Pendahuluan: Menentukan Letak Penelitian Budaya dan Buku

Pendahuluan: Menentukan Letak Penelitian Budaya dan Buku

Arus silang di dalam Penelitian  budaya                                          

Rekonsiliasi                                                                                     

Garis Besar Buku                                                                             

Salah satu dari argumen-argumen buku ini adalah bahwa penelitian atau metodologi penelitian tidak pernah ‘objektif’ tetapi selalu ditentukan, ditunjukkan oleh posisi-posisi sosial tertentu dan momen-momen historis serta agenda penelitian. Jadi, untuk menentukan legak buku ini, buku ini memiliki asal-usul awal di dalam penelitian saya tentang wacana-wacana dan pengalaman-pengalaman yang telah dijalani tentang gangguan makan, terutama penyakit mental perempuan, yang dicirikan oleh upaya berbahaya untuk mendapatkan tubuh langsing. Pada awalnya saya terdorong untuk meneliti kondisi-kondisi ini, karena saya sendiri telah mengalami anoreksia, saya telah dibuat bingung, atau bahkan dibuat marah, oleh cara di mana kondisi-kondisi ini diteliti di dalam dua hal. Pertama, saya terganggu oleh cara di mana penelitian-penelitian ini mengubah perempuan penderita anoreksia (kehilangan selera makan) menjadi perempuan ‘berpenyakit’, atau tidak mampu mengukur pemikiran dan tindakan mereka. Di dalam banyak penelitian, tuturan penderita anoreksia dipahami hanya sebagai ‘simtom’, dari mana makna ‘yang sesungguhnya’ seperti patologi psikologis atau sosial, bisa dibaca oleh ahli, seperti psikiatris atau bahkan seorang kritikus budaya fiminis. Kedua, saya patah semangat, frustrasi, dengan proyek-proyek sosial dan politis dan argumen-argumen bahwa penderita anoreksia –jelas tidak mengetahui ‘makna’ atau akar-akar penyebab kondisinya—dibuat mampu menghadapinya. Penafsiran-penafsiran anoreksia telah memberi perhatian penting pada sifat-sifat seksis tubuh dan struktur keluarga ideal dan tidak berfungsinya kontrol diri posmodern. Penafsiran-penafsiran tentang anoreksia juga sering kali menegaskan sifat-sifat patologis penderita anoreksia, atau perempuan pada umumnya, sebagai gagal, sangat tergantung pada orang lain dan opini orang lain, dan rentan terhadap keluhan sosial dan konservatisme.

Introduction: Locating Cultural Studies and the Book

Introduction: Locating Cultural Studies and the Book Crosscurrents in cultural studies 4 Reconciliations 6 Outline of the book 8 One of the arguments of this book is that research or research methodologies are never objective’ but always located, informed by particular social positions and historical moments and their agendas. Thus, to locate this book, it has its early origins in my research on the discourses and lived experiences of eating disorders, largely women’s mental dis-eases, characterized by a dangerous pursuit of thinness. I was originally driven to study these conditions, because having been anorexic myself, I was perplexed, or even angered, with the way in which these conditions were studied in two respects. First, I was annoyed with the way in which the studies rendered anorexic women ‘disordered’, or incapable of assessing their thoughts and actions. In many studies, anorexics’ speech was treated as simply a ‘symptom’, from which the ‘true’ meaning, such as a psychological or social pathology, could be read by the expert, such as a psychiatrist or even a feminist cultural critic. Secondly, I was frustrated with the social and political projects and arguments that the anorexic – apparently unaware of the ‘meaning’ or roots of her condition – was made to stand for. The interpretations of anorexia have usefully drawn critical attention to the sexist nature of body ideals and family structures and the dysfunctionality of (post)modern self-control. Still, interpretations of anorexia also often confirm the inherently pathological nature of anorexics, or women in general, as vain, overly dependent on others and their opinions, and prone to buttress general social compliance and conservatism. Thus, driven by these two concerns of mine, I embarked on a research project that aimed both to develop ways of doing justice to the lived experience of anorexia and to critically analyze the discourses that had constituted it.

Doing Research in Cultural Studies by Paula Saukko

Doing Research in Cultural Studies by Paula Saukko by irbusd2013