Taking research "personally"

[Mike Cleven]

Michel DeGraff wrote:
>
> RE:
>
> > Hey, don't take it so personally!  Scientists tend to regard all
> > study subjects that way.
>
> I would suggest that `scientists' and `subjects' DO take it personally,
> toward the sort of paradigm for research "on, for and with" the speaker, as
> advocated by, say, Deborah Cameron et al (see their _Researching Language:
> Issues of Power and Method_, London: Routledge, 1992).
>
> Similar issues have plagued Creole studies from their very inception, and
> it does take a certain amount of personal outrage for things to change.

Well, I'm looking for a good heavy flail if someone can show me the
proper self-mortification techniques.  I didn't _mean_ to offend,
honest......!!!

History, especially regional and cultural history, _has_ to be
approached personally.  A big part of my motivation - my fervor, even -
is an outgrowth of trying to figure out how _I_ wound up _here_.  A
worthy question, and one everyone has a right to look for answers to.
And I wound up finding out about what happened before my own immediate
ancestors (but not remote cousins, perhaps) came to this land; and I've
grown to know quite a bit about the situation as a result.  If I don't
talk the talk that is "correct" to someone else, I'm sorry; I don't mean
to sound like just another well-meaning but misguided book-pepah
whiteman.......