Abstract
This collection of papers is one of the most remarkable I have ever read and should be essential reading for any researcher in any institution of higher education, anywhere. The collection is very different from the usual collection of research presentations. The [Iraq Research Fellowship Programme] IRFP was not just another academic assignment; it was quite different. While engaged on the familiar territory of research, infrastructure and productivity, the principal goal was to assist people whose lives and academic work had been wrenched from them by wars, international embargo, ongoing conflict and the relentless struggle of trying to deal with a deep poverty born of the destructive forces of war.
This modest book contains six key chapters, each of which highlights the incredible personal risks that those who took part in the research work were exposed to, and the significant obstacles to achievement they collectively and individually had to overcome.
Chapter 1: Progress through overcoming obstacles in tuberculosis
Chapter 2: Banking collapse; Transforming the learning environment in Iraq through forum theatre
Chapter 3: We don’t do numbers! Reimaging gender and selves
Chapter 4: A journey of learning; The curriculum in Iraqi schools and higher education
Chapter 5: Experiences of insufficiency: ‘Walking on a ledge in the dark’
Chapter 6: Mobile phone technologies and diabetes: a project for self-management and education
Consistent with the high standard of the main chapters, the introduction, preface and concluding chapter are equally perceptive and challenging. In particular, the concluding chapter, ‘Aspirations for new position, identity and agency: reimagining research for reclaiming the academy in Iraq’, written by Heather Brunskell-Evans, Kevin McDonald, Michele Moore and Roger Slee, captures the conflict of research mistrust and anxiety in a country that shares the powerful regional concept of a culture where hospitality is the paramount social instinct.
Two examples of research programmes recounted in the book show why this book is both fascinating and humbling:
Chapter 1, ‘Progress through overcoming obstacles in tuberculosis research’, recounts that research samples had to be moved secretly, and even at times stored in home refrigerators for fear of discovery and professional sensitivities inviting personal violence and even assassination.
Chapter 2, ‘Banking collapses: transforming the learning environment in Iraq through forum theatre’, reveals the incredible bravery of those using the work of South American Augusto Boal to address an invigorating series of issues (in addition to restoring the collapsed banking system) through the theatre of the oppressed approach.
While each individual chapter in this collection is fascinating, two things in particular stand out in common with them all: first, the climate of fear and violence the researchers had to operate in and constantly negotiate; and, second, the determination to know more, ask questions and find ways to realise the research topics to the highest possible standard.
Three extracts clearly illustrate the climate of fear and danger the researchers had to negotiate. In conversation with one of the researchers in Basra about personal and safety issues for our research meeting, it sounded like something from a carefully crafted movie plot with lots of secrecy. Security would be enhanced by keeping a very low profile, in moving to a safe sanctuary with no-one knowing who we are or what we are doing. The risks would be in moving about. Apparently the campus is safer. (Introduction, ‘Nobel prizes for Iraqi researchers?’, Michele Moore and Heather Brunskell-Evans, p. 6)
…given what has happened to [the Principle Investigator’s] home, with the hand grenade being thrown, I formulated the opinion that the research meeting would not be safe so I declined the invitation. (Introduction, ‘Nobel prizes for Iraqi researchers?’, Michele Moore and Heather Brunskell-Evans, p. 6)
Mohanad has found himself regularly invited to speak to reporters from within and outside Iraq about his work. But he faces threats to assassination if he takes part in public discussions of this sort. This is part of the background of academic life in Iraq. (Chapter 1, ‘Progress through overcoming obstacles in tuberculosis’, Mohanad Ahmed, Hassan, Suhad Ahmed, Ali Al-Zagg and Michael R Barber, The Media and Assassination of Academics, p. 22)
While all the research accounts are fascinating, I found that Chapter 3, ‘We don’t do numbers! Reimaging gender and selves’, by Nadje Al-Ali, Huda Al-Dujaili Inass Al-Enezy and Irada Al-Jeboury, makes the most challenging and uplifting reading. The section ‘Narrating women’s lives’ by Iranda Al-Jeboury is especially moving. In a few words she highlights many of the fundamental and very human challenges that researchers face when planning and conducting research anywhere in the world, as well as the particular challenges of researching in post-war Iraq. Some of the women’s lives lay like an open book in front of me and I used to read the lines, sometimes in grief and sometimes in joy. It happened that sometimes they saw me wiping away tears as I listened to the stories of what they had been through. I practiced trying to have the conversations without doing anything that would disturb or frighten them. I tried to listen without judging or blaming. I practiced the art of listening, which is very far away from our culture as is this kind of research, which is new and strange and might make some people suspicious. (Chapter 3, ‘Narrating women’s lives’, Irada Al-Jeboury, p. 42)
However, the key questions to be asked are: Has the research produced interesting results that contribute to our knowledge of the research topics and does it contribute to academic progress? Can we, as readers, learn from the experiences of these committed and vulnerable academics? Do they deserve our support and admiration? Does this book challenge us as researchers and educationalists to critically review and question our own practices and assumptions that support them?
The answer to all of these questions is ‘yes’.
Through the stories of the many researchers, their colleagues and their families, as narrated through the research accounts and the research journeys, the contributors can, of course, be hijacked for political and religious propaganda. This, however, does not dim the light of the remarkable achievements in determinedly seeking to establish the Academy in Iraq. Not surprisingly, our team was confronted with reactions along a continuum of bemusement and admonishment, and an underlying perception that we were engaged in ‘unscientific’ work. I was not new to the perception common amongst many of my research students from the Middle East that credible research needs to be quantifiable into numbers and statistics. Here, I do not want to belabour the debates around quantitative versus qualitative methods, which have a long history within the social sciences and have been widely written about. But I would like to suggest that in the Iraqi context ‘truth’ and ‘objectivity’ are far more than epistemological debates about knowledge production within academia. (Chapter 3, ‘Engendering knowledge’, Nadje Al-Ali, p. 50)
If you can, buy two copies of this book: one for yourself and one for your institution or public library. It deserves to be read.