Why I like activist research and why I tend to consider myself an activist researcher.

Patrice Riemens

My friend Rolf Pixley once famously described the university at which we both worked - though in different departments - as a 'KFZ', a knowledge free zone. Lapidary as it is, to me it said it all, and what follows is merely a long elaboration on that theme, and of the possible escape
routes, both for the knowledge, and for us, its 'agents', next to none of which can immo be found inside of the academic institutions as we know them today.

To illustrate, but also to help you better understand (and possibly dismiss ;-) my point, I may be permitted to sketch briefly my rather long passage through the academic system. After high school - a very fine training in do's and don'ts in itself - I started my university career in 1972, 'reading Classics' as the nice English formula goes. I was not fresh from high school then, but had spent a year traveling in (West and South)Asia. Taking such a 'gap year' was not common in those days, nor was it very much appreciated by my professors, since it further diminished the,in their view, paltry command of Greek and Latin grammar imparted to us at the 'gymnasium'. Hence I was told that despite the Latin maxim inscribed on the frontispiece of my high school, life is for learning and not the reverse. I was also told, in no uncertain words, that the prime purpose of studying the classics at university was to become a certified secondary school teacher in the same, in order to "salvage the antique culture from the barbarian forces in society". Finally I was to discover that one
can run an academic discipline without any regard for the tenets of the scientific method, provided one does so in a sufficiently authoritative manner: my philology department had thus no trucks whatsoever with modern linguistics or any extraneous epistemology. A fine mess.

When I quit classics, like the majority of my fellow students (in Dutch, the appellation 'classicist' is usually followed by 'gesjeesd' - dropped-out), I had acquired the disabused cynicism that enabled me to become a passable, then average, and finally quite a brilliant geography student. I learned a few more 'tricks of the trade' along the way, most if not all related to the management of the remorseless but malleable power balances within the academic establishment. Whatever I did learn about geography, (and a host of other subjects, since I was always a multi-disciplinarian, again, not a popular position), I taught myself, not thanks, but despite the institutional environment. On completion of my thesis (which was the first to be published and accepted as such, without need for revisions, by the Royal (!) Dutch Geographic Society), I was offered a position at my institute, but due to budgetary constraints without pay. I made 'them' to regret this decision ever since as I always stuck to that status. My critical stance being not very popular, there is precious little I was made to contribute to the actual running of the institute, leading to the comical situation that when the outfit was rechristened after the umpteenth 'reorganisation' as "research institute on global issues and development studies", I was probably the only person to have an overall view of what 'global'(-isation) actually meant - never mind development...In the meanwhile I pursued my own research objectives, mostly liaising with innovative, usually self-organised ventures in the 'new social movements'. These had the uncanny knack of always propelling themselves at the forefront of current societal developments, and someway behind, of academic research, and also always turned out to have a clear geographic component, just as routinely ignored by the mainstream, but
picked up by the more progressive, discerning and, outside the Netherlands at least, prominent representative of the discipline. And so it came that I met, collaborated, and always became befriended with academic 'celebrities' my colleagues would only dream of being acquainted with -
a source to them of endless puzzlement (and to me of boundless satisfaction , I admit ;-)

The point I wished to make with this self-explanation - I hope I have not bored you to death - is that unorthodoxy does have its rewards in the end, but it is not an easy and straightforward road. Even now, and at my age (54), never mind my qualifications and experience, my income is measly
and I can only maintain myself by the good fortune of a relatively rich birth.
But for the fact that there exist other parallel possible income streams apart from being born with a sliver spoon in the mouth, this would be a first class disqualifier - and finance remains all the same a grave obstacle in the way of autonomy. But now for the matter of activist research. What is activist research (in my view), and what are its relationships to the mainstream academic research environment?

First of all, I would like to stress as basic principle the absolute and undiluted independence of knowledge as such. If I go mystic, I would say that knowledge, as I understand it, is "anant, akhand, anadi", which is the Sanskrit definition of the universe: all-encompassing, indivisible,
and unborn - and the latter aspect is of course its essential characteristic. This may sound as an outlandish and outrageous "l'art pour l'art" pronouncement, besides looking like the very embodiment of the ideology of mainstream science. But it is precisely its betrayal by the
academic powers that be - while arrogantly pretending otherwise - that has disqualified vast parts of established research, while our success in being activists benefiting from our research hinges on our ability never, ever, to make it subservient to our political opinions - or much worse
still, political and personal ambitions.

That the other, 'instrumental', approach is a blueprint for disaster is amply demonstrated by the tribulations of actual, mainstream (social) science. Allow me for this demonstration to dive again in my own academic environment, 'development studies', which is the discipline that
engages with the socio-economic evolution of people and countries/ regions in the "Third World". The discipline's first constraining element is that it is closely linked with the policies of international and national aid agencies, and with the political discourse about development, and the
global economy in general. Globalisation itself has taken development studies out of their backwater in the 'charity' category, but then only to put them even more under the influence of powerful mainstream bodies, mostly in the economic sphere. The overall tendency to make
universities and research institutes more business-like, if not completely market-conform, especially in the realm of management and of finance, has gone a long way to transform development studies into a (not so) dignified consultancy business in the service of various big aid outfits, while the culture of consensus, shared class affiliation, and subtle (or not-so
subtle) pressure from patrons/ sponsors have made short shrifts of any remains of a critical position. This is how we have arrived at a situation that what is left of dissent and critique about the state of the world we live in has often more to do with jockeying for position of power and
influence within mainstream institutions and the subsequent feudal warfare between various 'ideological' factions, than with any honest concern for the people being 'targeted' by development policies. In such circumstances, it is not only a genuinely critical attitude that disappears as critique must always be balanced against other, instrumental, considerations, but even theory itself, as it becomes debased into a kind of regimental battle flag to distinguish, and make shine, one 'school of thought', read: interested party, above the others (Thomas Friedman, the 'globalophile' columnist of the New York Times, latest 'Flat Earth theory' is a very good illustration of this trend) .

The demise of theory is in fact what I perceive as the telltale sign of the downfall of academic institution in general, and why they cannot any longer be trusted with the task to create and maintain true knowledge. Yet for those who read in this sentence a nostalgic longing for the
(g)olden days of "herrschaftsfreie Wissenschaft" - scientific pursuit without constraints (from above), two rejoinders: these days never existed in the first place, as constraints _always_ came from 'above', not in the latest instance from within academia itself, which, especially in the West,
never properly came to grip neither with the teacher-student relationship (and perverted it beyond remedy), nor with its own position vis-à-vis knowledge (and reified it beyond reprieve). But even more important, especially for activists: there is nothing as practical as a good theory, since to change the world you need to understand it, and to understand, you need to be able to explain it, in the first and in the last place, to yourself.

But has ole Unc' Karl (Marx) said, explaining the world is not enough, we need to change it - and this is what activism is about, right? Now the question is how to match this lofty goal with research? The first pitfall that needs to be avoided is raising the futile question of which comes
first, activism or research - or worse still, which one takes precedence, and is subordinate to the other? Considerable harm has been done in the in the early days of 'action oriented research' or 'participative action research' by this futile and counterproductive concern, which has a
definite tendency to descend into inquisition and intellectual/ political witch hunt, and has produced the delusion of prescribed and hence pre-scripted 'socially relevant research' - which in the end derailed both the purpose of rational enquiry and the goal of change for the better.
Activist research follows in my mind the same path as the Gandhian definition of peace: there is no way to it, _it_ is the way. Hence you have to be both an activist, and aresearcher, at the same time - and place. This (tentative) precept amounts to the philophical/ethical principle of 'presence': the realised unity of self, action, time, and place.

Big words, you would say. Well, I think it is good to think in this way once in a while, and to remember what you thought out every now and then. Things are going very well with activist research at the moment, we are clearly surfing the crest of an ever bigger wave. But with that come perils, the danger of recuperation by smart sharks trailing in our slipstream, keen to parade awareness without commitment. And we aways run the risk of losing faith and of betrayal, not of some grand (and external) cause, but of our most precious inner gift: that of our spiritual independence and liberty.

(Patrice Riemens, 1950, is geographer. Formerly he is associate researcher (without pay) at the University of Amsterdam and fellow of the Waag Society for Old and New Media, also in Amsterdam. However, he is mostly known as 'cultural activist' in the realm of the 'new social movements' associated with the information and communication technologies.