I am reflecting on my dissertation process and I have not even finished the research part of it yet. What can I say? I like being waaay ahead of things.
In doing the actual researching of my dissertation I now know I definitely have to include my own Christian upbringing in the subjectivity section. I thought that because I was not a staunch believer in the same way as these missionary women are, that I would get away without having to mention my own religious background.
This was a mistake of mine, so I will make sure to correct it.
I think I would have preferred to not have to mention it, as I feel like it would change the way my study was viewed by another person, based solely on their own prejudices. At the start of this dissertation process I would rather have wished someone read my dissertation and could find no information about me, apart from what I provide in my subjectivity section.
However that’s utter bollocks. I think it is crucial that I shine through my work, not through any kind of purposeful, forceful crafting so that it is so glaringly obvious that only I could have written this piece. Rather, I think that no matter what I do or how much I choose to include of my personal background in my subjectivity, my own voice and interests as a historian, as well as my own prejudices and perceptions are going to be apparent throughout.
The way I see it, I would prefer to have some control of this, and to get it all out of the way as honestly and up front as I can at the beginning of my piece, so as to not surprise my reader halfway through, nor to seem like I am hiding.
I know that no matter whether I claim my Christian background upfront or not, it will be clear to a reader on some level. Maybe my own feeling of loss will show through. I want to be aware of this so that it also doesn’t take me by surprise. My own religious beliefs are in turmoil – they were my foundation and now I feel like I am floating from one idea to the next, from absolutes of belief and non-belief to vague selective belief on maybe one or two issues. I feel as though I cannot abandon my belief in its entirety, and yet the whole subject area feels profoundly toxic to me personally.
Ultimately, this is the crux of the issue and it was this and the following realisation that has forced my own hand into taking control and being clear about this particular part of my subjectivity.
The following issue being that I cannot possibly separate these missionary women from my own memories and emotions of my Nannan specifically, but truly also my entire extended family. I read the missionary writing so full of Christian jargon, and I am reminded of my home life, of my grandparents and even of specific preaches or sermons where the same Bible quotes or passages were taught to me. It is alarming. I even directly told my Mother that listening to my grandparents try to comfort me in my grieving was like reading the missionary writing – there’s something useful in there somewhere but I have to sift out all the Christianity lexicon to find it. This is a direct connection. I perceive my grandparents as holding the same attitudes as the missionaries.
I am finding a great difficulty in juggling this and honestly at my most self-doubtful and vulnerable times it makes me feel like I am not supposed to write this history. As if I have no right to write this history, as if my writing of this history is unfair or from the wrong angle.
Because I am trying to write a history of how these missionary women negotiate their differences with the native Indian women they interact with, through the topics of violence and gender, by studying the language representations they use in their emotional evocative writing to the home country Christians through their journal IWCD. This involves sensitivity, but for some reason I seem to think it also needs distance.
With this personal family connection, I do not have distance.
So I am really struggling with coming to terms with this. I think this is why although I am much improved in the not procrastinating department in general, it is so much easier to procrastinate this specific work of reading the missionary women’s handwriting, than any other. I do not want to read this writing and be reminded of my Nannan and my family. I feel guilty for being reminded of them, as though the connections I perceive between these missionary women and my own grandparents means that my grandparents would have done or said similar things to these missionaries, or in fact do hold similar attitudes now. Attitudes which I am finding I despise or at least would not choose to tolerate in the missionaries. I feel as though I am negatively judging my own grandparents. I am uncomfortable.
Some passages of the missionaries’ writings I am even reading in my head as said by my Nannan’s voice. I am picturing my Nannan in her youth as being one such missionary – even though she wasn’t. How can I write about these women’s writings and understandings, if my own understanding and writing is so incredibly based on my judgements of my own family and a religion I have for the most part left behind me, but the values of which I still have existing and showing in who I am?
I never expected my dissertation would challenge me in my own views of who I am, what I believe in, who my family are and what I think of them. I thought I was just writing a history of the representations of the marginalised which would break new ground in the scholarship and fit with my interests of gender history and exploration of the underlying and sometimes overwhelming impact of empire.
failed2be-chill 