"the calling of justice"

“Archivists, wherever they work and however they are positioned, 
are subject to the call of and for justice. For the archive can never 
be a quiet retreat for professionals and scholars and craftspersons. 
It is a crucible of human experience, a battleground for meaning 
and significance, a babel of stories, a place and a space of 
complex and ever-shifting power-plays. Here one cannot keep one's 
hands clean. Any attempt to be impartial, to stand above the power-
plays, constitutes a choice, whether conscious or not, to replicate if 
not to reinforce prevailing relations of power. In contrast, archivists 
who hear the calling of justice, who understand and work with the 
archival record as an enchanted sliver, will always be troubling the 
prevailing relations of power.” (Harris, 2002, 85)

At this point, I do not anticipate a need to interview people for my research. In my view, however, every (scholarly) act involves an ethical dimension. My proposed project is no exception. My research topic is about a print culture in another country.

Ethically, I must reflect on the assumptions, power and privilege I bring to this study. For example, I need to consider the fact that I am associated with a large, well-resourced university institution in Canada, an affluent and powerful country. From this position, I aim to study ta print culture in a country that is far less affluent and powerful, which has no comparable universities in terms of resources. In turn, I must keep in mind Canada’s role in Euro-American colonialism and imperialism, which have adversely affected Lebanon and the region.

Canadian and other Euro-American scholars are at a structural advantage when producing and disseminating their views, compared to the rest of the world (Schmidt and Patterson, 1995). Lebanese and Middle Eastern scholars cannot hope to compete. This structural inequality is one way in which the difference in power between the two countries raises significant ethical conundrums. We can speak about them a lot louder than they can speak back about themselves, or us. Self-reflexivity is vital, as I use Euro-American theories and methods to speak of, or represent, a culture that has been the target of Euro-American domination. What I write could have real consequences for people today. Knowledge-production is never neutral.

Indeed, there are profound questions of representation involved, as highlighted by the Orientalist critique of Edward Said and contributions of critical theory (1999). The crisis of representation is real (Cook and Schwartz, 2002, 9). For some, including this author, it is a crisis which compels upon us ethical and political imperatives to grapple with issues of representation and power. Greater introspection is called for; a more nuanced and pluralistic theory and practice; a greater openness to the Other (Chakbarty, 1995, 756-8; Harris, 2002; 85-6, Mahmood, 2001, 225). 

References:

Cook, Terry and Joan M. Schwartz. (January 2002). “Archives, Records, and Power: The

Making of Modern Memory.” Archival Science 2(1-2): 1-19. 

Chakrabarty, Dipesh. (1995). “Radical Histories and Question of Enlightenment Rationalism:

Some Recent Critiques of Subaltern Studies.” Economic and Political Weekly, 14: 751-759.

Harris, Verne. (2002). “The Archival Sliver: Power, Memory, and Archives in South Africa.”

Archival Science 2: 63-86.

Mahmood, Saba. (2003). “Ethical Formation and Politics of Individual Autonomy in

Contemporary Egypt.” Social Research, 70(3): 1501-1530.

Said, Edward. (1979). Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, Random House.

Schmidt, Peter R. and Thomas C. Patterson, eds. (1995). Making Alternative Histories: The

Practice of Archaeology and History in Non-Western Settings. Santa Fe, New Mexico:

School of American Research Press.