PTSD

Deconstructing a lunch

No, no, this is nothing like one of those Peter Greenaway films. Really. It's more of an overview of a lunch I was at today. But let me start at the beginning, which is where all good stories start. Nicking the format from E again, I'll go chronologically

About three weeks ago:
Am asked to a lunch where there'll be heaps of TUWSNBN bigshots. I accept and then promptly forget about it.

Mid last week:
Arrangement of lift to get to lunch place.
Me: slight feeling of apprehension considering my inarticulateness in public situations. Wonder if any other postgrads are going to be about so I can hide in a crowd.

Yesterday: full-blown panic
What does one wear to these things? Jeans? Should I dust off skirts? And, I was asked to "bring nothing". Does that really mean nothing? Back home, people tell you what to bring (for some reason, fruit is popular. Visitors used to bring us mangoes when I was growing up. I've no idea why). In Australia, you'd better turn up with alcohol. The door would most likely be barred if you showed up empty-handed. As a poverty-stricken postgrad, I decided not to take anything.

Today:
Person giving me a lift is late. I wonder if that means I don't have to go. Wonder if it's too late to try find the one proper pair of shoes I have. Wonder if I should make sure my newly-shorn hair would behave by chucking gloop at it. Remind myself of E's advice to ask people what their research is on. That way, there'd be fewer silences. Hopefully.

The actual lunch:
Turned out to be fantastic. Yes, I realise one of these days yous are going to think: Oh, she panics before conferences, before visits to professors, before lunches and then...voila (well, you probably won't think "voila" unless you are thinking in rather pretentious French but you get what I mean)...all turns out well. Umm...well, it did. It was a great spread. I stuffed myself. The people were fantastic though there was only one other postgrad. Well, one bigshot didn't recognise me at first but that's usual. No one recognises me at TUWSNBN.

A rather odd moment occurred when a person asked me who my father was. I was rather surprised. Did they know my father (unlikely since he's a farmer in one of the smallest countries in the world)? I had a slight Gosford Park/Star Wars moment (Get that image of "Priya...I am your father" out of your minds right now, please) and am still not sure what that question was about. But, yes, the food was yummy, and the people were unfailingly kind and interested in what I was working on and had some suggestions as to what to do. Oh, and I met people who were in Paris during the 1968 riots and also one who'd studied with Big F. Very cool.

But, as is usually the case with my stories, there was a fly in the ointment (I think I'm laying on the cliches in this week's posts). I realised that while Big F's student immediately got "I'm doing social construction of terrorism, looking at terrorist groups in Nepal and Northern Ireland" (the comment was: Good, you've got your theoretical outlook and your comparative approach down). Others weren't as keen. One critique was "Well, I think your project is flawed since Maoists aren't terrorists so you can't compare them with the IRA". I think I did a fairly good job (considering this was Sunday lunch and, really, one can't be expected to talk shop at Sunday lunch!) of explaining that I wasn't particularly interested in whether they WERE actual, proper terrorists (who run around with big Ts on their foreheads) but more about how they are represented and also how they themselves describe themselves and others. It didn't go down too well though and we kept going back to the whole "but the IRA WERE terrorists. Maoists are just poor people who are oppressed".

I guess my thing here is (and I don't even know why I'm posting this since I'm sure msot of yous aren't much bothered): how come people just "know" things? That's not proper research. While there's no way my research will tell yous whether the IRA were terrorists and the Maoists aren't, it will show you (assuming you read it. Yous should, since my writing, unlike Zizek's, is very accessible) how these groups have been framed as terrorists, what that says about the construction of threats in the international system and how the IRA and the Maoists themselves describe threats. Just "knowing" is not enough.

If this is the future, there must be a way of expressing what I mean since it seems like I was writing this same post (well, not the same obviously but a version thereof) from Denmark months back.

I still can't get over meeting people who were in Paris in 1968. Actually there. And the person who studied with Big F. It doesn't compare to meeting him though.

posted by Priya @ 5:19 PM