Done with fieldwork? Finished your dissertation?
Turn your back and walk away from the community?...
Abandonment is standard for street girls...their mothers, fathers, siblings, or other loved ones often fail them...they are abused at a young age and left to fend for themselves...clients 'touch and go' everyday...
As activist-scholars, we should not fall into this same pattern. As I have argued elsewhere, what is known in the academic world as 'care ethics' depends on constancy...abandonment is fatal to the reproduction of caring relations in the field and to the future of an action-research program started, in my case, as the basis of doctoral research.
Traditional research programs in the human sciences are still bound within this 'touch and go' model...researchers 'penetrate' communities, immerse themselves and 'pull out' when the funding runs dry and when they've obtained what they need to advance in their careers.
Metaphorically speaking, scholars who follow such protocols are no better than brothel administrators or pimps that take what they need from street girls, exploit their image for personal benefit and move on to the next girl [project] when she has nothing more to offer...nothing left to explore...to showcase...
I urge activist-scholars to consider this metaphor when entering into a participatory action research endeavor...
PAR, for me, has only just begun...
