Someone asked for further elaboration--intention and meaning--on my comments on my experiences in Kerala and asked if these comments were based on privileged conversations. First of all, all of those conversations took place publicly; I would never share the private ones. Secondly, the point was to illustrate that although innovating new conceptual categories and approaches-- that more clearly document aspects of the realities faced by the oppressed-- utilizing "official" data and approaches is important work (like what members of the Center for Popular Economics are doing), we also need to develop grassroots-based categories, approaches and data bases to counter the official ones. For example, no statistics were gathered or kept on forms and incidences of abuses of women associated with the dowry system or other factors. No statistics were kept or gathered on distributions of wealth and income or on comparative (post-loophole) tax rates; no statistics were gathered or kept on uses, conditions and pay rates of child labor; etc. What the "official" data gathers measure and gather, and the analytical angles through which they measure, reflect what the powers-that-be consider "worth" gathering; and that rarely includes anything about the concrete realities, forms/levels of oppression etc faced by the many--rather, that which is in the service of the few in power. Now to evolve data categories, methodologies and analytical approaches that are truly useful for and concretely reflect the realities of the oppressed many, those who lend their analytical skills must be close to the people they purport to "study" and for whom they purport to be "in service." Never mind for Kerala for a moment, what a novel thought: that part of the curriculum for any degree in America is a requirement that the student be required to actually apply a given package of acquired skills and knowledge--with accompanying thesis--to identify, analyze and work to solve a concrete problem in some community. Perhaps medical students analyzing and documeting epidemiological trends and being required to work with those with no access to health care; perhaps engineering students being required to actually build something that makes a difference in someone's life; perhaps economics students being required to evolve totally new and fresh analytical approaches and categories not dealt with in the "official" data; etc. Of course there is a problem. Just as there is no real surplus of physicians (only a surplus of physicians who want to be a plastic surgeon to the "stars"; there is certainly no surplus of physicians on Indian Reserves or inner-city ghettos) so there is no surplus of academics working in concrete ways and in conrete environments to actually solve concrete problems faced by the oppressed many. How many migrant field workers could actually read and understand what has been written about them by the academics who "descend" from the commanding heights to study them--to add knotches to their CVs? How many women get anything tangible from the "gender studies" specialists who "descend" upon them to "study" their realities?; How many workers are actually aided in concrete struggles by the academics who "descend" upon them to study "labor-force structures and dynamics and markets"? Of course to build political economy that really serves someone other than academics racking up CV notches will require some serious reorientation. "Infiltrating" and gaining "acceptance" from the "right" schools, the "right" journals, the "right" authorities of the "profession", the "right" conferences leads nowhere except to rationalization and the illusion of doing something serious. It can be useful in temporarily resolving some cognitive dissonance problems and in terms of creating "market niches" that facilitate publications and give the "mainstream" of "the profession" to show how truly tolerant of diversity they really are, but in the end it leads nowhere "progressive". Jim Craven *------------------------------------------------------------------* * James Craven * * * Dept of Economics * "There is no Wealth but Life... * * Clark College * That country is the richest which * * 1800 E. Mc Loughlin Blvd.* nourishes the greatest number of * * Vancouver, Wa. 98663 * noble and happy human beings." * * (360) 992-2283 * (John Ruskin "Unto This Last" quoted * * Fax: (360) 992-2863 * in "Opposing the System" by Charles * * [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Reich) * * * * * MY EMPLOYER HAS NO ASSOCIATION WITH MY PRIVATE/PROTECTED OPINION *