This is a thread about research trauma. It’s about how we tell stories, as indigenous researchers, about the violent past and the complicated, messy present; how we occupy different time-zones in the course of a fieldwork day. It’s also about how we exercise our privilege (1/14)

So, how do we navigate the intergenerational pain of others when we know from the inside what that looks like; and how do we look after ourselves while we’re doing it?

Is it even possible to do that without being an arsehole?
Some days I’m not so sure. (2/14)

Academics are taught to contain our emotions, never centre our own pain or overlay it across the stories of the people we meet.

Shedding tears in the field is seen as self-indulgent, performative or hysterical. We’re supposed to be above that.

Heroes of detachment (3/14)

I agree we shouldn’t expect others to comfort us when they tell us stories of brokenness although there are times when we might sit and grieve together.

But then there’s always that relentless self- interrogation afterwards: did I just make that all about me? (4/14)

... Or, is taking soundbites of other people’s anguish just another monstrous form of academic tourism?

Does having a signed consent form make it okay?

...Some days I don’t like the answers to that. And yet... (5/14)

... and yet, what if there was no emotional response? What happens if we become numb? Or deny the powerful feelings that can surface when we’re in the field? Mask the horror or prettify it. Do I want to be that person? I don’t know.

Sometimes, maybe. (6/14)

And, if we aren’t willing to go into the trenches, will our research really change or transform anything... or is it just an exercise in piety?

I don’t know. (7/14)

And, what about getting promoted for doing this kind of work? Can we seriously argue we’re not benefiting materially from Crown or settler violence? Or profiting from pain?
But I’m driven to tell these stories so I don’t know.
Academics are slippery like that. (8/14)

Indigenous researchers in the fields of settler violence are observers, witnesses & chroniclers & yes, occasionally perpetrators too. But most often, like many others they are the inheritors or survivors of that violence too
Some days we get to walk away. Most days we don’t 9/14

When we’re at the sites, we operate across time-zones: the present, the past, the deep past, the ancestral past, the geological past where the land shifts and changes over millennia, and the space where those yet to be born are waiting>>> (10/14)

>>> and we carry out the karakia and do all the things we’re supposed to do. But all that time travel is exhausting and Māori do this stuff everyday whether they’re at the sites or on the frontlines or just getting up in the morning so ... (11/14)

... so what do you do when your heart is breaking?
I don’t know.

I think mostly you just get on with the day. (12/14)

But I’m constantly asking myself: did we disturb the universe? Did we?

I honestly don’t know. Time will tell. (13/14)

Research trauma is a thing and we probably need to talk about it more.

This is not a mea culpa. Just a place to ask questions.
If you’ve reached this far, thank you for reading. #academicchatter (14/14)