[Urbanstudy] Sajan Thomas --Urban study group posting

[sajan azhathom]

        'Thought Control' and Field Research:

                I wish to use this posting to share
some of my field level experiences. Before starting
the structured field visits, I approached some
‘experts’ in the academic and policy-making strata.
Majority of them had taken a passive stance towards my
area of study, which according to them was anti
developmental and retrogressive. One expert even
questioned the purpose of my study--Do you want the
closure of an institution, which feeds 6000 families?
, he asked.

                 Another expert from media branded me
as a Communist spy and suggested reformulating the
study for enhancing the worker’s strength in the
Thiruvanathapuram Technopark campus. According to him,
it is the only way through which the study can be
tuned into a pragmatic and relevant one. One research
student in psychology, whom I had approached for some
data on the stress related problems of IT workers,
advised me to change the attitude towards life as
such. For him, the current approach will ultimately
lead to the failure of my personal life as well.

                 In fact, the workers in the IT parks
are engaged in conflict with the management over
issues that are not radically different from those had
traditionally engaged the organised working class i.e.
wages, hours of work, production targets etc. But the
manner in which the general society-- including
experts -approaching the problems of IT workers often
lack diversity of thoughts.The pro-capitalists,
successive 	Governments and the mainstream media 
developed a common yardstick for assessing
developmental projects.

                There is a general impression that the
information revolution and associated technologies are
rewriting the entire development paradigm. There is
much euphoria over the ‘profound’ ability of
information technology to produce economic growth and
social equality. As a result, attempts to look
critically into these developmental efforts will be
treated as anti social. This kind of ‘thought
control’, to use a Chomskian phrase, is acting as a
limiting factor for serious academic inquiries.
                   



	

	
		
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