Herbert Gayle: Facing down danger to study violence
HE’S been shot at by police, had guns pulled on him by gangsters and been made to ‘kiss’ a concrete pavement. Yet, there are few things as precious to Dr Herbert Gayle as his work as an anthropologist of social violence.
“The anthropology of social violence is an examination of violence through a close relationship with the participants… It means living with and/or having a friendly relationship with the perpetrators of violence, who can turn around and harm you,” Gayle told Career & Education.
“The focus is on the actor, on why he did it (the violent act) and how we can stop him and other persons from committing that kind of crime,” added the man, who has done 44 pieces of research, 25 of them on violence — and all of which have taken him to Europe, the US, Central America, and across the Caribbean.
He is the first to admit to the perils of his work as a researcher. They have been evident, almost from day one, as he tells it.
“The second major study (I did) would have been 1994 — the socialisation project under Professor Barry Chevannes. I was walking on an empty road (in a community we were studying) and getting concerned as to why the road was so empty. I did not have the Kingston common sense to know that you shouldn’t be taking the time to be concerned, you should be disappearing off the road too,” said the Westmoreland native.
“Somebody just stay over a yard and seh ‘yuh a idiot? Wha yuh a duh pon the road?’ (It was then I noticed) there was a vehicle down at the end of the lane with guns mounted. But he (the voice from behind the fence) was already on the road and helping me over the fence. When he came out (to help), the gate lock back, so he literally threw me over the fence, jumped over after me, and used his body to shield me,” added Gayle, who also lectures at the University of the West Indies (UWI).
Later, when he asked the young man why he had helped him, the youth responded: ‘Boy, yuh come from UWI so your life is more valuable than mine.’
“Right there I decided I wanted to study violence. In fact, I told Professor Chevannes that somebody has to study this group of people to be able to understand why it is that he, from life experiences, would suggest that as a UWI student, my life was worth more than his,” said Gayle, 44, and a married father of two.
The opportunity to make good on his decision soon came.
“In 2000, some Scotland Yard people came to have a meeting with the Faculty of Social Sciences (at the UWI). They pointed out that Scotland Yard did not have the answers for why Jamaicans, as a single group, accounted for more gun violence than any other ethnic group in London. Between 1993 and 1999, black shooting victims accounted for 56 per cent of all firearm victims while accounting for only 7.5 per cent of the Metropolitan Police Service population (London). Jamaicans were among the primary suspects of these firearm homicides,” Gayle recalls.
“The three boroughs with the high Jamaican presence at the time — Lambeth, Brent and Hackney — accounted for 37 per cent of all firearm homicides at the time and there are 33 boroughs in London. So Scotland Yard wanted to know why Jamaicans would be so peculiar and they didn’t have the answer. They were asking whether or not we could provide the answer. Professor Chevannes looked at me and said, ‘well, there is your PhD,” he added.
And so he went to the University of Wales, Swansea, with the subject of his Master of Philosophy paper “Urban poverty and violence: a study of selected inner-city communities in Jamaica and Britain”.
“The idea was to study two low-violence communities and two high-violence communities and see the differences between them to determine how it is that some could be low-violence and others high-violence though they are all poor,” explained Gayle.
That work fed into his PhD, which saw him engaged in some eight years of fieldwork in Jamaica and the UK, and classroom studies at the University of London from where he earned his doctorate.
He shared with Career & Education some of the ‘scrapes’ in which he found himself during and since that time.
“I had a case where a group of police officers stormed a community I was in with the group in which I was located. I had to run with everybody else and eventually had to kick off a door and jump into bed with the people who were ‘making out’ at the time. I had to pay for the door, too, the following day,” he said, chuckling at the memory.
“My worse situation, though, was in Britain when the police slammed me against the concrete pavement. I had heard the sirens and was wondering who they were looking for. I took out my notebook to document what was happening and I was one of the persons they were rounding up,” Gayle added, noting that he injured his mouth as he made contact with the pavement.
He was later released after establishing that he was a researcher.
At the same time, he said, gang members have pulled guns on him “but then they realised (it was me) and apologised”.
Despite the danger he has had to face, Gayle insists that being an anthropologist of social violence is his life’s work, the thing he was called to do. Besides, he said there are steps one can take to help safeguard one’s security.
The first order of business is to get clearance from the man in charge of any group/community one intends to study.
“I start from the top since once the top says you are safe, the members know you are safe. So always make sure that the boss knows what you are about,” Gayle said. “When I am working in certain areas, I (also) normally inform the police I am working there, and I inform the gangs that I have informed the police so nobody has any shock. People hurt you when they are frightened.”
Showing people respect, he noted, is especially important — as is training in sensing danger.
“Detecting danger is not just about common sense. There are actually specific things to look for. For example, if a group of persons are walking towards you, it is important to know who is armed and (gauge) their intent from their faces,” Gayle said.
And finally, he said, stay focused on the task at hand: collecting data with a view to understanding and thereby preventing violence.
Anthropologists of social violence — and in particular those individuals overseas with extensive published research — can make up to US$100,000 per annum, and between US$1,000 and US$5,000 for small consultancies.
Still, Gayle said the potential earnings did not in anyway justify the risks involved. The justification, he said, is the information gleaned to help arrest the problem of crime and violence in communities.
He has urged anyone with an interest in the field to be clear on what the challenges are, while recognising that the academic requirements are expensive and time-consuming.
“I always tell people, ‘don’t get emotional and want to become me overnight. This is me after 44 major studies, 25 of them focused on violence. You (probably) won’t want to be here after five studies… I think (the cricketer Courtney) Walsh said it best; he said everybody wants his records but nobody wants his ducks,” Gayle said. “My (PhD) training took eight years. There is also the cost factor; I studied at the University of London (where) a PhD like this would run you quarter of a million US for tuition and living expenses. I lived on scholarships and worked and studied and everything.”
Nevertheless, Gayle said it is a field that needs more people.
“It is an urgently needed field. I would be happy to see half a dozen more persons in Jamaica take the study of social violence more seriously and get involved… If we are going to bring this thing (crime and violence) down, we are going to need the expertise,” he said.
