Is advanced research — research done for a living or full-time but unpaid, for a doctorate say — essentially untroubled? Is it a clear process, carried out calmly, by a researcher at peace with the task at hand?
What kind of doubts, not so much about the subject researched, but about the very act itself affect (have the potential to affect) the individual agent?
One doubt, I think, lies in the original motivation many researchers feel, in their quest to become professionals. And transcending this feeling requires a wholehearted acceptance of advanced research's democratic imperative.
Here are some of my reflections on this.
In the beginning, before skill or learning, there is personal desire. An individual wishes to know, to engage with a topic. I am excited about it. I seek to fill my mind with it, to live it. I would like to know more about such and such an author; culture or history; political mode of thought; philosophy or philosopher; scientific school or scientist; Shakespeare or STEM learning.
On the path to becoming an advanced researcher, the next step is to learn what others have done in the chosen field of study. This is often reflected in the first part of a thesis or a peer-reviewed study: the 'literature review.'
What have others thought, hypothesised, shown and concluded about the topic? What's the established approach to the issue or problematic? What's the history of this approach: which tools have been cast aside (I can't write like someone in the 1930s, just because I like what they write most); what is new and innovative in the field (new thought can come from anywhere)?
So, the literature review is less about 'me'; it is more about 'them'. And there's a lot to learn.
The point of the literature review is to engender a new hypothesis. Such-and-such a thing isn't proven yet about the topic; this therefore is the hypothesis I will present in my thesis or study.
Next comes the research methodology.
How will the hypothesis be tested? Ideally, of course, with a methodology that will, like the hypothesis, be new, innovative. Perhaps even radical.
To put it like this: the literature review informs us about the known, and what can be hypothesised as new. And the methodology to prove this is to bring out the new, by way of the new.
Next, we get to the heart of the matter. We witness the dynamic, processual way of a research methodology meeting a hypothesis, through the filter of the topic at hand. This part is at least partly unpredictable: it can lead to unexpected findings. The original hypothesis may have to be revised, even superseded. Or, simply, this encounter could lead to the fruition of the hypothesis, with all the heat and light that event brings forth.
And then, after that moment comes the establishment of learnings, conclusions. The presentation of insights, and a final statement on the research limitations and future research recommendations.
This is the typical format of a thesis or study. And it also often reflects an individual's full initiation into the world of advanced research.
On the one hand, this initiation is about the acquisition of skills, a deepening of knowledge, the perfection of a mode of thought. But, on the other hand, it can be about much more. The journey into the advanced research world can also be a move away from private desire.
Instead of a personal experience (a love for a particular author, say), becoming an advanced researcher means offering up a transparent approach and a testable methodology to a group of equal others.
Your peers will recognise the work you do and judge it as valid, as properly situated, as contestable.
The researcher leaves a private world of imagination and daydreams, of anticipations and whispers and enters a sphere in which the affair is accessible to those who have paid their dues. The ones who have accepted the necessity to do business in a particular sort of way.
These people are equal others; they have put heart and mind into the established way, the common, repeatable or at least openly evolving manner to talk about a topic.
And this journey can be a hard, unforgiving experience. Not everyone is able to give up their private world so easily. A private love for a topic can be as idiosyncratic as it is strong.
To become an equal other, a 'citizen' of the advanced research world, you have to accept the right of other researchers to disagree or agree with you.
The advanced researcher accepts the democratic right of the other to contest everything, from precise choice of topic through to approach, hypothesis, methodology, findings and recommendations.
The individual with a personal love for a topic isn't tested in this same way, doesn't need to submit personal desire to scrutiny.
It is hard to be at peace with the research world, if you resent these rules. To stay in the world of private thoughts and feelings means leaving desire crowned and enthroned. But the research world is a republic of ideas. Desire must abdicate and become a citizen; an opinionated, but contestable citizen.
And so, advanced research is about far more than the acquisition of the right skills, learning methodologies and keeping up to date with the evolution of a debate around a topic. It is also about recognising the relativity of desire.
For some, this requires a revolution of the spirit.
And such a drama within the researcher can have its beauty, its regrets and its risk.
The beauty can be a lifting up of the individual, a self-overcoming that results in a full recognition of others engaged with the same topic. It can be about a socialising of the spirit, a subjugation of desire in the service of common ideals.
The regrets revolve around the defeat of unstructured thought and feeling. The desiring individual, outside of the research world, can entertain a host of thoughts and feelings, can speculate and dream and attain acute insights.
Not all unstructured thinking is to be praised, certainly. But giving it up, tempering it, channeling it in the service of structured thinking can lead to loss as well as gain.
The risk is that desire can be dethroned, but aspire to a restoration. This can be secret, suppressed, perhaps even unconscious. But desire can appeal to inspiration and flashes of personal insight, seeking to lead the researcher down a different path.
Perhaps even the most established practitioners, tenured professors, have it in them to suddenly spin out of the common way.
Opposed to following the rules, playing the game, contributing to the common good is the figure of King Lear, wandering in the wilderness. Power and authority without belief in custom leads beyond the pale.
And so, to end: I think recognising the potential beauty, regrets and risk about becoming a researcher can go a long way in clearing the ground — and making the task at hand easier, more enjoyable and useful to others.
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