A tale of two tables
Within the span of an hour this afternoon, I found myself sitting across two very different tables. The first was at the county jail. I was conducting a follow-up interview for the research project I'm working on. Surrounded by concrete walls with security doors buzzing and slamming in the background, I listened for 45 minutes while a young man described his nine days of freedom in-between lock-ups. As we parted through separate security doors he said, "So I won't ever see you again?" and I said, "No, I don't think so," followed by a reiteration of the study's location within the U should he want to contact us with any questions. We shook hands.
After paying a ridiculous $15 for 45 minutes worth of parking downtown, I whisked myself back to the U for my Friday afternoon seminar on the life course and found myself siting across a very different table from nine other highly educated people surrounded by a great view of the city through large windows. Funny enough, the topic was intra-societal variation in the life course featuring readings about the very social structures and circumstances from whence my research participant hails. Though I'm always at least somewhat aware of the distance between myself and those I "study," the chasm felt especially wide this afternoon. Perhaps the two tables made it all the more clear.
If nothing else, the experience renewed my resolve to always remember the humanity of those I study. They aren't abstract concepts to be operationalized and fitted into regression models. They live and breathe and suffer and rejoice all the while I read and write and do this academic thing and tell myself that maybe what I do might be of some benefit to them...somehow.