Cushman: Ch. 2: Executive Summary

     In chapter two of Cushman's The Struggle and the Tools: Oral and Literate Strategies in an Inner City Community, she introduces the reader to an exploration of what “activist methodology” or “activist research” actually entails. It does share some of its defining qualities with ethnography, but the nuances and overall objectives differ. Cushman asserts that activist research is not one -sided, as in where a group of people are being observed from a tower or behind glass, but that there is a certain level of reciprocity that occurs during the research: Both the researcher and researched are gaining some form of benefit from the research, whether it be scholarship for one or literacy for the other. Cushman explains this as she notes her experience with some of the people she was researching in a primarily African American community: For example, she was able to gain entry into a Muslim place of worship due to the report she had built with some of these people she was “getting to know.” Normally a white woman wold have not been able to participate is something such as a Muslim worship service. She, in turn, allowed them to gain access to the computer lab owned by the University she was working for. Things like this are, Cushman claims, are important to what activist research is aiming to achieve.

     She also does address some of the things that make this form of research problematic: Some people would claim that there really isn't much reciprocity occurring and that people are being exploited, but Cushman argues that the people in such studies are aware of the dynamic between themselves and the person who is “doing the work.” In other words, the “researched” do not feel that they are being exploited and understand that it is a form of sociological study. Being engaged with people in a community on a personal level like this, Cushman also states, is the only way to imbed the social change that is also part of activist research. She claims that the people participating in these studies are actually given a sense of agency through their participation.

     Cushman goes on to explain other ways in which activist research is based on give and take by both parties involved: Some participants in the research wanted to sharpen their verbal skills, pronunciation and execution of language to sound “white.” Cushman helped them to do so and learned that some people switch to a different dialect or vernacular to achieve a form of legitimacy from white people who may work at banks, housing authorities or any such place where a lack of command of the English language could possibly put them into jeopardy. This is called “code switching” by Cushman and it was a practice of which she had been unaware.

     Overall, Cushman claims that activist research, and what it may yield, can be an integral tool in challenging social heirarchies and the hegemony in which is the backbone of such a hierarchy. The ideas may be considered quixotic and fluff to some, but the challenging of these hegemonies is an admirable and noble cause, Cushman argues. She claims this due to the aforementioned premise of activist research in which the dynamic of who will benefit is equal.