In what follows, Mari Hirano addresses an issue that many of us will recognise as informing the initial decisions we make as postgraduate students when deciding between a choice of possible research projects. The reasons why we decide not to research particular topics is seldom written about or discussed in other than informal settings, however, and it is this process that Mari addresses in the following contribution – EDITOR
How does one decide on a PhD subject? It obviously needs to be a topic that one feels passionate about, and must be interesting enough to keep one going for the next four or five years. It must be practical, and take into consideration such factors as language acquisition, financial support, and accessibility to the research site itself. And, ideally, it must be marketable. One hopes that it will secure a job or publication at the end of the long and agonising thesis production. Of course, students undertake PhD research for a number of different reasons, and the choice of subject matter will naturally be determined by such considerations. Whatever topic you choose, however, will follow you around, and become the postgraduate equivalent of a business card. We have all heard or said: "He’s that development guy who did fieldwork in Africa", or "Isn’t she the one who does gender in South East Asia?" Your PhD subject represents you whether you like it or not. I used to think that one could research almost any subject, providing that it was ethically viable. After all, it is not only about what you intend researching, but is also about why you are researching this particular topic (the theoretical and ethical framework), and how you propose carrying out your research (methodological considerations).
Bearing these factors in mind, there shouldn’t be any subject that is unsuitable as a potential PhD research topic. Theoretically, at least. How many of us, however, have nursed the idea of researching a topic other than the one we are doing now? What made us drop particular topics? This paper is about a research topic that was buried in my computer and never had a chance to see the light of day. More precisely, it is my personal account of discovering why Inuit suicide in Greenland was an unsuitable subject of research for me.
I first became intrigued by the high incidence of suicide among young Inuit men a few years ago, during a month-long stay in a town in Greenland while observing primary health care as part of my nurse’s training. There was a case involving a young man who, having been rejected by his girlfriend, took a gun and shot himself in front of the local police station. Another man was said to have hanged himself from the church bell tower on New Year’s Eve. The stories casually told by the locals painted a rather disturbing picture. It seemed utterly incompatible with the spectacular beauty of the landscape, the serenity of icebergs and the silence of snow, and the warm reception I received from the Inuit people, who kept reminding me that I looked like one of them. I soon discovered, however, that Ilulissat, situated about 300 km north of the Arctic circle, and the fourth largest town in Greenland with a population of 4,500, had no shortage of modern-day problems: alcoholism, smoking, domestic violence, unemployment, mental illnesses, inadequate housing, teenage pregnancies, and sexually transmitted diseases.
My idyllic view of Inuit life was quickly shattered during my first weekend in Ilulissat. The only hotel in the town was turned into a disco, and despite the fact that the matron of the hospital where I was given food and lodging warned me not to go – "It’s violent", she said – I just could not help but venture out. Entering the smoke-filled hotel lounge, I noticed that the bouncer, trying at the time to break up a fight, was the hospital porter and that the barmaid, waving at me across the room, was one of the health visitor’s assistants. The music was blaring, but many of the people at the disco were drinking heavily and seemed uninterested in the dancing. They were pouring down the beer at an alarming rate, while waitresses dished out an endless supply of bottled beer to the tables, shuffling among drunken bodies lying on the floor. During the course of the evening, one of the young care assistants, who had been too shy beforehand to even make eye contact with me, showed a rather inappropriate display of physical affection towards me and eventually had to be dragged away by her friend.
Later that night, I was invited to visit a temporary refuge open at the weekend for women escaping from domestic violence. Some of the women in the shelter were themselves quite drunk. At 3am the town was still, shimmering in the bright orange rays of the midnight sun. The only sign of life was the occasional bark of huskies. The whole experience seemed so surreal. Walking alone down the deserted street, I lost all sense of time and place. Because all this happened before I started studying anthropology, I did not know how to make sense of what could have been a significant experience, but I told myself, with the best possible intention, that one day I would return to Ilulissat to unveil the ‘mysteries’ and ‘secrets’ of Inuit life, and make sense of it all.
Suicide among Inuits is often perceived as either the result of their harsh living environment and climate, or of their cultural and spiritual beliefs. It is true that the Inuits have had a long tradition of accepting suicide as a legitimate response to severe social pressures, but what is more significant is the fact that the suicide rate of young men steadily increased while Greenland underwent extensive modernisation in the period after the end of the colonial era in 1953. It has also increased particularly rapidly since Greenland became the first Inuit nation to achieve Home Rule in 1979. What has happened to culture, society, and to the individual in the process of modernisation and Home Rule? In particular, what has made the young Inuit men so vulnerable to the point of self-destruction? These were some of the questions I thought I could address in my proposed postgraduate research.
Despite the grim reality of Inuit life painted above, my first visit to Ilulissat was very enjoyable and full of interesting encounters fuelled by my naive curiosity and enthusiasm. This time, however, I would be going back to Ilulissat as an anthropology research student with a specific agenda, daring to address the sensitive subject of suicide, and expecting my friends to act as informants and interpreters. It would involve interviewing those who survived suicide attempts, and relatives and friends of those who committed suicide, as well as the general observation of people’s attitudes toward issues such as life and death. I could anticipate many of the questions bound to be addressed to me. Why do I want to look into such a morbid, controversial issue? Surely it is not too hard to look round and find a more pleasant and acceptable subject in Ilulissat? What authority do I have to conduct such research in someone else’s culture and represent it? What am I trying to achieve by doing the research and what good will come out of it? If I was honest with myself, I was not at all sure that I could give satisfactory answers to all these questions. At that time, upsetting people in Ilulissat was the last thing on my mind and I felt strongly that I should be able to justify my reasons for choosing Inuit suicide as my research topic.
"In research", J.P. Spradley writes, citing the ‘Principles of Professional Responsibility’, "an anthropologist’s paramount responsibility is to those he studies. When there is a conflict of interest, these individuals must come first. The anthropologist must do everything within his power to protect their physical, social, and psychological welfare and to honor their dignity and privacy" (1980). It seems to me that Spradley’s statement paints a rather idealistic ethical guideline. Is it always possible to obtain the information one needs while safeguarding the maximum welfare of the researched? When do I know if my interest is overriding the welfare of the researched and that I should stop?
A. Kellehear (1990) found that simply obtaining ‘informed consent’ and making sure that ‘no harm would come to informants’ was far from satisfactory when interviewing dying patients in his study about the social experience of dying. He recalls that most of the patients cried or choked up during the interviews, and he could not help interpreting it as harm inflicted on them by his own research. Although he offered them the chance to withdraw, however, they declined because of their belief that others should know their story and benefit from it. Kellehear concludes that there is no clear ethical guideline when pain and grief become essential data, and warns that the researcher should not assume that comfort and safety are more important to informants than their desire to be heard. It can be argued, however, that not everyone wants to be ‘heard’, and the ethnographer might occasionally try to coerce informants to talk in order to elicit relevant information. Kirsten Hastrup claims that probing into cultural silences is a symbolic act of violence (1992). Hastrup’s use of the word ‘violence’ may sound too strong in this context, but what she describes seems to be the very essence of ethnographic research, which thrives on constructing new forms of knowledge, new analyses, and new theories. Hastrup does not discuss the possibility of doing ethnography without the use of such ‘violence’, and the ethical guideline mentioned earlier does not seem to give sufficient practical help.
If ethnography is about interfering with ‘other’ cultures and ‘other’ peoples, one can only be vigilant to minimise harm, and be ready to take responsibility for the consequences of one’s intrusion. The subject of suicide is emotive and controversial, and often considered taboo in many cultures. What could be my justification for interfering, and making people re-live this traumatic experience? What is the benefit to them, or to myself? Could my research ultimately contribute in any way to the prevention of suicide? As already discussed, it is often claimed that Inuit suicide is a culturally acceptable phenomenon, and the attempt to implement preventative measures might be construed as interfering with an individual’s self-autonomy (Thorslund 1996). At the same time, however, cultural acceptance of suicide does not mean that people are not traumatised by the incident; it is just that the Inuit people seem to have their own ways of dealing with pain and grief. So why should they talk to a stranger about their most personal experiences, especially when she does not even speak their own language? Even if some people agreed to talk to me, is there anything I could offer them in return?
In her book, The Long Sleep: Young People and Suicide (1995), K. Hill conducted extensive interviews in the UK with young people who had attempted suicide, and with relatives bereaved by suicide within their own families. The justification for her research was very clear from the start: she believed that those youth who felt suicidal needed appropriate assistance, and that attempts to commit suicide should be prevented if at all possible. Her serious concern about young suicides no doubt stemmed from her own brother’s suicide, and I believe that this personal experience and her empathetic approach gained the trust of interviewees, who were convinced that telling her their experiences would be beneficial to others. I could not pretend that my intended study of Inuit suicide shared the same moral commitment, even though I have had a similar experience of attempted suicide within my own family, only in my case my brother survived. I wondered if it was a survivor’s guilt by proxy that had drawn me to the subject of suicide: while my family cried with joy, how many families cried in despair after hearing the news? I also wondered how it would have affected my family and myself if my brother had not survived? It is a paradox. I do not want to think about it at all, yet the more I resist, the closer I am drawn to it.
In the field, the ethnographer is not simply a recorder of ethnographic material. Rather, it is the ethnographer’s interpersonal and cross-cultural encounter with the ‘other’ that produces the ethnographic data in the first place. Therefore, the ethnographer cannot remain neutral, but must be constantly aware of her own beliefs and values, as well as the influence of the ‘other’ on the ‘self’. I realised that my problematic relationship with the notion of suicide needed to be adequately scrutinised if I was to prevent it undermining my ability to study suicide anthropologically. As I began to doubt my integrity to deal with a topic so close to home, Inuit suicide seemed to be less and less suitable a subject for me to research. Firstly, it did not seem ethically and emotionally justifiable for me to probe into other people’s trauma and sufferings; secondly, however passionately I felt about the subject, the thought of spending the next six years or so thinking about suicide was not my idea of fun, and I could not foresee its effects on my mental health and well-being.
I am aware that this is a highly personal account, and there are many fellow students who have handled emotive and controversial subjects sensibly and seriously. With some degree of envy, I have great admiration for them. On the other hand, it is perhaps not a bad thing to know one’s limitations. Doing a PhD is not for the faint-hearted. I feel that the enigma of suicide will stay with me for the rest of my life, but perhaps it would be easier to cope with it if it was not my PhD subject.
References cited:
Hastrup, K. 1992. Writing Ethnography: State of the Art. In Anthropology and Autobiography, edited by J. Okeley and H. Callaway. London: Routledge.
Hill, K. 1995. The Long Sleep: Young People and Suicide. London: Virago Press Ltd.
Kellehear, A. 1990. Dying of Cancer: The Final Year of Life. London: Harwood Academic Publishers.
Spradley, J.P. 1980. Participant Observation. London: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Thorslund, J. 1996. Suicide: An Arctic Crime. In Crime, Law and Justice in Greenland, edited by H.G. Jensen et al. Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School
Mari Hirano is a part-time MPhil student at SOAS. Her postgraduate research focuses on the interconnection between gender, gifts, and consumption in contemporary Japan.