Incredibly bizarre

I've been avoiding reading blogs, not checked my google reader, and sort of blissfully checked out of the internet as much as is humanly possible (while still being lured back by facebook, damn them). I found a personal essay on Plan B, aka the "morning after pill," and was eager to read the personal account. I'm not entirely sure if I should recommend it -- as the author ultimately seems conflicted about her choices and believes that the conservative anti-Plan B opinion that its borderline similarity with abortion, "Here you actually have the potentiality for a pregnancy," is a logical position.

When conservatives try to avoid condemning hormonal birth control outright, they argue that it does not have the "potentiality" for pregnancy, which makes absolutely no sense at all. It would seem that by taking hormonal contraceptives, one is exposing oneself to much higher rates of "potentiality," even though the body is not physically capable of becoming pregnant (except when the hormonal contraception fails or the user fails to take it properly, neither of which is a condemnation of the user or the object, but simply a point to keep in mind). Hormonal contraception does in fact lead, I believe, to many acts of potential pregnancies (assuming one is taking it to contracept and not for other purposes)...maybe that can be my tagline, should I ever really finally work in sexual health research for real. "Hormonal contraception leads to acts of potential pregnancy." If everyone else can play fast and loose with semantics, I don't see why I shouldn't.

But...trying not to become a totally tangential poster, given that I post so rarely, I think the Plan B article is worth reading. If for no other reason than hearing someone's experience with acquiring it before it was available over the counter is pretty powerful. I find it odd that it's framed as a "fateful moment when she [the author] made the choice," but I am pleased that there is a firsthand account of the experience, which I've rarely read anything about. I think Plan B is still not available everywhere without a prescription. It's state-by-state, but I know that Planned Parenthood has a campaign to allow you to call them and get a doctor to prescribe it without an office visit. The difficulty in getting contraception (more generally) in this country is really damn disturbing and the ways in which access to it has gotten tied up in other aspects of gynecological care makes me crazy.

Letting go of larger aspirations

I've realized, as I write the grant proposals, re-hashing what I'm going to do, and as I start the outlining of the thesis itself, that I need to let go of the sense that I am having an impact on the world. A friend whom I haven't seen in a while told me about her research project. And while I found her work interesting and unusual, I wasn't sure...why it matters. I know there have been moments when I've realized that dissertations are about rites of passage, proof of diligence and dedication. But somehow, I get stuck in my work when I ask the question -- "who cares?" The fact that my dissertation topic has some applied, real-world relevance has been a source of pride. I think it has also been a form of arrogance, assuming that my work was more "real" than some of my peers' work. I simply need to prove that it matters to me, and that I've satisfied that criterion with rigorous research.

The problem with that, however, is that it makes it much harder to complete. If I know why it matters to me, why should I care what others think? I'm not sure if this is a defeatist attitude, a lazy attitude, or (again) an arrogant attitude. I need someone to tell me why I should bother.

I just can't stand it anymore

I have never catalogued how many versions of writing I have produced on my research topic. You would think that after writing grants and exams and half-assed papers on the subject, that I would have a clear and coherent way to convey my ideas. No. No, I continue to write in belabored circles. I know that there is a way into this that I can't quite find, yet. But time is pressing on me to figure that the fuck out. Seriously, I've been writing something about this at some point or another for almost 3 years. THREE YEARS.

I'm trying to pull together a grant that I sort of forgot was due on Monday. It's only for $3000, and yet, I need a) prestige and b) whatever dribs and drabs I can find. Especially since it's one of two grants for which I'm eligible. It's producing huge amounts of anxiety. I'm staying in on a Friday with the grand assumption that I will accomplish this statement of project in a coherent manner. I'm just not adept at sustained writing. I find it miserable and unpleasant. I was telling someone the other night that I prefer lectures -- I like the rough draft and no edits. I prefer the kamikaze approach to intellectual development. Throw oneself out of the plane and figure out if there's a parachute. Hence further evidence that I ought to be a pundit. I could do the on-the-spot talking points so damn well. Measured, diligent academic endeavors make me so unhappy. Besides, we live in a time of sound-bites. Why should I be methodical?

Outlining

I have created a plausible outline for the monstrosity. Obviously, it's a first stab at the thing. But I'm sort of excited that I am exploring shapes of the future. After meeting with 5 professors a couple of weeks ago, I'm finally finding time to sit down to think about what they said. 5 different ideas, 5 different approaches to the behemoth, 5 different attitudes about the whole process. I can't say that any of them were particularly revelatory. It seems the hard part is really up to me (which is not what I wanted to hear). The problem is that when it comes to the methodicalness, I'm damn lazy. I like the abstractions, but I have to confront that as an anthropologist, I'm expected to create a thingy that is grounded in people. I have been struggling with this problem a lot. I think my interpretations are very empirically-based, but I find the individuals' interpretations of the phenomenon a little boring. It just seems that what people (mis)understand only points to my main argument again and again. And as I've been trying to acknowledge lately is that the stuff I'm passionate about is not necessarily the concrete stuff I've been studying.

Circularity and circularness. And I get so distracted so easily. I currently have 2 other projects (both of which I feel ambivalent about my involvement, and yet which require me to complete them in some way or another), 2 grant proposals, and then all the personal projects that have nothing to do with academia, filthy lucre, or fantasies of renown. I really yearn for the mundane lately. Things that don't seem weighty. Or at least sort of weighty, yet not persuading me fully of their weightyness.

Too controversial

I haphazardly pulled together a syllabus yesterday during jury duty (after an intensive phase of napping while waiting for the judge to return to her courtroom...it's like I'm geriatric). My ex-advisor, whom I have no qualms about using when the moment suits to help me pull in grants, has been encouraging me to apply for a university teaching fellowship. While the money would be nice, being in Baltimore next year is not in the game plan. Yet I apparently suffer from a deep inability to resist potential income streams, even when they are not in my best interest. I figure I can always turn down the offer.

I presented to this ex-advisor the syllabus, and she immediately lighted upon the first sentence describing the central point of inquiry: most people in the U.S. spend more time in their lives contracepting than reproducing. She immediately told me that the first sentence was too political and would upset the committee. Basically, I was going to alert the old white men at the institution to my renegade intentions and freak them out. As she read through subsequent parts of the course description, she whittled away at all potentially "radical" concepts. She urged me to make this more of an overview of reproductive health anthropology, rather than my more interesting approach. I want to spend a lot of time showing how the focus on reproduction is naive, and that we need to integrate theories of sexuality and recognize sexual health more holistically in medical discourses. If she takes that away from it, it becomes an insanely boring class.

I know that her impulse was less about quashing me, and more about helping me to make a politic and compelling proposal, but this is exactly what I hate about the academic world. It is not really all that open to ideas, and certainly not at this university. I like to think that my more innovative stuff is what will make me a good instructor, but not if I can't engage with it. On the flipside, perhaps the lesson is that one needs to present a conformist front and then fuck shit up when you get the bodies in the class. Perhaps deviance is the answer.

David Simon comments further on "The Wire"

Really, I am going back to my work imminently. I thought this post-production reflection on the interpretation of "The Wire" in the US and the UK good to read. Simon acknowledges the limitations of the show (gender issues, immigration, etc), but he also points out why the stories they told were important to represent.

I received an email from someone who has lived most of his life in the Baltimore area (though grew up outside the city), and it disturbed me how pessimistic and critical he was of the state of the city. Ironically, there was a time when I offered similar critiques, and he vociferously defended the city. What upset me most about this person's critique was that it felt so hateful. My past critiques of Baltimore have always felt deeply emotional and sad, but this person just sounded bitter. In contrast, Simon does acknowledge that things in the city don't change, even as there are public claims to decreased crime and mayors become governors, but he also pushes the problem a little further and tries to unpack the complexity of the city's dynamic.

Unlike the email I received in which the final position was ultimately, "fuck Baltimore," Simon actually seems concerned with both the global and local challenges of Baltimore. What I found so compelling about the show was that as the seasons developed, it was clear that what happens in the streets branches back to those who live in the plush neighborhoods of Roland Park or Guilford. And I guess I see public health and public policies so often concentrating on the individual actors who are caught up in structural phenomena that are far more intricate than just "getting people off the streets".

Perhaps when I'm not thinking so chaotically, I'll write about this more, as it merits more discussion than a lazy nod to its link.

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oh, but WTF, at the bottom of the page of the article, there's a slideshow of "Snoop" and "Marlo" modelling "cutting edge" fashion...um, not that (fictional) gangsters shouldn't be dapper, but there is something super-contradictory to have Simon's political economy critique coupled with high-end fashion and consumerism.

Proving everything worth thinking has already been thunk

I've cut back on my google reader reading. I've stopped keeping up with many of the academic blogs and the world of politics, etc, etc. But, I glanced at my feed for Savage Minds, which always explores critical topics in contemporary anthropology, and of course, they've provided a snippet of the same problem I discussed below, negotiating being a public anthropologist. I agree with the commentator, however, that their link to the Australian sex anthropologist might not be worth the click. Though maybe my suspicion of her work is just the uninteresting latent jealousy, though I don't think so.

Ethical quandries

One of the organizations I tried to do fieldwork with asked me to write a little blurb for the powerpoint presentation I did for them. As I started to write the blurb, and as I realized I was going to attend their annual conference to present the powerpoint materials, I was reminded of why my fieldwork didn't work out with them.

I wasn't able to do fieldwork with them because they kept wanting me to produce materials, and ultimately, I found that I didn't completely support their mission. They are very pro-vaccine, and they have explicitly acknowledged that there are compromises in getting their message out. Though they are not necessarily big pharma supporters, per se, they have accepted funding from the manufacturers of the vaccine. This uneasy alliance has been a major obstacle in my fieldwork, as I kept trying to dodge the inevitable overlap between the advocacy work and the corporate machine. Advocacy is a loaded term, as much shaped by corporate interests, government biases, and misinformation, as anything else. Health research and innovation in the U.S. are always messily entangled, and I don't know how well I've avoided being implicated. My work with the public health department, the CDC, and this nonprofit has put me in the position of supporting something that I have huge reservations about. As a researcher, participation has allowed me access to information and processes that I could only speculate about if I hadn't been involved. But how do I now sit down to write when I want to criticize the production of knowledge that I have also created. I am not immune from these very critiques (yes...bad pun).

So as I start to confront the monstrosity that is the dissertation, I also want to figure out how to make cogent arguments that don't make me feel like a huge hypocrite. The problem I've had with this project all along is that I seem to be an eternal relativist. Every position I try to stake out seems rife with contingencies. Everything seems to have a "yes, but..." component, and it exhausts me. Is this a form of insecurity? Or is this just a general uneasiness with commitment and claiming a position? My recommendations, when I dare formulate them, always come back to the concern with what precedes the vaccine -- what does not change, what remains the same, and how problematic all that earlier stuff is. It's as though I cut myself off before I can begin, but it also prevents me from moving forward. Strangely, however, the very argument I want to make is all about pre-emption and disruption. It's as though the very concept I'm trying to work out is haunting my thinking and writing. Or maybe it's just all a complicated distraction that I'm creating to avoid the daunting task.

Watered down, re-framed, and re-positioned

I'm working through my "rebuttal" to the IRB people, and it's kind of forcing me to confront some of my major methodological inadequacies. The easy solution is to blame my training -- for which I do believe some blame can be distributed. My department does not provide a particularly rigorous methods course, and when I try to work in the public health domain, I find that I have to constantly justify every method, every methodological approach, and the scientific rigor of the method. It's exhausting and deeply frustrating. Part of it is that it reveals my scholarly limitations, and I hate having to defend every research decision I make. I know that this is part of the road of academia, but have I mentioned I really hate it?

One of the least favorite parts is the demand to have lots and lots of references. I do understand why others' published work on something can help to demonstrate the reproducibility of the research methods, but it's particularly weird when the request for references demands evidence for the success of a very classic ethnographic technique -- such as observations. Casting around for the right bibliography is sort of impossible. Much of the ethnographies that I've read, the anthropology style ones, anyway, don't itemize their methods in great detail, and most anthropologists expect that we've already moved beyond needing to prove our more common methods to be legitimate.

I know, I know, I often proclaim my undying enthusiasm for explaining complicated concepts to those who may not be familiar with them (though this blog suggests that I am also terribly lazy when it comes to doing that, as well). But there is something different -- perhaps even haughty -- about scientists' skepticism that my research design is sound. Even better is when the very limitations and restrictions imposed by the higher-ups then proceed to cause problems with the research execution; yet, I'm required to justify decisions that had to be made given the confines of the project itself. It's all very circular and highly irritating. But, on the upside, it has forced methodological reflection. Not only in me, but in one of the beloved fellow "qual" researchers. I'm trying to see this like exercise -- often unfun in the moment but full of longterm benefits. Wheee.

Disengagement

I realized today that since I've moved, I've been so much less attentive. Technically, I'm not living in the field anymore, and so I get to relax and just live. In spite of this, I realized that the logistics and organizing that come out of moving have consumed me for the last few months, such that I don't even have the energy to notice things. I'm used to being in the world and constantly noticing and thinking about the social interactions I see around me. I'm used to observing people who pass by me, theorizing and noting and filing away for later information about their behaviors and their conversations. I haven't been doing much of any of that lately.

This afternoon, after a surprisingly positive medical exam, I decided to eat ice cream and sit in the park. Though my life is not particularly demanding (most of the time), it has felt so hectic lately. New jobs, new plans, travelling, blah blah blah. It suddenly seemed incredibly delightful to take an hour or so just to sit and think. I haven't made time for that at all, or if I have, it's usually been highly emotional and not super relaxing.

As I walked to the park, thinking about how pleased I was with a potentially very upsetting medical experience, I realized that perhaps this blog no longer serves the purpose for which I intended it. I'm highly ambivalent about fieldwork these days. I'm highly ambivalent about being a formalized anthropologist. I'm highly ambivalent about navigating between the personal and the professional in this space. I'm conflicted about participating in the blogosphere (or whatever it's being called these days), as I'm not terribly fond of reading online right now. How can I possibly expect my miniscule audience to also read online, when I find the act so distasteful? Further, I find my writing (cf. this very post) irritatingly self-referential. I'm in limbo, academically, trying to wind down the data collection, but not being able to do so completely; at the same time, I'm not willing to say that "I am now writing my dissertation" with full conviction. I'm hitting the point, with this space, that I hit every time I sit down to try to write more generally, where writing itself becomes belabored and unnatural. And I don't want to edit or revisit any of it. Is it that I'm lazy or just simply incapable of moving past a certain point?