Chapter Seven
7.5 The Long Distance Mentor
and involvement at strategic moments in my life provided the impetus I needed to finally 'cut loose'. I make mention of them where appropriate but one such individual was Professor Christine Keitel, a high profile academic and researcher from the Free University in Berlin, Germany.
It is ironic that at present it is not uncommon for researchers to conduct research on the Indian community. It has, in fact, become rather popular to conduct studies that explore issues of ethnicity, identity and difference.
As members of a community that has a reputation for being conservative, Indian female students were not experiencing problems gaining access to university. They were also performing surprisingly well in the matriculation examinations. I did not see anything wrong with trying to explore this success story because it was clearly contrary to the trends that were prevalent among women of colour. I wanted to understand the reasons for such differential performances. That was the one concern. But problems arose, as they so often did. Some of my colleagues had reservations about my doing research in what they regarded as conservative research topics. It was considered progressive to research particular issues and not others. The discouraging part about this was that very few actually took the time to talk to me about my research, to understand where I was coming from and what my engagement really was. I was often told that I should have included African women in my study only because it would make it politically correct.
This in my opinion did not make sense in terms of what it was that I was trying to do.
I was already captivated by the great writings of Apple, Bhabha, Freie, Giroux, hooks, Mohanty, Shiva and Spivak. I was engaging their debates of power, hegemony, race, class, ethnicity and culture. I was fascinated by the postcolonialists and women of colour debates. I felt my academic environment to be extremely hostile and this slowly began to wear me down. Coupled with the turbulent time that the university and the country was going through at the time, the power struggles that emerged provided the backdrop against all that I was experiencing in my short postgraduate life. My research, teaching, supervision, promotion, teaching load, administrative workload, were all contaminated by these external factors.
Christine's research and publications were different from conventional, 'accepted' research.. I recall reading some of her papers and was impressed by her attempts at
"border crossing ", blending, infusing the fields and disciplines that were traditionally thought to be sacred and constantly foregrounding the social. I was extremely impressed
with her keynote addres/ where she foregrounded the social in the study of mathematics education. But our paths were to cross in more profound ways over the years that were to follow.
I studied the programme of the referred to earlier conference and realised that Christine was to chair my paper presentation. I was in awe of her and panicked. I tried desperately to make some programme changes. I was so nervous about her listening to me. This was my first presentation at a national conference, what a baptism of fire! What could I do?
Well, I certainly prayed with great fervour. In retrospect perhaps there was 'divine intervention' that day.
I began my paper rather nervously, reading directly from the notes for the first five minutes or so. I clearly remember looking into the audience and spotting some of my colleagues from faculty affirming me with their supportive nods and smiles. I then began to feel constrained by my reading and slowly began to talk to the audience. I recall the momentum pick up. I began to speak with a passion that drove me and motivated my work. The audience got caught up in the excitement that came through from me. I was talking and people were smiling, nodding approval, interested in what I had to say. Then came the discussion time. Christine was actually smiling. She was impressed with what I was saying. She told the audience how important my work was to emerging forms of research, discourse and identity theories, the construction of knowledge, and so on.
I hadn't realised that because of all the negative criticism of my work I had turned into such a defensive person, so paranoid, constantly looking over my shoulder expecting to see the knife sticking out of my back.
It was amazing how the news spread at that conference. People were talking about my presentation. High profile delegates (in my opinion anyway!) came up to me to ask for copies of my paper. Christine announced at the closing ceremony that in her opinion my presentation was the best at that conference. By then I was beginning to feel embarrassed because my written paper was not in the same league as others. Many of the papers were
3Presentation at the Southern African Association for Research in Mathematics and Science Education (SAARMSE) Conference held at the University of Durban-Westville in January 1994.
so well written to the exacting standards of scientific writing, mine was well, conversational. I simply told the story about my research. When I mentioned this to Christine she replied in her matter-of-fact way that this was work in progress. She was not looking for literary gems but focusing on ideas and that she strongly advocated challenging the conventional styles of writing that were considered scientific. What she said to me then, I have now come to observe for myself, years later. There are different types of papers and one must be careful not to fall into traps when judging the quality of a paper. Often substance is overlooked when a paper is written in a literary perfect way.
She cautioned me to look for substance, not to get caught and fooled by wordy, dramatic writing styles that detract from substance through sensationalism. Don't get caught up in the style, she warned, lookfor substantive issues.
The paper that I presented was later developed to eventually appear in a book called Social Justice and Mathematics Education published in1998 -four years later.
And that was how I was launched into the wider world of research. I realised that I had to work around the gatekeepers in my workplace. By networking with people with similar interests outside my institution I was beginning to feel affirmed and grew in confidence. I still believed that my paper was rather a straightforward one but Christine had other plans! So began a mentorship/friendship that was to play a pivotal role in my life. We struck up a long distance email dialogue that exists to this day.
I felt I could unburden myself with her. She somehow understood, she never questioned my judgement. She never assumed that I was the problem in any situation. She believed in me. She gave coping strategies. She was the 'cyber shoulder' that I could cry on.
I told her how my masters research work was being ripped to pieces at my institution. She suggested that I mail my work to her. She perused my earlier drafts of my masters study and made comments and suggestions in affirming ways. I would then take this to my supervision sessions armed with the fact that Christine had seen my drafts. I would wait to hear what my supervisor had to say. As usual, it was found to be unsatisfactory. When I eventually mentioned that this work had already received the nod of approval from Christine, the response from my supervisor was that she was German and lived outside of South Africa and was, therefore, not qualified to comment on my work, which was a study
conducted in South Africa. I couldn't believe that these were comments coming from senior academics at the university. Eventually Christine tried to take over as either my supervisor or co-supervisor. Again this was turned down for a whole host of reasons. The first was that she was not in the field of sociology of education but mathematics education.
She then faxed a letter to the faculty stating her qualifications and why she was competent to supervise my work. I was told that a decision was taken that Christine was not an appropriate supervisor because she "did not understand the South African situation". I recall how furious Christine became when I conveyed that to her. When I decided to challenge that at a meeting the response was that this was "some woman" I had met at the conference that became "my friend" and was going to try to push my masters through!
Christine was constantly supportive and we strategised on how to beat this problem.