[Reader-list] On research at the I Fellows Workshop

[Rashmi Sadana]

A few thoughts on Tuesday’s panel on the practice of research  
featuring what I thought were four really excellent and inspiring  
presentations by Sabitha, Yousuf, Rahaab, and Mahmood. It was a great  
example of how innovative and compelling research  (and research that  
keeps growing in new directions, as Shudda aptly reminded us) comes  
out of one’s deepest curiosities, however idiosyncratic they may seem  
at first.

I think I can safely say we were all wowed by Yousuf’s postage-size  
image of a Sufi shrine that turned out to be part of a larger “Hindu”- 
themed poster, which was then revealed to be an even more “complete”  
photograph of that poster hanging alongside, and ultimately framed by  
a Technicolor-array of packaged chips and Haldiram snacks on the wall  
of an ordinary dukaan. This unveiling of perspectives brilliantly  
displayed Yousuf’s research subject, his methodology, and his  
analysis of his material (or theoretical take, if you like) all in  
one. Throughout his presentation, with all of those jaunty colors and  
seemingly incongruous images passing us by, I kept thinking,  
“interdisciplinary” is much too banal a concept to capture this  
kaleidoscope of an archive!  Which led me to a more serious thought:  
What is this magical space that is created in between disciplines?  
What does it produce and what are its own constraints?

Seems to me in all four cases presented on this panel, “old” objects  
(be they Malayalee women’s journals, Urdu literary texts, historical  
photographs or mass-produced religiously themed posters) were being  
framed in new ways – which is exactly what interdisciplinary research  
is supposed to allow. And yet, part of this framing, I felt, was the  
“outer” disciplinary line of questioning that each of them brought to  
their subjects – whether as poets or performers or filmmakers or  
archivists. But, at the same time, this panel showed – quite  
crucially, I believe - that being out of a disciplinary framework  
does not mean not having a framework or analytical understanding of  
one’s material or at certain points in the amassing of that material.  
Which is to say I think the distinction between the practitioner and  
researcher is a false one, or at least that it should be.

So when Mahmood talked about his research into the Dastan Goi  
literary tradition, and started to lament the fact that he had  
stopped doing research since he now approached the archive as a  
performer, and so looked for specific things from it, things that  
would enhance his next performance, I thought, no, that’s exactly  
what the best research is – when the need to ask particular questions  
(the questions of the performer in his case) is motivated by the  
desire to create a response (a performance, or a poem, or the  
arrangement of an archive, etc.) to the archive that in turn offers  
up its own critical perspective in the doing. I guess I see that as  
the potentially happy marriage between theory and practice. But then  
I’m an idealist, so…

--Rashmi