Thursday, October 14, 2010: University Formalities



After we had been welcomed and given a chance to interact with the communication students at Gurjarat University we were led to the main university building to meet the administrators. We were once again welcomed as honoured guests, although the atmosphere was far more formal than our earlier welcome ceremony had been. In contrast with the interest and curiosity exhibited by the Gurjarat University students who had crowded around us when we first arrived on campus, this ceremony was conducted with an air of detached interest, as though the welcome ritual was being performed out of necessity rather than a sense of genuine curiosity about who we are.

The meeting with the administrative staff of Gurjarat University provided me with my first look into the nature of hierarchical power relations within university culture in India. The extremely cold air conditioning in the room spoke to the importance of those who used it for their meetings. We were also provided with ice cream and cold bottled water, luxuries (like the air conditioning) that were not available in the Communications classroom where we received our initial reception. The chair used by the department head was considerably taller than the others, providing a visible reminder of his power and status compared with everyone else at the table. Behaviour also appeared to be affected by this highly formalized system of power relations. When one staff member began to monopolize the microphone, other staff members gave him increasingly less subtle cues that he should share the floor with his (hierarchically superior) colleagues.

The formalized and ritualized nature of this setting pushed me outside of my comfort zone. Much of my discomfort came from the very clear realization that I was in a space which was governed by complex rituals of power, status, and behaviour that I knew absolutely nothing about. To date, my interactions with Indians had been predominantly from the position of a white, privileged traveller. While I was not exactly comfortable with my position in these interactions, I had begun to grasp the social rules, norms, and cultural cues which underscored interactions of this nature. The formalized interactions that occurred in the conference room at Gurjarat University were so beyond me that I felt completely unable to participate effectively, a feeling which made me nervous, anxious, and uncomfortable, and left me struggling to define my role within the context of this new and unfamiliar environment. I don’t believe that I experienced much success in this regard, but the nature of my profound discomfort forced me to look more closely for cultural and behavioural clues than I might have otherwise, and provided me with valuable observations of power relations within a formalized university setting in India.