Marla--The frustrations of theory and methodology, transnationalism and diaspora edition

I again struggled with getting to the meat of methodological approaches situated within unfamiliar theoretical and disciplinary terrain.

Because I am presenting this week, I am going to use this platform not to focus on the readings, but instead to ask general questions about theory and methodology.

On the topic of vulnerability, these works again represent for me an intellectual hierarchy that forces me into a very insecure position between my prior experiences in the “concrete doing” of journalism and teaching, and even historical reading and writing, and my desire to produce scholarship with a firm theoretical and methodological foundation that not only allows me to more effectively understand and explain the experiences of my subjects, but also raises my stature within an increasingly competitive field of U.S. history.

As Shohat, Nagar, and other scholars we have read this semester formulate methodologies that seek to overcome bias and acknowledge their positions as researchers, how do we reconcile the fact that their works are so difficult to access? Does the language they use, and the style in which they write, actually maintain bias and their (perhaps intellectually superior) positions as theorists (over practitioners)?

Nagar, for example, is attempting to distance herself from the scholar who dismisses the boatman, but my lack of training in theory and methodology forces me into the position of the boatman, so frustrated that I am ready to sink this ship and make my way to more secure intellectual ground.

As much as I try to move beyond this frustration, I can only conclude that although these scholars are attempting to break down aspects of the ivory tower, they are in fact reinforcing its most enduring structure—the wall that limits accessibility. Should scholars consider the intellectual accessibility of their work? If so, why don’t they? Could I produce work that my subjects would want to read, that would be meaningful to them, that would also be respected by my academic peers?

I suspect that I am not the only one in this course struggling with these materials, while we all arrived equally interested in and capable of learning from them. How might we get beyond these frustrations, which inhibit learning, in order to make this course less painful, and perhaps more meaningful?