On Mon, 28 Jul 1997, James Michael Craven wrote: > 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. snip In general I am in agreement with the above. But it also reflects, pardon the expression, an "innocence" about so called "realities." Wealth and income are always "private" matters, especially when it is a question of the "sarkar" (the government) showing up for tax purposes. People are unwilling to divulge that information. I remember doing field surveys on minor irrigation schemes in India and we were interested in "income" data but we found other ways of estimating it: cropping patters, yield, marketable surplus, and the like. Data is generally lacking, especially in the form of official looking documents. But there is a lot of data out there for gathering. One needs to dirty one's hands. Unfortunately, most academics (and particularly economists) who think of themselves as "theorists" (and there are lots of them in India) refuse to get out to the field. In another survey in another part of the country we wanted to know the price of milk in a certain rural area. It was simple: we looked for all the sweetshops and ask the owners of the milk price. Sweets are made from cottage cheese. About wage rates: we all new that wages earned were less than the minimum. All we had to do ask around. True we didn't have a time series (although that was not difficult to construct) but there was information that required that extra effort of getting out of the comfortable setting. In my more current research I have spent years doing fieldwork, admittedly in urban industrial settings. But it is a lot of work being on the road. And it has been very satisfying because I generate a lot of data based on "open-ended" interviews. Such an approach is often used by very talented and investigative journalists in India. I consider their views on the subject often more valuable than the economists. But then they don't consider me as a peer and I of them. Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Senior Fellow Comparative International Development Department of Economics University of Washington National University of Singapore 1103 A Street 10 Kent Ridge Crescent Tacoma, WA 98402 USA Singapore 119260
