After three years living away from home, I must admit moving back definitely has its pros and cons.
Of course the upsides are that I have unlimited (free) food, unlimited (free) heating, (free) clothes washing and drying, and (free) sky movies. When I use the word free I mean of course someone is paying for them and an element of tension does exist with regards to my unlimited use of them but in terms of these things it is definitely better than living in a student flat.
The downsides are that my Mum and brother definitely do not have academia running through their veins (this is not me implying in any way that I do but compared to those two)…. Both are academic but in a far more science like and calculated way that causes a binary between me and them. The constant reading of academic journals, engagement in research groups, and joining of academic book groups to them seems a bit alien. My Mum as a doctor has a much more practical engagement with work while my brother, who studies maths, likes the mechanical and systematic nature of calculations.
My mother does enjoy having a ‘human geographer’ in the house though but merely so she can inform others of this new academic discovery. She enjoys explaining to everyone that human geography is about politics, international relations, development, gender, conflict, violence, security, post-colonialism, environmentalism, culture….the list goes on…but I think that is where her interest ends.
Coming home yesterday to announce I had spent the past two hours critiquing economics as being too rational and making assumptions that we all act in the same manner, when in fact each individual makes their own decisions, fell to deaf ears. The day before I had come home with a feminist argument that Western feminist fail to be intersectional and fails to explore debates such as those surrounding class, gender, religion and race, only for my mother to groan into her coffee with the realisation I was going to turn into ‘one of those feminists’. My mother’s views on this I do find bizarre as she is a single mother, who has been able to support my brother and I, as well as holding down a fairly important job in the NHS. I asked her if she has ever encountered any problems being a woman in a managerial role to which she very adamantly insisted no. With so many stories of sexism circulating it is hard for me to believe her, leaving me to either assume she is lying or just ignorant to any sexism that did occur. Of course though I know the media does like to hype up stories of sexism but even the denial of women in the military to undertake many roles is still sexism that is occurring in the workplace.
Studying geography, however, does definitely leave one in a position whereby one becomes incredibly critical of everything. A human geographer must consider their positionality in the world, where they are coming from, who they are speaking to, and potential conflicts in belief systems. A human geographer must also consider if their research is ethical, how it is making a difference to the world, who is reading it, and why it is important. These are all big questions, and do leave one questioning often the point in academia, whether fieldwork is ever ethnical and can ever make a difference. Two women in my class both conducted fieldwork in Third World countries and both feel heavily guilty about their place as Western women and what right they had to enter communities and ask questions when the likelihood was their research would change the lives of these people very marginally. Another discussion was that of policy and whether Geography academics should be engaging with policy makers to create political change. As critics of academia have argued the research being done often stays within academic failing to have any wider impact.
These are all big questions, that now while doing a Masters I am suddenly face with, and I do not think there is an easy answer to any of them. I guess then I must just try to make my best of academia while battling against critics of academia whether they are within my own home or from the wider world….
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