student while studying very pessimistic realities of inequality. Therefore, perhaps even just revealing the layers of privilege within the very institutions of education, as Tracey McIntosh stated, could be a starting point for positive change coming out of my research and learning. It reminds me of how often awkward and even guilty I can feel in sociology, learning about past and present injustices which have shaped my life to where I am today. In class, I study research on the world like a scientist peering at cells through a microscope (or as Sam puts it, “in a vacuum”). So, often my discomfort feels alleviated when I instead throw myself into more critical work, such as writing an essay or talking to tutors. I feel better just by being equipped with more knowledge than I was the day before.

 

Bibliography

Lagos, Samantha. “Challenge 1A.” Canvas video thingy.