What’s relevant to you? Seems like a broad question, but relevance can produce greater effects than we might expect.
Jennifer Frost’s research into the 26th amendment and the progression of youth voting rights in the U.S. raised some questions within me regarding the effect of relevance on research. She stated that she pursued this work because research on the influence of the youth on this political change was simply underrepresented. This is occurring almost 50 years from when the voting age was lowered. So, why now?
Jennifer described how the 26th amendment was seen to have no historical significance in that it wasn’t “transformative” and was more of a “side issue”. Because of the general demographic of the population at the time, this wasn’t “relevant” to the majority. The youth who were directly impacted and “transformed” during this period are only able to tell their stories through academia more recently. It’s easy to understand how the actions of the youth in lowering the voting age would be less-documented in the 20th century, as it would’ve been seen to be “less relevant” to the interests of the actors with the power to document their history.
By examining the gaps in the “works” of those who had analysed this change before her, Jennifer was able to focus her interests on the area that was most relevant to her.
This makes me wonder what potential research we’ll see in the future, or are missing out on. Those who are in the academic field have the capacity to pursue narratives and perspectives we’ve never considered before, simply because they weren’t proximal to us. It’s fun to imagine how we will be able to research new positions that may only become relevant to us later, opening our eyes to the gaps in our “works”, similar to that of what Jennifer has achieved.
