Probably most of you have heard the famous parable of the
blind men and the elephant, originally attributed to the Buddha. The story goes
that six blind men in a village encounter an elephant for the first time, and
each grabs ahold of a different part of the beast. The one standing by the tail
believes it to be a rope; the one standing by the belly believes it to be a
wall, and so on. In some versions of the story, the men argue endlessly about
the nature of the elephant, each insisting that they are right. In other
versions, a wise (presumably seeing) man walks by and tells them that, while
they each have a portion of the truth, none of them is aware of what the entire
animal is like. So they are simultaneously all correct, and all wrong.
As a systems scientist, this parable points to the need
to incorporate, and learn from, diverse perspectives on systems. Most large
problems we deal with today in the science of the environment are like the
elephant—it is figuratively impossible for us to ‘get our arms’ around the
whole thing, no matter how much of an expert we may be in our particular piece
of the problem (the ear, the tail, etc.) This means that we have to learn from
one another while studying the system at the same time. I design processes to
do this with both scientists and stakeholder groups.
One of the topics of this blog is women, and diversity,
in academia. Some people believe that this is a ‘hot topic’ of the moment that
is not deeply consequential. But I believe that diversity in all of our
societal institutions is absolutely essential if we are to learn about the
issues we face systemically, so that we can make more robust decisions -
decisions that take into account the ‘whole beast’, as it were.
I was one of those ‘blind men’ in my first year in the
Philippines. The focus of my research was soil erosion and topsoil loss, a
major issue in a mountainous country with monsoonal rain patterns and a strong
need to increase agricultural production in order to feed one of the fastest
growing populations in Asia. The literature on the topic referenced field
trials in which several soil conservation techniques were tested, and implied
that the only problem was getting farmers to adopt them. The dominant theory in
the literature was that farmers were either too poor, too unconcerned about the
long-term consequences of soil loss, or too ignorant to implement erosion
prevention technologies.
However—unsurprisingly, really—when I began speaking with
small-scale farmers, they had a very different view of the situation. Many of
them did know about soil conservation
technologies, and used them. The real ‘beast’ was that the best land in many
parts of the Philippines is owned by large farming operations (for historical
and political reasons—a
long story I won’t go into here), so the poor farmers are
relegated to what is known as ‘marginal land’—steeply sloping, with relatively
thin, poor topsoil. Even their best efforts to conserve soil were often
ineffective for these reasons. The soil erosion researchers may have been
paying attention to the ear, or the tusk, but the farmers had a firm grip on
the elephant’s tail, so to speak. Any explanation of the erosion issue is
highly ineffective without a diversity of perspectives on the topic—especially the
farmers’ grasp on it.
Faculty in universities, being human like everyone else,
have to deal with the ‘blind men’ phenomenon. The position requires learning
about a wide variety of issues, and taking decisions on everything from research
priorities, curricula, funding, hiring, promotion and more. I argue that these
decisions are better decisions if those at the table have a diversity of
perspectives, derived from a diversity of upbringings, gender, ethnic
backgrounds, and worldviews. Interestingly, some have used a similar argument
in recent years to criticize the ‘groupthink’ that may emerge from an academe
that is more politically liberal than society at large. I’m
not going to wade into that snakepit here, [m1] but
it is something to consider. While the relative liberal bias of academia is hotly
debated, I don’t think anyone can contest that the upper ranks of academia are
overwhelmingly white and male—and perhaps prone to groupthink. Time to get some
different perspectives on the elephant up in here!
From the next post until the end of the year, I plan to
write about poverty, one of my areas of research. What does poverty have to do with
the over-arching theme of this blog (women in academia and modern family life)?
A lot, IMHO—stay tuned to find out.
