Dear Svetlana, The irony of my reply comes not from an elite enjoyment of exemption but from too intimate an identification with the work you do and how it relates to what you study. For years I wrote proposals, received funding and worked on research projects on social problems. Just as you do now. Then, five years ago, I had the misfortune of having two of my most important [provincially funded] institutional contacts de-funded at the same time as the Canadian federal government initiated large cutbacks in funding for research. For five years now, I have received exact instruction in how beggars must feel when they expose their need to unsympathetic citizens. Not only do my proposals get turned down, I have been verbally attacked by the prospective funders who view a polite and carefully explained funding proposal as an uninvited attempt to climb aboard their "life boat" (the exact words of one prospect!). I do still get lots of calls from radio stations, magazines and newspapers who are very interested in my area of research and eager to have my comments on topical issues (for free, of course), so it's not as if my research skills are out of date. They have just been made redundant by a funding establishment that doesn't want to know about the things my research will show. If, instead of interogating beggars as the "subjects" of your research, you essayed to examine how the elites manufacture and manipulate the "problem" of begging, your funding would be nil. Instead, in your proposal, you have cunningly (like a successful beggar) honed in on how your funders want to think of themselves -- "we're concerned, we're compassionate . . . we're not responsible" -- and flatter those illusions. Another suggestion for your literature review: Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. Pay special attention to the part where Teiresias tells Oedipus that it was he, Oedipus, who murdered Laius and brought the plague on Thebes: Teiresias: . . . You, Oedipus, are the desecrator, the polluter of the land! Oedipus: You traitor! Do you think that you can get away with this? And there you have the first rule of social research. regards, Tom Walker http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/covenant.htm
