Holding On Together

BT: How would you respond to the observation that what this project is doing is strengthening the sense of otherness? A tendency that characterizes race relations research, where decontextualizing black people from the normal conceptualization of the teacher identifying the others as odd, different or deviant while naturalizing whites in that role. How would you respond to that?

IG: I think I would respond with a counter to you which is to say that by going out and pushing from the beginning to blackness and other issues, you're doing that.

BT: I'm responding to a research agenda in a tactical way. The research agenda has been set by you and your colleagues and that research agenda differentiates black teachers from others.

IG: Yeah, but you see, in some ways you want it both ways there. Which is that you're saying that you want us to get at this sense of otherness and that it hasn't come out yet, and then you are turning around and telling me that I'm strengthening their sense of otherness. You can't have it both ways. The truth is, I think, we've tried in ways that are not always successful, I would accept that, to try and deal with the question of otherness, which is undoubtedly there with any of them, whether that be a racial other or an other, other we've tried to deal with that in ways that give a reasonable degree of voice to the beginning, to the person, to phrase that particular question as they will themselves. Now that doesn't get me off the hook of otherness but it allows the otherness to be dealt with by them, rather than from day one by you when you go straight in and say, 'OK, tell me...' No, I don't think either of those solves the problem of how we've researched otherness. They are just two different ways of going at it, I think. And I wouldn't, I think, claim priority for this method but I think it's at least a sustainable way of approaching a considerable problem in our society.