Things I've learned about field research

About half-way into my time in India, I feel like I am making pretty good progress on my research. To estimate, I'd say I'm about 50% done with my field research (interviews with scientists, farmers, policy-makers) and maybe 50% or slightly less done with my historical research (part of that is because I plan on continuing my archival research back in the US, but also I feel accomplished because I've collected a lot of documents from the archives and online so far).

Since I'm thinking in numbers, something that keeps popping up in my head lately is that I feel like my research is maybe 80-90% "good," if that makes sense. The missing 10-20% is due to mistakes on my part-- including lack of preparation, forgetfulness, oversights, etc.-- and uncontrollable factors-- barriers to fieldwork, data, etc. I think part of writing my dissertation will be carefully screening for these errors and missteps and taking them into account.

I've been deeply engaged in my fieldwork for about a solid month now, and if I could go back in time and warn myself/congratulate myself, here's what I would say:

-Narrow your research question down. Cannot stress this enough.

-Have a good local institutional contact. Meet them before deciding for sure. You may be desperate, but don't settle for things like people not responding to your emails in a timely fashion. (In my case, things have worked out very well with my host institution.)

-Prepare as much as possible before going to your fieldsite. Test your interview questions, have them translated, know what sources you're looking for. Anticipate what types of analysis you will do and how your methods will answer your questions and be amenable to analysis.

-Understand some of the local cultural context, especially with regards to interpersonal communication.

-Have a very specific set of requirements for what you want to accomplish during your fieldwork; one that you can communicate with others. In my case, this means clarifying: what type of scientists I want to talk to; what exact books/reports I'm looking for; how many farmers I want to talk to; etc. People cannot psychic-ly know what you need. Be open to suggestions and negotiations with your local hosts, but firm about why you want to do certain things.

-Related, don't be afraid to ask for things. Things which I've had to ask for, which seem stupid to me but otherwise I would have no other way of getting, and eventually I have mostly gotten over the awkwardness: bottled water, please make the food less spicy, please no more aloo parathas for breakfast, hygiene products, money, etc. Relevant article about asking for things and being an introvert.

-Make a budget. Try your darndest to get someone else to pay for it.

-Take notes, edit notes, back-up notes, read notes often.

-Network. Don't be afraid to talk to people. Talk to the big-wigs. Talk to the maid.

-Be patient! Be flexible. Take what you perceive as set-backs in stride. Have faith in people who are helping you. Do not lose your calm.

I'm sure I have many more lessons left to learn! Also if anyone reading this has any agricultural research/India specific questions about fieldwork preparation, I have a whole host of answers. Rule number one being: bring your own toilet paper, a hat, and bug spray.

When housewives and food policy get mixed up

Oh my god you guys, what did I just read? I'll tell you: a New York Times article about how women doing less housework leads to obesity. Really??? Really.

First, let's ignore that the study the article cites, published in PLOS ONE, is based on research funded by the Coca-Cola company. Let's also ignore this entire article in the Sunday Times, a adaptation from the new book “Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us," which completely explains why a soda company might be interested in, say, shifting the blame for obesity from soda and junk food to an easy target: women's declining caloric expenditures in housework and increased participation in the workplace. And let's also ignore other research that shows that even though women's heavy labor and drudgery of the "golden years" have decreased, there are now increased expectations and societal norms about keeping a spotless house and the perfect body.

I suspect some bunkery. I don't disagree that lifestyle changes have an impact on our overall health; but what I do question is the reductionist connections between housework, energy expenditures, and obesity. But as someone who keeps up with the food policy literature, it seems to me that the overall "food environment" plays more of a role in obesity. Consider what might have been on the shelves of a 1960s housewife: probably a lot of ingredients, some pre-packaged mixes, etc., but certainly less snack foods than you might find in a modern home. Also consider: the study finds that a modern working woman burns 132 kcal less each day than a 1960s housewife. Certainly, a decrease in caloric expenditure can add up and result in weight gain if you keep all other factors constant. But do you think it even compares to the impact of snacking at work; office birthday cakes; Starbucks; and the ever-increasing medley of high-calorie snacks that are marketed towards exactly this segment of the working population?

This article troubles me for two main reasons: 1) the implicit value-judgement that women's increased participation in the workforce is responsible for an increase in obesity, and 2) the corporate incentive to deflect critiques away from high-calorie sodas and snacks and onto other issues, such as decrease in physical activity or framing obesity as an issue of  "self control" and individual responsibility. Or in this case, the not-so-hidden message that if women got back in the kitchen, we'd all be healthy and happy like in the good-ol-days.

Fieldwork in Bihar, once again

I spent the past 9 days in the state of Bihar to complete the first leg of my fieldwork in India. Now, I'm doing what I would call "fieldwork-lite (TM)," i.e. I am by no means calling my work ethnography or anthropology. But, a more positive way to put it is that I'm getting a "snapshot" perspective of different actors in India's agricultural research system. So I spent the week divided up into visiting Bioversity's field sites (first 2 days; more about their field trials here from my previous visit); interviewing agricultural scientists from the regional research station and university; visiting CIMMYT's field trials for climate adaptation; interviewing farmers; and, in a true act of participatory research, drinking beer and arguing about science with agricultural scientists. So all in all I was very pleased with the progress I have made this week, and I had a good time and some wonderful hosts at the guesthouse I stayed at. It was a nice change to be able to walk outside and smell things growing, rather than things decaying.

I don't really want to say too much about my interviews because they are confidential, but what I will say is that I think the scientist interviews went well; I learned a lot, and I think I have some good qualitative data that I can draw from for my analysis. I got a diversity of opinions and hit on some "controversial" topics, which to a social scientist is always fun. The farmer interviews were more challenging, for a variety of reasons, but I'm still glad that I did them. It was especially interesting to me that the farmers who I interviewed were pretty marginal-- they were growing fairly old seeds that were released in say 1977 or 1995 (but still modern varieties)-- and they had no contact with agricultural extension. I read this article today and I would say it definitely applies; they don't have access to any scientific consultants and are extremely resource-poor. Although they have grown the Green Revolution wheats, they adopt only parts of the technology packages.

This week and next I plan on clocking some time in the library so that I can start to get more serious about my historical work. Although the interviews are important, I think that the majority of my data will come from my archival sources. I have a lot of ideas brewing, but I will need something solid to base my research on.

Drinking the Kool-Aid while attempting to be an unbiased researcher

I realized today that I’ve spend the past week and a half drinking the Bioversity Kool-Aid; meaning that I’ve been surrounded by great ideas like “custodian farmers”; researchers who are really interested in “farmer first” technologies, networks, and access to resources; and in the past few days, getting a chance to talk to farmers who are involved in Bioversity’s projects here in India. Which is all great, especially considering that Bioversity’s mission aligns with my own ideological commitments. But this is something my academic committee has pushed me to think about: how will I deal with my own pro-farmer, pro-local biases when conducting my research?

One of the things I’m studying is the difference between/evolution of the scientific paradigms of “wide adaptation of crops/top-down technology transfer” and “location-specific adaptation/participatory research.” The first approach is dominant in the state-run agricultural organizations; the second (I’m hypothesizing) is more likely to crop up among NGOs and individual researchers. But, is one approach necessarily “better”? My own bias pushes me towards thinking the second approach is better, because it takes into account the local socio-economic as well as environmental conditions of farmers. But from an innovation systems perspective, we probably need some combination of both approaches. The first approach works well for large farmers on productive lands; the second works better for marginal farmers/areas. I think if I’m able to take a more even-handed (or “academically agnostic”) approach to my research, my scholarship will be better. One step I can take to reduce my bias is to be very careful in my interviews, and to carefully consider what my respondents say. In my historical research, I think the best strategy for now is just to document all relevant material, and then sort out my theoretical argument later.

Theoretically, I find the correlation of the “wide adaptation/top-down” approach with a socialized political system extremely interesting. This would require me digging into more political science than I currently have under my belt, but I think it would be really interesting to compare 20^th century agricultural development in the US, Soviet Russia, and India. For example, what was the political context; proportion of public vs. private research investment; scientific paradigms; and ultimately the success of agricultural technologies in each of these nation-states during critical periods of agricultural development? Maybe I can find someone already working on this stuff and collaborate…

In other news, baby goats are the cutest things ever and I want one!