the golden age of the polyphonic imperative

     I can only assume that everyone else was as impressed with Playing with Fire as I was. As with the Bilgi chapter from several weeks back, “Entering Women’s World Through Men’s Eyes,” we’re provided with concrete, direct research that emphasizes the lived-body experiences of the people involved. What makes the book distinct, however, is its method.
    Page after page describes the autobiographers’ continuous meetings, deeply personal encounters at which there are always tears. There is so much of these women in the book—and so much that can’t be contained—that I feel guilty closing the covers. Everything they describe is ongoing in a way that doesn’t mesh so well with the finality of a book. They did, after all, have to release the 2nd edition in English to include new information.
    The polyphonic approach reminds me of the work of Svetlana Alexievich. Alexievich won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2015 based on a series of books in which she’s barely written a single word: the entire contents come from interviews that she’s woven together on a unifying theme such as Soviet women fighting in World War II, the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., and the experience of suicide for those still living (for a sample, click here). Between the gender-related themes in Alexievich’s work and in Playing with Fire, should we consider the polyphonic approach to writing and research as the gold standard for ethical engagement?
    It’s tempting to think so. The chance to work deeply with a community for their own empowerment—who wouldn’t want to work this way! Shouldn’t we all? Being a poor/time-poor graduate student, however, I worry about that seeming imperative. Nagar makes clear the intense amount of time, energy, and money that went into producing Playing with Fire. At the time she seems to have had the security of a position at the University of Minnesota. How possible is it for those in more precarious positions to do this same sort of work?
    To quote from a recent article on scholarly production during COVID-19: “I find this conversation regarding expanding the goal of academic research into the community and partnering with practitioners to be exciting, and a bit concerning. I truly believe this is how our work will get recognized by the general public, and then they will not treat us as scholars stuck in esoteric thought exercises. This is precisely the type of work many funding agencies want to see, and from my own experience, it has been my most meaningful work. My concern is for junior scholars whose promotions rely on publishing in specific academic journals and conducting research making scholarly contributions. We can’t be naïve and act like doing engaged scholarship takes the same amount of time as traditional academic work, and many academic organizations explicitly do not count engaged scholarship toward tenure and pro- motion.”
    I’m mostly on the side of excitement—who wouldn’t be after reading Playing with Fire? But I have to admit, there’s some concern there too. Yes, this is a better way, and yes, I want to be part of it! It seems even more important given my own normative identity. Maybe the truth is that there’s always going to be concern about time, resources, and doing it all right. Maybe the important thing is to start just by trying.