Suspend Damage and Engage Desire
All people remember and forget, are beset by contradiction, and recognize and misrecognize themselves and others.(Gordon, 1997, p. 4)
To be human is to be imposed upon by systems. To be human is to also have agency; the ability to seize the day. To be a researcher is to acknowledge both those truths.
Unfortunately, research often stops short of the second axiom reducing humans, specifically the disenfranchised, to victimhood. Presenting groups of people as passive actors violently controlled by systemic force is to participate in what Eve Tuck (1996) calls damage centered research. Damage centered research focuses on a social structure and or a historical event to explain the cause of current social ills such as poverty, low literacy rates, poor health, ect. It seems centering damages of a community couples nicely with a morally poor but effective theory of change which is highlighting hardship increases political and financial gains for the researcher and for the communities being observed. This theory of change always requires the community to be identified by their oppression.
A community of people is more than their oppression. Current inequity found in housing, schooling, economics and or specific historical events should be studied and considered as part of a story of a disenfranchised community, but the story told must extend past the oppressive act. The story must grasp the desire of the people’s story it is telling. Tuck (1996) refers to this frame of research as desire based. She (Ibid) writes:
I submit that a desire based framework is an antidote to damage centered research. An antidote stops and counteracts the effects of the poison, and the poison I am referring to here is not the supposed damage of Native communities, urban communities, or other disenfranchised but the frameworks that position these communities as damaged. (p.416)
Researchers, educators, other civil servants, and anyone attempting to participate in a democracy of diverse people must shift their framework from as to the lens of to; damage to a community rather than a community as damaged.
This subtle shift in framework unlocks nuance and gives opportunity to highlight the complexity of personhood. It also allows researcher, educators, civil servants, or citizens to tap into a more moral theory of change which is when all groups are invited to share their story and desire and room is given for contradictions, dreams, strengths, and weaknesses, policy can and will be more relevant, respectful, and responsive.
The subtle shift will not happen effortlessly. Damage centered research and the theory of change that coincides is pervasive yet not overt. I recently read an article entitled Memphis Burning. Lauterbach ( 2016) concluded the article writing “The future begins with destruction.” This sentence comes after 20 pages of research and writing regarding the destruction of Robert Reed Church’s wealth and influence by Edward Hull “Boss” Crump, and the consequences of that destruction. Robert Reed Church was the South’s first black millionaire. Church built his fortune despite formerly being a slave. Church and Crump civilly existed and at times collaborated until the great depression in 1930s. Crump no longer saw the benefit of cooperating with a black man and within two years Crump broke the Church fortune and political influence. What transpired was a black housing crisis where Black families were densified into public housing to prevent them from integrating White neighborhoods. Lauterbach (Ibid) writes,
Just as Boss Crump shaped the landscape of inequality with the burning of the Church family home, the new regime [Mayor Strickland, the Mayor of Memphis, Tn. ] will have an opportunity to remake the city…What kind of community will rise in its place? Will the South Lauderdale neighborhood [Church’s neighborhood] once again nurture leaders black and white, as it did in the early 20th century? Or will the city continue with policies and practice that have condemned African Americans to live on the wrong side of inequality? The future begins with destruction. (p.19)
Once again, It is incredibly important to contextualize the inequity found in housing, education, and economics, but one has to ask were the descendants of Robert Reed church asked these question. Certainly, descendants of a millionaire have a desire for what type of community rises in its place. The intention of Lauterbach was to report a historic injustice the historical consequences of that injustice, but to claim that the future begins with destruction subtly wafts of damage centered thinking. It fails to invite the disenfranchised to voice their desire. The future may need to begin with the desire of the people wronged.
Tuck (1996) concludes by using the example of a film entitle Girl Like Me. Kiri Davis, the creator of the film, begins by replicating the findings of the Clark and Clark Doll study. The study emphasized the finding that Black children from the ages of 3 to 5 preferred White baby dolls to Black baby dolls. This research was cited by Thurgood Marshall in the consenting opinion of Brown vs. Board. Kiri Davis continues the film by splicing footage of young Black women talking about their hair, their mothers, their physique, and their identities. The splicing took a reductive studied and added desire which created a holistic picture of the group being studied. Black girls certainly have had damage done to them but all people are more than the sum of their damage. Communities of people have desires and when those desires are highlighted I believe solutions and policies are not only present, but are more relevant, respectful, and responsive.
