Curiosity killed the Cat
I bet you’ve heard this warning more than once in your life, especially if you identify as a female. I will save my analysis of the problematic use of feline imagery for women another day.
Curiosity killed the cat means don’t be nosey, right? Don’t ask too many questions. Stay in your lane. Mind your own business. Accept what you’ve been told.
Curiosity seems like a pretty negative characteristic. That’s not the end of the story though. The full proverb reads, “Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.” Curiosity did not kill the cat after all. The Old French roots of the word “satisfaction” mean religious contrition whereas the modern English definition means fulfillment. If we go with the modern version, it’s possible that curiosity is the cat’s superpower! Maybe it’s because I’m writing this blog blurry eyed with jetlag, fueled by espresso, and energized with my own curiosity from a research trip that I’m head over heels with the modern interpretation of the rejoinder – satisfaction brought it back!
I spent the last two weeks in Croatia conducting my first round of interviews for a new research project on global women’s organizing. Five years ago I received a Fulbright Scholar Grant to teach Gender Studies at the University of Zadar located on the Dalmatian coast of Croatia, one of the countries that comprised the former Yugoslavia. In the years since I lived and worked in Croatia, my relationships with friends, colleagues, and activists deepened, which is why it was an easy decision for me to launch my research project in Zagreb, the Croatian capital and the hub of gender activism. My friends connected me with people I had yet to meet in person and with those whose work I’ve followed at a distance for years. My qualitative research project aims to investigate the ways that activists and organizers around the world living and working in diverse contexts strategize in their efforts to address gender inequities. This is not an investigation of trauma, violence, or war. While many of my interviewees have experience with trauma and violence due to the nature of their work, my focus is to learn from these experts about what works for them in their communities. Too often researchers exoticize the pain of their “subjects,” people they characterize primarily through the circumstances in which they live. The effects of this incurious methodological approach dehumanizes and reinforces dangerous assumptions. Only by talking with people, listening to their perspectives, and conveying their narratives with respect, accuracy, and attention to the researcher’s positionality can we engage in research that is born out of curiosity and yields revolutionary findings.
With conversations from my recent research trip to Croatia fresh on my mind, I find myself reflecting on the research of my doctoral mentor, Cynthia Enloe who writes about feminist curiosity. Her numerous publications include The Curious Feminist: Searching for Women in a New Age of Empire (2005) and one of the most influential texts on my understanding about gender and militarization, Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives (2000). Enloe encourages her readers to ask the question “where are the women?” to which I follow up with the question, “which women?” Women and men are not homogenous groups. We need to know exactly who we’re talking about when we engage in gender-based research. Attempting to answer these two questions increases curiosity about the intersections of women’s lives, yielding new information about power and prompting us to look at familiar contexts with a new lens, a gender lens. When I tap into my own curiosity, I ask questions about causality such as: What is the history behind the patterns we notice? What structures encourage and support that positioning? Who benefits from the existing power dynamic? Whose experiences do we discuss and whose experiences do we erase? Where are the silences? What does gender have to do with that vacuum? How do we know? What’s the evidence? What’s different for me now that I’ve uncovered this information?
As a global gender scholar, curiosity reminds me to reimagine notions of expertise and to challenge traditional knowledge production by seeking new sources of information. In other words, notice which voices have been absent from the conversation and become curious about those missing perspectives. Wonder about the lives of these underrepresented experts. Observe when I place myself and my experience at the center of the questions. Dislocate the dominant narrative in an effort to engage with other perspectives.
Here are some of the lessons I’ve learned on my journey to become a curious researcher:
Curiosity disrupts judgment and othering.
Curiosity enhances learning.
Curiosity creates inroads for community building.
Curiosity dampens the effects of fear.
Curiosity motivates us to persist when we feel discouraged.
Curiosity ushers in humility by reminding us how much there is to learn.
Curiosity requires that I show up with authenticity and courage in my relationships.
My curiosity also encourages me to ask about the ways that women around the world address sexism and gender-based discrimination. You see, I often think that I need to reinvent the wheel when confronted with gender-based discrimination and that feels huge and paralyzing. Curiosity reminds me to build upon what’s already working. But, in order to do that, I need to suspend my judgment, listen, and learn.
On this dark, chilly Chicago morning as I pause before tuning into the early morning news, I’m compelled to lean into my curiosity. Actually, I cling to it because curiosity is the superpower that bridges political polarization, fosters partnerships across all sorts of difference, and brings me back to life this morning.