More thoughts on the utility of academics

Studying the creation and maintenance of depressed urban communities in Brazil got me thinking about how little I know about the same subject in the U.S. With the exception of a history book of Harlem, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, and one article on government red-lining, I don't know much about the American ghetto. (Side note: the word in Portuguese is "gueto." I read a whole article scratching my head, wondering what the hell the author meant by "gwee-toe?" "gweh-tu?" until I finally got my head in one language to realize that the Portuguese spelling approximates the English pronunciation).

I went looking for any radical academic thought that arose out of this element of our "American experience" and found the article "Revolutionary and Counter-Revolutionary Theory in Geography and the Problem of Ghetto Formation” (David Harvey, 1973). A great excerpt got me thinking again about the constant battle between the relative utilities of academics and activism, and the plausibility of forging a middle-way:

A revolutionary approach to theory… does not entail yet another empirical investigation of the social conditions in the ghettos. In fact, mapping even more evidence of man’s patent inhumanity to man is counter-revolutionary in the sense that it allows the bleeding-heart liberal in us to pretend we are contributing to a solution when in fact we are not. This kind of empiricism is irrelevant. There is already enough information in congressional reports, newspapers, books, articles and so on to provide us with all the evidence we need….

This immediate task is nothing more nor less than a self-conscious and aware construction of a new paradigm for social geographic thought through a deep and profound critique of our existing analytical constructs. This is what we are best equipped to do. We are academics, after all, working with the tools of the academic trade. As such, our task is to mobilize our powers of thought to formulate concepts and categories, theories and arguments, which we can apply to the task of bringing about a humanizing social change. These concepts and categories cannot be formulated in abstraction. They must be forged realistically with respect to the events and actions as they unfold around us. Empirical evidence, the already assembled dossiers, and the experiences gained in the community can and must be used here. But all of those experiences and all of that information means little unless we synthesize it into powerful patterns of thought.

Chalk one up in the academic column, but add a dis for hyper-empiricist research. I like this guy. And while he is raising the flag for radical geographic thought, it could just as easily be any social science.

A global phenomenon, and what the hell can we expect democracy to do about it?

This great story in the NYTimes about Gurgaon, India reveals the same phenomena that arise in many "third-world" cities as they become outposts of the global economy. It's similar to São Paulo: severe income inequality made plain through the proximity of slums to luxury high-rises, elites buying exclusive access to public goods of education/health/law and order, and a low state capacity to provide even basic necessities for those not living in these private enclaves.

The story includes quotes from residents of the complex pictured that will surely make your blood boil a bit. There's also an accompanying slide-show to get a better sense of what lives are like on either side of this urban universe. Really, do read the article.

PHOTO: Ruth Fremson, NYTimes

The author only briefly touches on the role democracy plays in this system, noting that:

India has long lived with such inequities, and though a Maoist rebellion is building in the countryside, the nation has for the most part skirted social upheaval through a critical safety valve: giving the poor their chance to vent at the ballot box. Indeed, four years ago, voters threw out the incumbent government, with its “India Shining” slogan, because it was perceived to have neglected the poor.

In democracy, leadership change is always possible and rarely prohibitively difficult. And it is true that the party in power does tweak how a state relates to underclasses (most often this shows in levels of social spending). But if India is anything like Brazil, I would venture to guess that voting and other democratic institutions have not fundamentally altered the nature of urban inequality, nor the basic relationship between the poor and the state. When I feel pessimistic, I doubt whether they ever will.

The field of comparative politics gives certain reasons for why democracies in practice are limited in this respect: clientelism and cronyism, corruption, manipulation of the press, fractured party systems and other institutional weaknesses, etc. If we can break these patterns and strengthen institutions, democracy will "function better." (As an aside, what constitutes "better functioning" is ultimately a normative question, making comparativists pretty useless for defining it in any compelling way. But for me, better functioning means creating conditions of social justice.)

The technocratic cartwheels of comparative politics aside, they are basically using what I call the "more cowbell" argument. (Recall the classic SNL skit with Christopher Walken exclaiming "I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell!") If something isn't working - in this case democracy - we just need more of it.

But what if all the noise from the cowbell is covering up an inherently bad tune? Political theorists in the line of Marx will tell you that capitalism is to blame, to which democracy is inherently secondary - nothing more than a distraction from the economic gluttony and exploitation at work, a way to pacify the oppressed by giving them a superficial outlet for their anger. As an OSU professor has noted, democracy is unlike any other political system in that it internalizes descent. And in my thinking, it is in fact anti-revolutionary - to the degree that it keeps all sides playing under the established rules of the game and feeding the underdogs small victories as needed - just enough to keep them in for the next round.

Still, I'm not convinced this is inherently so. I don't really have any answers here. There was a time when I believed wholeheartedly in democracy's ability to facilitate fundamental changes, perhaps radical. I am much more pessimistic now, but where has that gotten me? I still can't untangle the knotted roots of urban injustice enough to say with conviction what they are, how they work, or most importantly, where to start pulling them up.