By Hisayo Katsui
The Finnish Society for Development Research Conference: Knowledge, Development and Academic Partnerships was held at Helsinki University on 12-14.2. It was attended by 150 people, with my rough calculation. 40 papers were presented. This annual conference has been supported by many volunteer students of Development Studies, which is the most competitive discipline to enter in the Social Science Faculty at Helsinki University. I would like to thank the organisers’ and the volunteers' great contribution to this conference.
One of the keynote speakers was Professor Tania Murray Li of Toronto University. She criticized the development interventions for simplifying the complex phenomenon of development without understanding history, for instance, that she is specialised in. Development interventions select certain target with certain methods to the context, she states. She claimed that academics can "step back" and investigate the interventions. Thereby, we can take comprehensive view about the phenomenon, and offer good analysis for the development agencies.
I think it is over-romanticising to argue the role of researchers in that way because we are next to development agencies: we also select certain context to research with certain viewpoint, which is hardly objective and comprehensive as she claimed. On the contrary, I think researchers are very subjective and use our power in creating knowledge which is highly influenced by our thinking, believes and/or knowledge.
In the workshop of “Knowledge and Power,” I presented a paper, "Is participatory research approach a burden for the researched people?" because I wanted to articulate the power that the researchers have and how we exploit it or end up exploiting it under the circumstance where the power gap between the researcher and the researched people is huge. After a few years since my PhD thesis was published, I reflected on my research methodology then and learned a lot (Katsui & Koistinen, 2008). Still I cannot overcome so many challenges to alleviate the power gap with the researched people (whom I would like to call "the research participants" in theory but cannot in practice because they remain mostly as "the researched people").
In this four-year-research-project, we still have two more years to develop our participatory research approach. To begin with, we start placing writings of Ugandan persons with disabilities on their life stories in this website.
The conference website is: http://www.kehitystutkimus.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&layout=blog&id=7&Itemid=66
Representation of the Research Team Members
Elina Pirjatanniemi, LL. D., Professor of Constitutional and International Law, Director of the Institute for Human Rights, Åbo Akademi University. Project Leader (Turku, Finland, elina.pirjatanniemi (at) abo.fi)
Martin Scheinin, Dr. Iuris, Professor of Public International Law, European University Institute, Law Department. Project Leader (Florence, Italy, martin.scheinin (at) eui.eu)
Hisayo Katsui, PhD, Senior Researcher: I am a Japanese researcher interested in disability, civil society, human rights and development. The ultimate goal of my research is to contribute to the
equality and equal opportunity of disabled people particularly in the South.
(Helsinki, Finland, katsui (at) mappi.helsinki.fi)
Please visit Hisayo's own web site
Jukka Kumpuvuori, LL. M., Researcher, Doctoral Candidate: I am Finnish researcher and a disability activist. I have a strong interest in the academic field of human right and disability and I have prepared quite several reports in this fields. I am also active in the DPO-world both nationally and internationally and I also have a strong interest in the development cooperation that relates to disabled persons. I am my self a wheelchair user. Everything that relates to human rights and disability...I'm there!
(Turku, Finland, jukka.kumpuvuori (at) abo.fi)
Edson Ngirabakunzi, MA, Researcher, Doctoral Candidate: I am a Ugandan disability activist with high level interest in disability and development issues. I have advocated for the rights of persons with disabilities in Uganda at national and local levels. This has been to ensure that disability needs and concerns become part of the development process in Uganda. I have been in the disability movement for the last 8 years as a key player. I have keen and strong interest in seeing how legislations take care and multiplier effect in the lives of disabled persons. I have participated in policy reviews and evaluations at ministerial levels. I have participated in a number of strategic meetings with line ministries and district local governments raising disability as key issue of concern in the development process. It is my firm conviction that once policies and programmes targeting disabled persons are judiciously followed and implemented then they would greatly contribute to making world a better place to live in and therefore humanity would boast of development for all.
(Kampala, Uganda, ngirabakunziedson (at) yahoo.com)