I was determined to solve the problems,
whatever is or will be created. I was
committed to do the best in all the aspects of my M. Phil. classes. As time passed, things went normal, going well
in the KU, except in a few terminologies, as I take them as the buzz words of
KU: dominance, emancipation, positivism,
post-positivism, interpretive, critical, integralism and HEGEMONY. These all remained the piece of cake except
the term ‘hegemony’. Research as a praxis, we started the class after the few
days of the commencement; 31 March, 2013.
Research, search or re-search for the
new knowledge, establish the new norms, values and meaning. From positivism (a rigid perspective) to
post-positivism, from interpretivism to criticalism , we advocated multiple
perspectives, realities, meanings, values and methodologies. But still the talk of my friends, who have
completed Masters from KU were thrilling on the same subject: Research
Methodologies in Social sciences and education, having taunting remark: when we come to do research, when we
write for it, the defense of proposal, working for many hectic months, do
again, read again, write, re-write these and so on, terminologies and perhaps
realities (?) engraved in my mind and heart as a giant ghost, against which I
found myself as a tiny dust, a novice learner, a crawler, a breast feeding
child, a tyro. The day came; I was
expecting the real day has come with the hope and aspirations, with the new sun
and the warm morning. However, a
professor started his lectures, like the past panic night, and wrapped up the
sessions within two lectures, but left a mindful of feelings (?) in my highly
expected mind. We were trying to see the world through the
lens of multiple realities, multiple perspectives, multiple meanings, multiple
knowledge, multiple values and post-modern paradigm. We were triangulating the (data) realities,
(methodologies) way to search the new knowledge and (theory) previously set up
value to come to the real sense of qualitative strategies of inquiry, however,
these two sessions of my professor turned the world towards the 19th
century’s positivist approach in real classroom praxis. The deep rooted concept
of extreme positivism in the manner, delivery, discipline, and the way of commenting
the novice learners, like me, has left a hideous mark on my mind, which I felt
as the mark of HEGEMONY of research as a subject and praxis.
Hegemony as stated by
Fairclough(2010) is the power over society as a whole of one of the fundamental
economically defined classes in alliance (as a bloc) with other social forces
but it is never achieved more than
partially and temporarily, as an ‘unstable equilibrium’ (p.61). Research
in KU, with the references to above stated experiences of my friends and my own
perception and the designated role played, in a way matches with the power
beholder among other subjects creating an artificial identity, is hegemonic in
nature. To put in other words, the group of research scholars, committee
members, and as a whole, research as a subject in a real sense has more power,
control or importance, which I think is imposed, over other subjects and to the
students. Due to this hegemonic nature of research as a subject to be studied
and a praxis to be done in a controlled way, I hardly attempted to do my
presentation well, hardly had completed my proposal, other works assigned and
hardly take part in classroom discussion as I did not want to make any mistakes
in front of the eyes of the professors, so as to avoid myself being viewed with
the lens of mistake maker. I realized not to make any comments and lost my
confidence and remained a head nod off to accept everything from my teachers
and colleagues. That deep rooted thrilling picture of a giant research work,
led me behind so as not to touch or turn the pages of Creswell, Cohen, Manion
& Marrison and Denzin & Lincoln as a comprehensive reader. That
hegemonic stereotyping script has made me panic even in the day of examination
and my reflection on the subject, I hope, will be an emollient to sooth and
pacify my feelings.
As a reflective nutshell; we focus
on qualitative strategies of inquiry (Creswell, 2011) to establish multiple
realities and search for the multiple perspectives. But, why do we still go
behind in quantitative inquiry and positivists approach to deal in the
classroom, establishing an overall dominance over all the subjects? Are we
still a stereotyping or has KU still got the traditional practices classroom
approach? Though, it advertises of recent trends or practices in
teaching/learning activities. If it is not hegemony, why do students like me
are so afraid of the facts that the research is a problem for all, itself a
statement of problems, forcing many to
choose the door of drop out. Research has problematisation, and its root causes
are to be searched through research purpose and research questions using
different perspectives and paradigms but it should never be a static problem to
be dealt with for many. At least, in the praxis, it has to follow certain norms
and values, however, classrooms praxis are to be the problems oriented, to seek
for the solutions, not to be the static problem creating, long term hegemonic.
I feel an ease now to tackle the hegemonic attitude of research as subject in
social science and education. Thanks to our teachers duo and KU’s praxis of
writing the real reflection.
(This
is a real reflection of a student, the writer apologizes, if it intervene
someone and institutional reputation.)
References
Fairclough,
N. (2010). Critical discourse analysis : the critical study of language(2nd
ed.). London: Longman.
By:
Krishna
Prasad Khatiwada
M.
Phil. (ELE)
For
the assignment of Research Methods in Social Science and Education
First
Semester/ July,2013
