Embedded Files
Dr. Dutta & the Creation of Knowledge
Dr. Dutta & the Creation of Knowledge
Dr. Urmitapa Dutta is a qualitative researcher and activist with a focus on institutional violence. Dr. Dutta grew up in the Northeastern borderlands of India, an area that she maintains strong connections to and features heavily in her research. She earned her degree in Community Psychology in 2012, and since then has won the Martin Luther King Jr. Distinguished Faculty Service Award and begun working as an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. In her own words, her goal is to:
“My program of research focuses on everyday violence, i.e., forms of direct, structural, and symbolic violence that become endemic to society and are no longer questioned by most people/institutions. This focus has been profoundly shaped by my experiences growing up in the Northeastern borderlands of India, amidst complex and convoluted forms of belonging, marginality, and exclusions. Using critical qualitative methods, my research examines the linkages between everyday suffering and the macro social matrices in which suffering in configured. The commitment to understanding and alleviating varied forms of oppression and exclusions inform my research, teaching, and service.”
(source)Who Creates Knowledge and How Is It Formed
Who Creates Knowledge and How Is It Formed
A common theme in Dr. Dutta's work, and in qualitative research generally, is the idea of 'creating knowledge'. It's related to the idea of discovering information (à la the scientific method) but also to social and subjective decisions about 'truth'. So, what does all of this mean?
Take a moment to think about the research process in psychology. The relationship between gender and performance on math tests was long considered 'proof' that women were less intelligent than men, or that women and men differed in the types of intelligence they had. There were 'facts' -- the statistics showing the relationship -- and there were 'truths' -- the conclusions people reached about what these facts meant. As researchers began exploring stereotype threat, however, the 'truth' changed.
Currently, instead of arguing that men are innately better at math, psychologists generally agree that women's performance is suppressed due to anxiety or distraction. When women take math tests in settings without stereotype threat their performance is the same as men's, indicating that their intelligence is the same, but sometimes their performance is different because of situational constraints. This is one of many examples of how knowledge is created. Although we think about science as being objective and completely factual, you can see how there is room for interpretation and how -- unfortunately -- those interpretations can reflect patterns of inequality.
Dr. Dutta explains more about this in the interviews below, looking specifically at how psychology reaches conclusions about truth when looking at facts or events from different nations (specifically, America and Europe compared to developing nations, aka the global south). As a new qualitative researcher, think about your own experiences with qualitative research and how you contribute to the creation of truth.
Article: Studies Conflict, Works for Peace
Article: Studies Conflict, Works for Peace
Interviewer: What led you to study violence in Garo Hills?
Dr. Urmitapa Gutta: I grew up in Tura, a remote town in the Garo Hills region of Northeast India. My dad taught in the local college and my mom ran a school, mostly for first-generation students from different ethnic groups. We were non-tribals, so we were considered ethnic outsiders... When I moved to Delhi for my undergraduate education, it brought a lot of things into sharp focus for me. On the one hand, I wasn’t always conscious of being non-tribal. Also, armed insurgency was escalating in Garo Hills at that time, and because it was targeted against non-tribals, I realized I might no longer have a home there. Yet on the other hand, the people I felt the strongest affinity with in Delhi were tribals from Northeast India, and I witnessed the marginalization and stereotypes they were constantly subjected to in mainland India.
INT: That’s also when you started doing participatory action research. What is that, and why is it helpful when studying marginalized groups?
UG: The idea is to explicitly involve the people who are affected by a particular issue as co-researchers in studying that issue. People who live day-to-day with armed conflict, for example, have different knowledge and experiences than university researchers ... instead of speaking for marginalized people, we create conditions where their voices are heard.
INT: Can you give me an example?
UG: In one project, I worked with a mixed group of youths – tribals and non-tribals. The risk of violence in an ethnically mixed group was so high that I couldn’t ask them, “What do you think about the ethnic violence?” so I asked them about issues in the community instead. They began to see that many of the problems they struggled with – lack of infrastructure, education and career opportunities – were not limited to a particular ethnic group.... As we identified themes in the responses, I used that to encourage the group members to share their own experiences – and that became a safer way to talk about the ethnic violence.
The group presented the survey results at a community forum and went on to work on various projects. The project built solidarity among them. They also recognized the importance of social critique and how research is a powerful tool to engage in that.
Podcast: Let's Get Critical
Podcast: Let's Get Critical
The page linked below hosts a podcast in which Dr. Dutta talks about her philosophy and what motivates her work. The entire interview is great for anyone interested in qualitative research, but to answer the reflection questions, you'll need to listen from the 3:30 mark until 10:00.
Some terms you'll hear include 'decentering knowledge' and 'decolonizing research' -- as Dr. Dutta and Dr. Kivell (the interviewer) define these terms, think about them in relation to your own research interests.
Click here to listen to the show. The file is hosted on my Google Drive, so it should allow you to skip forwards and backwards easily, and you can listen as much as needed. If it gives you trouble, please let me know!
Reflection Questions
Reflection Questions
In the podcast, Dr. Kivell asks Dr. Dutta what it means to decenter knowledge. Based on what she said and your own understanding of qualitative research, how would you define what it means to decenter knowledge?
Dr. Dutta mentions in several places that one of her goals is to "use knowledge and social science" to help her community (Northeast India). How would you describe your own goals, and who do you envision helping?
In Dr. Gutta's participatory action research (PAR; discussed in the written interview excerpt) she worked to help people speak and be heard instead of speaking for them. How could you apply this principle to your own research?
(source)
Google Sites
Report abuse