As a 2018 Taylor Center Changemaker Award recipient, Linett traveled to Puerto Rico to share her MA thesis research with her collaborators and receive feedback. She reflects on her experience returning to the field and offers advice for budding scholars interested in activist research.

 

 

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I am at the panel “Puerto Rico, Educación, y Deuda“ hosted by Pública in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where education and the national debt will be discussed. I recognize that one of the panelists is in the same collective as one of the people I had interviewed a year ago during my field research. I approach her after the discussion and tell her I’d like to forward my completed thesis to their organization in case it’s of interest to them. “¡Qué bien!” she replies as she writes down her email address in my notebook. “Because we have a ton of people come talk to us all the time and then we never hear from them.”

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Ever since the inception of this research project, it’s been my intention to present the end product to the communities that contributed to it. While such gesture may sound simply logical and polite, it is, unfortunately, rare. As shown above in my interaction with a local activist, it is common that the wide range of knowledge extractors who routinely count on people “in the field” to provide them with insight and information to carry out their jobs, do not find it equally important to reciprocate. While the roles are multiple (e.g. a photographer snapping pictures of people, a journalist conducting interviews for a story, scientists collecting samples in a foreign land) and the products and status symbols vary (e.g. the published article, the book, the award-winning film, the degree), the pattern is not unlike the centuries-old colonial practice of resource extraction with the resulting riches never to be seen again by those who helped produce them.

This July I traveled to Borikén(^1) to share my research findings with some of the people that helped form the basis of my thesis. As part of my MA in Latin American Studies program, I had researched the resistance to mass school closures in Puerto Rico and the 2018 education reform law, which took me to San Juan, Toa Baja, and Dorado during the summer of 2018.This blog focuses on one example out of a varied catalog of scholar activist/applied research approaches and tools as a means to give exposure to this approach(^2), because I sure wish I would have been exposed to it much earlier. Scholar acti-what…? The activist research approach definition depends on who you ask– you know how opinionated and picky both academics and activists can be, especially when they happen to embody both roles–, but this concept generally holds that research is consequential (research matters), that scholars have a responsibility to stand in solidarity with oppressed groups (because research is never neutral), and that scholarship can be a tool to effect social change.In writing this piece, my intention is not to give myself a textual pat on the back (“look at what I did and I did it the right way”), but to encourage people to take the academic road less traveled in the name of social justice. 

Here, my goal is to share my experience of returning to the field post-grad school, and to offer some insight as to what different stakeholders may want to keep in mind when trying to engage in a research project that values researcher-collaborator(s) knowledge exchange.

 

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After a year and a half of research, analysis, and writing, the two major challenges I faced in returning to the field to share my work were a) deciding the best way to share my work to an audience (date/time/place/format) and b) overcoming my own insecurities as an outsider aiming to talk about her research and perspectives. The two were interrelated and fed off each other.

When I thought about what and how I would share, I kept being “haunted” by the same questions: What can I talk about regarding my collaborators’ experience and context that they don’t already know? How do I strike a balance of confidence in the research I’ve done and not fall into the pit of Condescending Academic and Absolute Truth-Teller? Moreover, from a methodological/pedagogical standpoint, I wasn’t sure what would be the most appropriate and effective way of conveying the information and findings I’d gathered. As an educator, I always aim for participatory models and strive to do away with the top-down approach, which is what philosopher and educator Paulo Freire suggests in his famous Pedagogy of the Oppressed book. So how do you keep that intention for horizontal exchange when you also want to tell your audience about the 200 pages you’ve written? After much thinking, and after attending some local events once I arrived in Borikén, I honed in on the idea of a “conversatorio” as the goal of the event. Conversatorio is a type of event that I had seen being used a lot in Puerto Rico –though it’s not unique to PR–, and it combines the idea of a gathering and a conversation. I liked that.

Though it may sound silly that one of my biggest challenges was to figure out a date, time, place, and format for my conversatorio, it truly was a huge source of stress for me! Having had collaborated with members of several sectors (mothers from different school communities, educators from different teacher unions), coordinating with them all was challenging, especially when so many of them travel out of the Island in the summer due to school being out. I got an unintended anthropological experience as I navigated Puerto Rican bureaucracy and local culture: my multiple phone calls went unanswered, my messages were not responded, my request to a local government entity for a *community space* was met with an ask for a hefty sum of money that no working class local would find accessible. It was not until a friend of a friend helped me reach a contact in the local government that we were finally able to secure a space free of cost– a little too late (though I am forever grateful to the friends who helped me secure this!).

 

Nevertheless, things worked out in quite an ideal, full circle kind of way: the ever so generous coordinators of the Movimiento al Rescate de mi Escuela offered their Escuela Lorencita Ramírez de Arellano theater for me to hold my event. This was the same school where I had conducted my first formal field site visit a year prior(^3). When we arrived to set up, we found that there was no electricity available in the theater, and given the summer heat, we had to move to one of the classrooms with light but no air conditioning. For me, the heat was the least of my worries, for I was so honored not only to have volunteers helping me get situated there but to be able to share my work in such a beautiful, powerful site.

 

 

Aside from reconnecting face-to-face with individuals, the event served as a great opportunity for me to get feedback in real time about what spoke to people and what didn’t. For example, though I had some interactive materials posted on the walls, the audience engaged with the poetry but not the interactive posters. Similarly, there were moments in the presentation when people listened and others where people built on each other’s ideas. I especially recall the moment when I mentioned the fact that the school encampments became a way for many women who had not taken part in a political movement before to develop organizing skills and discover talents and abilities they either had not exercised or were not aware they possessed. As I talked about this point, some of the women in the audience nodded and smiled. I asked one of them to tell us more about her experience with this, and she gave a very moving and powerful testimony. This was extremely affirming for me as a researcher because though I had not based my claim on anything she personally had expressed during my past interactions with her, she confirmed that this claim very much resonated with her story.

 

When thinking about presenting findings in person, I believe it’s so key to allow the format to be highly conversational rather than lecture-style, in part because books and articles already help serve that one-way communication. Needless to say, it is also helpful to be aware of the audience’s body language and verbal responses (words and sentences, but also sounds of agreement, laughter, disapproval, etc.) so that these become opportunities to inquire further and allow participants to weave in their thoughts and experiences to the research narrative being presented, or to reject such a narrative.

 

Though most of the points I brought up were met with agreement, one of the attendees expressed disagreement with a key overarching argument that my research makes: that race was a factor in the closing of schools and the reform law. This was fascinating to me, and I took a mental note of it as she explained her point of view. I had read so much about the Boricua aversion to engage with the topic of race and racism(^4), and it was interesting to see it in action. This brings me to what I feel was my most important takeaway from this trip to the field: It helped reveal to me what parts of my research were most worthy of being highlighted and why my work was significant.

 

Wow. As we say in spanish, “se dice facil, pero es difícil” (it’s easy to say it, but it’s difficult).

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I am at the French Market in New Orleans (where I currently reside)  looking to buy gifts for friends I’ll be seeing in Borikén. I go straight to a Southeast Asian stand where I had seen some beautiful marble mortars and pestles, since one of my friends is a healer and I figure she could use it to grind some herbs and…I’m actually not sure what other healing-related purpose I had in mind, but it sounded ideal. I buy it and head home thoroughly satisfied knowing that she will likely love such beautiful, unique gift. Two weeks later, another Boricua friend is describing to me how mofongo, a staple in Puerto Rican cuisine, is made, and mentions how you mash up all the ingredients in a pilón (wooden mortar and pestle).

It dawns on me that I have brought my friend a Pakistani gift all the way from New Orleans that is actually a common household item in Puerto Rico. I am now certainly embarrassed that I’ve gotten this for her and feel pretty ignorant, but it’s too late now: the money has been spent and trust me, the salesman made it clear there would be no returns or exchanges.

I still don’t know if my friend was just being nice about its utility, but her smile and gratitude were sincere.

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As a socially committed researcher, one of the things that most kept me up at night was the fear of spending a year making a 200-page mortar and pestle for someone who either already had one (and of better quality) or who simply didn’t find it useful at all.  It was not an unfounded fear, academics are notorious for bringing irrelevant “gifts” (if any), and stating the obvious (if not lies [^5]). As my presentation date in Borikén neared, this concern became so overwhelming that I kept thinking and re-thinking, crafting and revising my final presentation up until the very morning of my conversatorio and I still didn’t feel ready nor satisfied. In fact, I can honestly say that my role in the conversatorio was not exactly what I would’ve liked it to be: I felt I talked too much, I didn’t manage my time as well as I wanted, I spent too much on some topics, I later thought of people whom I forgot to invite, I ran out of time to mention some key points, and so on. Yet these were all valuable elements of a bigger process. Now that some time has passed, I see that the important thing is to identify these areas of growth and to not think of them as definitive, paralyzing failures, but as trials and errors in the grand, collective experiment to understand the world from my particular vantage point, and to make an effective contribution towards making it a better place, especially for those who’ve historically suffered the most.

To be more precise, my last field visit revealed to me that spending months translating a 200-page paper into Spanish was not going to be the best way to share my research in text form, though it was my original plan; that it was absolutely necessary to talk about race in education policy in Borikén even when it made people, including myself, uncomfortable; that the role of women in defending public education was finally starting to be acknowledged though not enough; that indeed, a school closure was felt in a school community much like the passing of a living being; that the contributions of a femenine feminist ethos in organizing were still not being recognized as such nor esteemed enough (especially amidst the historic #RickyRenuncia movement); that my collaborators, no matter how much I admire and attribute celebrity status to them, are imperfect people whom I can applaud and challenge; that my perspective as an outsider can help “insiders” see their struggle and experience in a different, insightful light.

I am grateful for having had the opportunity to make this trip and come away with such an understanding. It has been key in helping me define where I will take my work and my role as a scholar, artist, and activist.

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As a final note, I’d like to share some quick bullet points that may be helpful to different entities that concern themselves with academic, socially-committed research.

For Students:

• Find yourself a mentor (or more!) that believes in the work that you’re doing and in your approach/commitment. I want to say that their believing in you and their values aligning with yours may be as important or even more important than having a particular expertise in a given topic. Yes, I said it. (Happy to say I had a stellar thesis committee who were and are wonderful mentors to me: Mohan Ambikaipaker, Claudia Chavez-Arguelles and Yuri Herrera. They did not review this blog entry so any complaints go straight to me.)
• Make your own timeline and goals. Independent of what your institution’s/program’s expectations are, lay out *your* roadmap. Be aware that you are walking “the road less traveled” and that means you’ll have to fulfill your program’s requirements PLUS the ones you set for yourself. You might have to reach out to collaborators way ahead of time, or schedule more conversations and make additional visits after the grant money runs out and the research has been submitted. What roadmap will you follow to have *your vision* manifest?
• Look for examples and inspiration. Find scholars and texts that inspire you, the kind that when you put the book down, it makes you want to delve into your research and write about what you know! Keep it handy for when you want to quit and forget why your voice is needed and your work matters.
• Define to whom you will be ultimately accountable. Hint: it’s not IRB and it’s not your department. Then who? Who are you writing for? Whose opinion really matters to you? It can be your grandmother; it can be someone you met in the field, it can be your children. In a writing workshop, author and activist Aurora Levins Morales shared with us that in graduate school she had photos of the people important in her life and put it next to her desk. “This is my dissertation committee,” she recalled telling herself. A genius idea.
• Reach out, reach out, reach out. Communicate, communicate. Part of why people don’t concern themselves with scholar activist research is because it can be harder, logistically and mentally. As with organizing, relationship-building is fundamental. So keep at it. Sometimes it might feel like you are putting 90% into your project and your collaborators 10%. It makes sense: researching is your full-time job and your collaborators likely have their own jobs plus many other responsibilities. Emails will go unanswered, phone calls not returned, texts not responded, follow up’s missed. Don’t take things personally, you keep putting 110% on your end and reach out. Of course, buy-in is important, so be respectful and acknowledge when people don’t want to engage or do not want to partake in the project.
• Experiment. Not the harmful kind where you put others in danger or jeopardize their cause. I mean the kind where you might feel  vulnerable or exposed because you’re trying something that feels right but steps out of the box. Can you take a little risk and not follow the path that all the students in your program followed before? Can you really do X because it feels right in your heart and you know your collaborators would benefit from it, but your committee member does not really love the idea? Can your dissertation be a comic book even though you’re not an art student? Can one of your readers be a local teacher rather than a tenured professor?
• Ask a question that is important to you, not “the field.” I think that constantly having to talk about our field and how we fit in the field, and what the field needs, and how we fulfill that need, etc. etc. can become a great way for you to get lost in other’s priorities or invented priorities and lose sight of yourself and your own. I think I am starting to see that at the core of our research, there should lie a question that perhaps will not be explicitly articulated in your thesis/dissertation, but that is at the core of what you do and why you do it. I’m talking about the big questions that get to heart and center of who you are and what drives you. “How do I conserve my soul in the cut-throat machinery of academia?” “What do I really have to offer to the world to make it a better place?” “How do I reach people?” The corny questions that band together all those flimsy anxieties and fears in the web of our mind.

I wrote this text with a 20-year-old version of me in mind, but if you’re an educator or work in higher education, here’s something  for you, too.For Professors and Institutions (or students who are hungry for change 😉 )

• Diversify your faculty! I should not have to say this but it’s 2019 and I have to. Not just checking the box of “two Asians, two Black,” etc. but also a diversity of approaches and methods outside of the so-called canon.
• Make decolonial theory and methods, and applied research methodology, a part of the “standard curriculum” platter. These perspectives should not only be “a cool book my teacher told me about last year” or “this one interesting article we were assigned” or “that I stumbled upon.” They should come with “the package” the way Literature classes always come with Arthur Miller, Emily Dickinson, and Poe. There is nothing outlandish about the notion of seeing your research collaborators and participants as people that you need to respect, care about, and see as your equals.
• Have a center or staff devoted to connecting students/researchers with their communities and making their work accessible. This should, of course, be sensitive of the different timelines students are working with (especially MA vs. PhD tracks) as well as the field in which they’re working. Approaches will vary by field but also case-by-case. This would also help like-minded students and faculty/staff connect and help each other develop ideas and support each other’s academic work, which, as we all know, can be quite lonely.
• Make funding available for students to not only show up and leave, but to create, develop, and sustain meaningful relationships with their research collaborators. When I reflect on my particular experience with my program’s timeline, I realize how much more beneficial it would’ve been for both myself and my collaborators to be able to meet and build a relationship far prior to my initial field visit. While this is much more doable for a PhD program, this is so much harder for MA working class students who cannot afford to fund their own international travel. By the same token, I do not know of any grants designed to help scholars fund the sharing of their work with a non-academic audience (this is why I very much appreciate this financial support from the Taylor Center!)
• Open the door: In 2018, pumped like no other nerd to delve into everything-Puerto Rico for my MA research, I headed to Pomona College for a lecture by recently “pardoned” boricua political prisoner Oscar Lopez Rivera titled “Puerto Rico: Decolonization, Hurricanes, and Solidarity.” You can imagine how FURIOUS I was when I arrived at the entrance only to be denied entrance by a white woman in business casual clothes: “it’s only for students and faculty,” citing limited space. The levels of irony and hypocrisy were unbelievable. Mind you, this is a very wealthy institution that’s part of a five-campus college system; limited admission was not an issue but a choice.
  • What am I getting at? For starters, institutions can: make guest lectures open to the community, encourage students to make their defenses public, make your campus welcoming to community members, create opportunities for knowledge exchanges between students and community members, make university spaces accessible and at the service of the community, offer opportunities for free open enrollment courses, offer programming for local K-12 students. Be creative; there is always room for growth. There is a reason why community members tend to feel out of place and unwelcome at universities, it is the institutions’ responsibility to repair these relationships.

For organizations/individuals/groups:

• Do you have a protocol in place for when a potential researcher (or documentarian, or filmmaker, or journalist, etc.) approaches you with a request or proposal? What’s the approval process like? Who gets to have a say?
• Do you have an ongoing wishlist that you can refer to when someone with the right set of skills come in? For example, your org may not have a promotional video, but can this communications student trying to interview you help you do it? How about a new, glossy pamphlet of the work you all do? Or do you need someone to start and manage an online fundraiser?
• How can you and/or your organization maximize the institutional leverage and resources that a researcher automatically carries with them? This may come as simply access to space, but also as connection to other individuals or organizations, knowledge, equipment, grants, etc.
• What can the academy as a knowledge producer and knowledge legitimizer do for my/our cause?
• How will the research findings be shared with your organizations and/or your group? What is the best medium/language/format?
• What information does your organization need and how can this person help you get it? What key message do you want this researcher to deliver and to whom?

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