Note from the Editor: The ‘Subject’ and Power Dynamics in the Research World

The publication of the experiential activist piece by Bandile Mdlalose in Politikon Vol. 41 (3) had triggered a debate in the public domain that brought two contested areas to light. The first theme interrogates the role and the nature of the relationship between academics and social movements, including community-based organisations (Steyn Kotze 2015). The second questions focussed on what constitutes publishable research fit for scholarly journals (Friedman 2015; Steyn Kotze 2015). These questions formed the focus of the first Comment and Debate in Politikon Vol. 42 No. 1 where questions of privilege (Hlatshwayo 2015), and the practice of research for social change (Bond 2015) as well as ethical accountability and responsibility on how we write about social movements (Walsh 2015).

Ibrahim Steyn's The intellectual representation of poor people's movements in post-apartheid South Africa (2016) brought forth questions of power in how we produce knowledge on poor people's movements. The central argument was that these power dynamics remain largely ignored in scholarly work, and as such, we do need to consider race, class and gender and the impact these have on how we engage and study social movements and our representation of these movements.

In this Comment and Debate Jared Sacks engages critical questions on how the research subject is represented in the final research product. More fundamentally, a key concern for Sacks is ethics in representing the research subject, as well as the political economy of knowledge that complicates issues of access to research in which one had participated. Indeed, the questions that Sacks engage in are reminiscent of debates of research ethics in the feminist paradigm. In this context, ‘ … the goals of feminist tend to be transformed from attempting to better understand or represent women's experiences, to the explicitly political aim of challenging gender oppression and improving women's lives’ (Gillies and Alldred 2005, 32). Research, they argue, remains inherently political (32) and as such:

… the need to broaden our conception of ethics to include political objectives and intentions for the research, as well as such questions about the ethics of knowledge relation. That is, who claims to know, and how, and the power relationship produced by this. Once research is acknowledged to be a political activity … questions of ethics cannot be separated from political aims and intentions (32–33).

His self-reflection brings forth the reality that knowledge remains political, most notably around questions of ‘ … voices and experiences … ’ as well as ‘ … personal change through action research’ (Gillies and Alldred 2005, 33). To this effect, Sacks reflects on the difficulties and peculiarities of being the ‘activist researcher’ and power relations that may shape relationships of the activist researcher with their research communities. Like Gillies and Alldred (2005, 39–49), Sacks engages critical questions on how research represents the ‘subject’, the political nature of emancipatory research intentions, how we deconstruct knowledge structures, and, the necessity to engage in reflexivity, where one needs to think forward as well as back.

Politikon wishes to thank all who contributed to the very important debate on the politics of research in social movements. The views and comments demonstrated a deep engagement with very difficult questions on our roles and responsibilities to our research communities (as well as potential unintended and underlying issues that we may not necessarily notice). Whilst this remains a very contested debate, I am of the view that the issues raised can only advance reflexivity, so we begin to focus more on how we do what we do. This specific debate is now closed.

We will soon launch a debate on decoloniality and academic curricula in politics. Anyone who wishes to contribute a piece to our Comments and Debate section is welcome to email [email protected].