Reflections on the Human Condition - Api-fellowships.org

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of general comments were highlighted which were
relevant to all API Fellows. These relate to conceptual
problems; problem of methodology, data collection
and interpretation; the problem of research limitations;
the question of application; and finally, the question of
sustainability.
First, at the level of conceptualization, it was stressed that
a number of Fellows needed to pay more attention to
the issue of how they conceptualized their projects and
the problem they wanted to study so that they could be
more precise and clear. At the same time, comparisons
with other countries should not be mechanical; in fact,
comparisons without understanding the contexts of other
countries or experiences could pose serious problems.
We need to understand each others’ contextual history
and social change; otherwise we would become too
mechanical in our learning. As the emphasis in the API
Fellowship Program is unity of knowledge and action,
the question of commitment is very important. Are we
open and ready to share the vulnerabilities of the people
that we study? Are the people we study or visit ‘out
there’ or are they part of our public? These questions
should be part of the Fellows’ conceptualization.
Second, in terms of methodology, data collection and
interpretation, the Fellows should be as transparent
as possible regarding how they conducted their study
so that it would be easy to assess their reliability and
validity. For example, how was their data collected?
How reliable was it? The length of time an API Fellow
stayed in one place to collect data may not be adequate.
Hence, they must find appropriate ways and methods
to compensate for this. It is important to identify the
key informants in the locality because one does not
collect everything by oneself. It is also important for
the Fellows to get as much up-to-date material, so they
must pay serious attention to this. Also, when using
NGO reports, they need to know the background of the
NGOs and the researchers concerned, and must verify
the data and reports with other sources of information.
At the same time, they must be sharp and nuanced
when making interpretation of the data.
Third, caution was raised on the limitation of research.
It was pointed out that we should be careful not to
generalise especially when the sample of study is small.
Small sample size and qualitative approach are fine in
terms of providing insights and in-depth information
about the human problem, but their limitations must
be recognised. At the same time, we must be aware that
quantitative data does not always bring out the human
aspect of a problem unlike the case of small studies using
the qualitative approach. In short, the Fellows need to
Ref lections on the Human Condition: Change, Conflict and Modernity
The Work of the 2004/2005 API Fellows
work hard and smart, and must recognise the strength
and weaknesses of both approaches.
Fourth, application is very important as the principle
guiding all API Fellows is unity of knowledge and
action. This relates to the question of the transformative
potential of our work. Though this is the objective,
we must pose the question: How transferable are our
learning and lessons learnt? For example, we keep on
saying this is Indonesia, this is not Japan and therefore in
many ways we cannot replicate the Japanese experience
for Indonesia. But if this point is over-emphasized,
then there is the issue of whether there is anything that
we can learn from others. The point is we have to be
creative and understand the history and the context well
in order to draw appropriate lessons.
Fifth is the issue which is also related to application: viz.
the sustainability of our ideas and our remedies. Are the
ideas and the projects we have set up (for example, work
on pandemic diseases and the urban poor) are only as
good so long as we are there, and that once we no longer
bring the API as well as our own resources, will they die
a natural death like many other projects? In short, how
much empowerment has been done for the subjects we
worked with? Did we make efforts to institutionalize
the ideas and the practices which we proposed? Also,
there is the question of whether our remedies are for the
community, or for the individuals only.
One the whole, we must know our priority as well as
our shortcomings. While we have the idealism and our
work is useful, more thinking and planning must go into
it if we wanted to bring change. We cannot find readymade
answers but should engage in a dialogue process.
We should try to think beyond what has normally been
discussed to see what novel, and even, contrarian things
we can propose.