The right to research

Abstract

This paper argues that research be recognised as a right of a special kind – that it be regarded as a more universal and elementary ability. It suggests that research is a specialised name for a generalised capacity to make disciplined inquires into those things we need to know, but do not know yet. I maintain that knowledge is both more valuable and more ephemeral due to globalisation, and that it is vital for the exercise of informed citizenship. I acknowledge the 30% of the total world population in poorer countries who may get past elementary education to the bottom rung of secondary and post‐secondary education, and state that one of the rights that this group ought to claim is the right to research – to gain strategic knowledge – as this is essential to their claims for democratic citizenship. I then explore the democratisation of the right to research, and the nexus between research and action, using the Mumbai‐based Partners for Urban Knowledge Action and Research (PUKAR) as an example.

Keywords:

• Research
• Human Rights
• Citizenship
• Globalisation
• Knowledge
• PUKAR

Acknowledgements

I am deeply grateful to Jane Kenway and Johannah Fahey, both of Monash University for inviting me to a conference in Prato (Italy) on October 24–26, 2005. The Conference took as its point of departure a paper I had published (see bibliography below). I was honored by this opportunity to discuss the issues raised by this paper, to discover a remarkable network of scholars devoted to issues of pedagogy and higher education in a global world, and to be inspired to offer this revised version of my remarks at the Prato conference. The entire group at Prato offered searching comments and engaged criticism. I am doubly grateful to Jane and Johannah for their forbearance with my delays in producing this written version. Leilah Vevaina, a graduate student in Anthropology at The New School, helped to move the transcript of my remarks at the Conference to this revised written paper. I also thank my colleagues at PUKAR for their inspiration, especially Rahul Srivastava, former Director of PUKAR, now an independent scholar who still works closely with PUKAR. In addition, I must mention Carol Breckenridge, Anita Patil‐Deshmukh and Sheela Patel, each of whom has offered me important insights on this project over several years, both within and beyond the context of PUKAR.