bulajourney

The rationale of the emic insider in research dynamics is far more romanticised than one often admits. As a non-Indigenous valedictorian of my USP undergraduate degree, I assumed I would be confident in presenting my findings, testing theories, and conceptualising ideas. Whoever framed positionality as merely an expression of personal worldview may have overlooked how difficult it is to actually inhabit and defend that position.

When I step back and reflect on my own experiences and biases, the fragility of social movements—often framed as forms of egalitarianism—sits uneasily alongside more thoughtful notions of democracy, economy and equity. It tightens something in me. I am, after all, the granddaughter of traders from India. And yes, Indians are everywhere. Yet my knowledge, values, and critical lens are shaped through a kind of on-and-off ritual: one that allows me to engage data empathetically, and then momentarily detach from my own identity.

Counter-capitalism, in the sociological tradition shaped by Marxist theorists, can feel like a kind of cargo cult, to borrow from Wallace (1956). And yet, invoking such authority feels like forcing something down my throat. At what level of authority does a trader’s granddaughter get to write about the lives of grassroots communities occupying land informally? Are they simply those who displace and evict? Or is that too easy a conclusion?

Were not social movements and everyday forms of resistance far more intimate—emerging from collective struggles toward sovereignty? Where beliefs are shaped by a quieter logic: if things work for me, perhaps they work for others too. I am not a saviour. I am a researcher trying to understand how to do things better, while negotiating my own layered identities. And in that process, I recognise that my own disillusionment resonates with that of others trying to find their place within broader bodies of knowledge.

This sense of disillusionment, in academia and writing, perhaps stems from the distance between deprivation and comfort. In the tension between the “haves” and the “have-nots,” migrants occupy a particularly fragile space, negotiating identity, security, and the long-term ability to assert belonging across generations.

So, Dr Who? — from a migrant PhD student — captures something of the strangeness of this journey. As though I am constantly being retrained, re-educated, and asked to begin again. I am neither on the inside nor outside.

Dr. Who? © 2026 by Chethna Ben is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0