Monday, March 14, 2005
With contempt or love
To continue with yesterday's post, I read a very interesting and brilliant speech "With Contempt or Love? By Shauna Singh Baldwin".
A quote from her speech
It is true, as a research scholar living in India, I find this statement resounding with truth. To do some of my reference study and to analyze the films on the diaspora, I reach dead ends. I do not find videos or DVD's available at a local store, infact the movie library at the University has very few videos. I find abstracts of useful articles that are available on many publishing sites.I can't afford to pay US 24$ for a single article.The University library has a limited access to online journals, most of which aren't useful to my on-going research. Most of the movies made on the Diaspora, will never see an India release, hence getting them at the video store is ruled out.
Thank God for the internet it gives me snippets of information that I use to establish a case for my thesis. But the internet is not a research tool.
How then do I create a "Ph.D" research that is accepted as *brilliant* and *outstanding* among the academics?
I need information - academic books, videos and other scholarly literature most of which are published and produced in the US and UK. It takes awhile before we get the books at University or a paper back version that is printed in India for a cheaper price. Books on the humanities, normally do not get published in paper back.
Therefore it seems western scholars in the US and UK are more informed about India and more interested in the academic study of the country's politics, society, business and culture. Some of the most brilliant book on "Immigrants", are by American scholars.
For eg: Karen Isaksen Leonard - The South Asian Americans (The New Americans)
Sunaina Marr Maira - Desis in the house
However thanks to Orient Longman and Sage publications and the Oxford University Press they selectively reprint outstanding titles published abroad, to make them accessible and inexpensive to readers in India and the subcontinent.
But academic publishers abroad are updating and disseminating their works at a rapid rate.By the time these works reach us, it is old information and the power of old information is much less than new information.
A quote from her speech
Even geographical storage of books about India is testament to the historical imbalance of power - you can find out more about India, as viewed from the West or from India, using interlibrary loan in Canada, the US, or the UK than you can find in libraries in New Delhi, the capital of India.
It is true, as a research scholar living in India, I find this statement resounding with truth. To do some of my reference study and to analyze the films on the diaspora, I reach dead ends. I do not find videos or DVD's available at a local store, infact the movie library at the University has very few videos. I find abstracts of useful articles that are available on many publishing sites.I can't afford to pay US 24$ for a single article.The University library has a limited access to online journals, most of which aren't useful to my on-going research. Most of the movies made on the Diaspora, will never see an India release, hence getting them at the video store is ruled out.
Thank God for the internet it gives me snippets of information that I use to establish a case for my thesis. But the internet is not a research tool.
How then do I create a "Ph.D" research that is accepted as *brilliant* and *outstanding* among the academics?
I need information - academic books, videos and other scholarly literature most of which are published and produced in the US and UK. It takes awhile before we get the books at University or a paper back version that is printed in India for a cheaper price. Books on the humanities, normally do not get published in paper back.
Therefore it seems western scholars in the US and UK are more informed about India and more interested in the academic study of the country's politics, society, business and culture. Some of the most brilliant book on "Immigrants", are by American scholars.
For eg: Karen Isaksen Leonard - The South Asian Americans (The New Americans)
Sunaina Marr Maira - Desis in the house
However thanks to Orient Longman and Sage publications and the Oxford University Press they selectively reprint outstanding titles published abroad, to make them accessible and inexpensive to readers in India and the subcontinent.
But academic publishers abroad are updating and disseminating their works at a rapid rate.By the time these works reach us, it is old information and the power of old information is much less than new information.
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