I will preface this post with the caveat that I'm exhausted and probably feeling unreasonably sensitive, but I came home to receive an email from one of the first non-profit groups I tried to work with when I moved to LA that was incredibly passive aggressive. Everytime I would email to follow up on a project they would not respond. Then they'd email me weeks later and ask where I was. Today I got an email saying they were "sad" that we were never able to "get going" and have me help them out. They mention they had a lot of work for me to do, but every time I would try to organize a time to meet with them or try to follow up, the guy who runs it, would fail to reply to my emails.
Because I've also had problems with the minority women's health organization, I feel that I really need to understand what it was that I did wrong -- as my default interpretation is that I failed somehow. I think some of the issues were with the medium of email -- all contact existed in the ether and there were no "sites" where I could go to do anything. Even with the minority women's health organization, their limited staff made it hard to gain access to the work space because it always had to be highly coordinated to let me in.
I went back and looked at the emails I'd tagged with their label, and in many of them, I propose a date or a set of possible times, and I never hear back from them. I offer to help with a proposal they wanted to work on, and they didn't reply. There's lots of evidence, it seems to me, that suggest I have tried repeatedly to be available and initiate projects, but there are no replies to these attempts. I sound whiny -- I know. I'm just baffled at the forms of miscommunication, especially since I seem to be the constant in both these circumstances. But I fear making that analysis makes me terribly self-centered. Fieldwork is not about me, but as a good friend recently pointed out, Margaret Mead and her posse believed one had to have gone through many years of therapy to be an anthropologist. On the upside, I've had that....
---
I write sometimes about the strange digital and technological integrations into popular knowledge and access to information. The other day, before I left town, I got an email from the PR person at the exhibit I mention last post (see below). It was incredibly unnerving to get an email the day after I posted it, though obviously she has an alert set for any references to their exhibit. She informed me that the inventor of the preservation medium used in the exhibit will be speaking in early June. I'm hoping to drag my neighbor/running partner/sole tolerator in LA along for moral support. She seems to be pretty game for any sort of weird anthropological adventure that involves bodies or autism or medical freakshows.
I do feel mildly guilty for disparaging the curation. I thought about it this weekend, and it is in a child's museum...it's not like they've mounted it at the Met. Still, I think of two museums in Philadelphia for kids, the Please Touch Museum and the Benjamin Franklin Science Museum, and they both felt far more accessible and kid-friendly (at least in my very hazy distant memory). I found it unnerving that the museum in LA had a McDonald's inside it, yet the exhibit had a portion devoted to the effects of obesity and why it can kill you. Was no one thinking about the contradictory messages they were sending? There were a lot of cases displaying the hazardous effects of cigarette smoking, and it would not have surprised me if the museum also had a Philip Morris wing, or some such thing.
For the few who read this -- forgive the incoherence. Will come back and edit it soon.
5.08.2008
Creepy Austrian Plasticizes
Body Worlds...was underwhelming. At times it was downright nauseating, mainly because they had the beat of a heart in the background of the main exhibition. Everywhere we went, thump, thump, thump, amplified. I felt like I was in a 1950s deterrent film about the horrible outcomes of drinking or sex or marijuana. I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. Bad curation, bad! In addition, since the "theme" was about the heart (though there were also lots of displays that were not specific to the heart), they had lots of tiresome cliches posted on the walls about the heart and extrapolated the biological to the social and emotional. Blah blah blah, love, heartache...blah blah blah. Such a cynic. I found it unnecessary and uncompelling.
Then there were the bodies. At first, I found it mildly intriguing. But after a while the endlessly dissected, bisected, flayed, butterflied, fileted bodies were just plain overwhelming. At first it seemed that they were only using male bodies, which I found odd. Later in the exhibit came the women's bodies, but now that I think about it, the women were always in "graceful" poses. There was one woman crouching and pulling a bow and arrow with her brain, inexplicably on top of her head, as though it were an elegant hairdo. It was beyond bizarre. Also, it seemed that every version of the female body managed to expose her genitals, which to be fair, none of the men got to have any modesty, either; but it's not that hard to keep women's legs closed, now is it?
The whole experience made me want to be a vegetarian, as the bodies looked like...well...duh, meat. I didn't feel the unease or uncanniness that I expected as I looked at organs and veins disembodied from their bodies. Nor did I find the contortions and displaying of human form as objectionable as I anticipated. There is something about the museum setting that allows for distancing, allows for one to feel as though one were an objective observer. This is something the Museum of Jurassic Technology plays with, at least, the idea of curation as forcing a reverence or respect for the displays, regardless of content. Though that analysis doesn't totally translate, because I'm not sure I felt "respect," but I did feel compelled to be "curious," even when slightly revolted. I found the cross-sections of bodies the most fascinating, as they better represented the interconnectedness of things for me (the horizontal slice).
Still, I did expect to feel differently at the end. Perhaps after a night's sleep (assuming I don't have nightmares), it'll be more coherent. I'm not sure I'm going to write an official "fieldnote" on the experience, so I am haphazardly sharing it here. I am curious to know more about this Von Hagens. I find the whole endeavor a combination of being highly suspect and also a classical scientific fascination gone slightly awry.
Then there were the bodies. At first, I found it mildly intriguing. But after a while the endlessly dissected, bisected, flayed, butterflied, fileted bodies were just plain overwhelming. At first it seemed that they were only using male bodies, which I found odd. Later in the exhibit came the women's bodies, but now that I think about it, the women were always in "graceful" poses. There was one woman crouching and pulling a bow and arrow with her brain, inexplicably on top of her head, as though it were an elegant hairdo. It was beyond bizarre. Also, it seemed that every version of the female body managed to expose her genitals, which to be fair, none of the men got to have any modesty, either; but it's not that hard to keep women's legs closed, now is it?
The whole experience made me want to be a vegetarian, as the bodies looked like...well...duh, meat. I didn't feel the unease or uncanniness that I expected as I looked at organs and veins disembodied from their bodies. Nor did I find the contortions and displaying of human form as objectionable as I anticipated. There is something about the museum setting that allows for distancing, allows for one to feel as though one were an objective observer. This is something the Museum of Jurassic Technology plays with, at least, the idea of curation as forcing a reverence or respect for the displays, regardless of content. Though that analysis doesn't totally translate, because I'm not sure I felt "respect," but I did feel compelled to be "curious," even when slightly revolted. I found the cross-sections of bodies the most fascinating, as they better represented the interconnectedness of things for me (the horizontal slice).
Still, I did expect to feel differently at the end. Perhaps after a night's sleep (assuming I don't have nightmares), it'll be more coherent. I'm not sure I'm going to write an official "fieldnote" on the experience, so I am haphazardly sharing it here. I am curious to know more about this Von Hagens. I find the whole endeavor a combination of being highly suspect and also a classical scientific fascination gone slightly awry.
5.07.2008
Sage advice from Savage Minds
I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about the pedagogy of anthropology. Mostly because I feel so much of it has been self-taught. My department, I think, is deeply invested in self-teaching. Sometimes I see that as active neglect (and I think it can be), but other times, it's satisfying to find one's own way. If I were being uncharacteristically optimistic, I might even suggest that it could be very individualized, and they may have quickly noted that I wasn't going to listen to them if I didn't want to, and that it was better to let me flounder and self-create. That may be too forgiving an assessment, but I guess I'm feeling generous at this hour.
Savage Minds has a short post on the near-far (or the fort-da, as I like to call it) of fieldwork. I find it challenging to figure out the relationship between my informants and me. I know the suggestion, "never turn down an invitation," is a good one. But sometimes, one finds oneself unable to go. I rarely accept an invitation and not show up. And I think I've been pretty good about following up with people when they extend invitations. Though I do have one mom, who has repeatedly invited me to stuff, and I've not gone. I feel quite lame about that... I know my other anthropologist friends have struggled with intimacy and distance in their fieldwork. It certainly came up for me in Morocco, and I still feel guilty about how I handled it.
Savage Minds has a short post on the near-far (or the fort-da, as I like to call it) of fieldwork. I find it challenging to figure out the relationship between my informants and me. I know the suggestion, "never turn down an invitation," is a good one. But sometimes, one finds oneself unable to go. I rarely accept an invitation and not show up. And I think I've been pretty good about following up with people when they extend invitations. Though I do have one mom, who has repeatedly invited me to stuff, and I've not gone. I feel quite lame about that... I know my other anthropologist friends have struggled with intimacy and distance in their fieldwork. It certainly came up for me in Morocco, and I still feel guilty about how I handled it.
A whirlwind turned maelstrom, but in a good way
As I've mentioned, fieldwork has been a wee bit sluggish (again with the abstraction of responsibility, by using the passive voice, for which my father (and HL?) would kill me, but I do it so well). I've been planning my LA departure for a while, but have contemplated the possibility lazily. Suddenly a slew of things are lining up, some of which I've actively set up (but more or less assumed would not come to pass) and some of which have been marvellously coincidental (right time right place, fingers crossed). I was debating the decision process with my dad, and he pointed out that if it doesn't work out, or I start it and then find it isn't working for my project, then I can always back out. I thought that was sound, and I rarely regret things I've done. I'm pretty good at re-figuring or re-purposing them to have some value. (Actually, I'm not sure I really regret things I haven't done...maybe a few things.)
I applied for a summer institute in San Francisco, at the time seeing it as a brief pre-cursor foray into living there. It's 2 weeks long and will give me (hopefully) a fair amount of academic guidance and support. Those are things I've felt quite lacking over the many, endless years of school. On top of which, I received a scholarship, which makes it slightly less foolhardy. And then, the room, which I hope to be offered, suddenly came open earlier...and now San Francisco may be the next phase of fieldwork. Itemizing the logic and justifications, some of which are more credible and substantive than others, would be tiresome. But there is a good possibility that my (full) time in LA is drawing to a close. And...though it's been hard and frustrating, in ways that might seem silly because it is the U.S. after all, I don't regret it at all.
---
Fieldwork tonight was pretty good. I always feel enthused and rejuvenated after this monthly meeting of moms. But the truth is, as I've learned many months over, the momentum seems to crash. I find that hard, building up and preparing for fieldwork, only to find a lot of dead ends. I'm curious to see if my work in SF will be more successful. It'll be informative if I'm able to make more substantive and continuous connections with parents there. If I can, it may confirm my suspicions about the structure of LA. Though if I fail there, too, I guess I'll just feel like it's me. Not a terribly good outcome.
Some of my best conversations happen in this setting. I find interviews can be so contrived, and in an ideal fieldwork setting, there would be daily ebb and flow of life that I would observe. I haven't managed to develop this really, though, with anyone. Is it because I'm a bit loathe to be anywhere with any regularity? I've gotten spoiled by the student lifestyle and the self-determination it allows. (As I've mentioned before, I tend to resist on principle rather than for a real good reason.) The minority women's health work has just evaporated. It's partly my fault, for not pushing harder, but it was a situation where no matter what efforts I made, they were met with resistance. I developed my fieldwork better, I think, in Morocco, when I was situated in a community -- and perhaps this was my mistake, refusing to distinguish a particular group of parents. I tried, by linking it to the schools, but the failure to make progress in that sphere took a long time to sort out and move past. And now I'm fully past the 6-month mark. I am worried about uprooting myself, but I do intend to return to LA monthly, and maybe I can keep the connections I've made (that are sporadic, anyway) while developing ones up north.
I applied for a summer institute in San Francisco, at the time seeing it as a brief pre-cursor foray into living there. It's 2 weeks long and will give me (hopefully) a fair amount of academic guidance and support. Those are things I've felt quite lacking over the many, endless years of school. On top of which, I received a scholarship, which makes it slightly less foolhardy. And then, the room, which I hope to be offered, suddenly came open earlier...and now San Francisco may be the next phase of fieldwork. Itemizing the logic and justifications, some of which are more credible and substantive than others, would be tiresome. But there is a good possibility that my (full) time in LA is drawing to a close. And...though it's been hard and frustrating, in ways that might seem silly because it is the U.S. after all, I don't regret it at all.
---
Fieldwork tonight was pretty good. I always feel enthused and rejuvenated after this monthly meeting of moms. But the truth is, as I've learned many months over, the momentum seems to crash. I find that hard, building up and preparing for fieldwork, only to find a lot of dead ends. I'm curious to see if my work in SF will be more successful. It'll be informative if I'm able to make more substantive and continuous connections with parents there. If I can, it may confirm my suspicions about the structure of LA. Though if I fail there, too, I guess I'll just feel like it's me. Not a terribly good outcome.
Some of my best conversations happen in this setting. I find interviews can be so contrived, and in an ideal fieldwork setting, there would be daily ebb and flow of life that I would observe. I haven't managed to develop this really, though, with anyone. Is it because I'm a bit loathe to be anywhere with any regularity? I've gotten spoiled by the student lifestyle and the self-determination it allows. (As I've mentioned before, I tend to resist on principle rather than for a real good reason.) The minority women's health work has just evaporated. It's partly my fault, for not pushing harder, but it was a situation where no matter what efforts I made, they were met with resistance. I developed my fieldwork better, I think, in Morocco, when I was situated in a community -- and perhaps this was my mistake, refusing to distinguish a particular group of parents. I tried, by linking it to the schools, but the failure to make progress in that sphere took a long time to sort out and move past. And now I'm fully past the 6-month mark. I am worried about uprooting myself, but I do intend to return to LA monthly, and maybe I can keep the connections I've made (that are sporadic, anyway) while developing ones up north.
5.06.2008
Not for the faint of heart
I found this in my listservs -- a woman photographically tracks her cervix daily. It's a bit intense. But it is a fascinating use of the interwebs. It's almost like a reclaiming of what internet pornography has started. It seems like it takes the intimacy of the human body and translates it into extreme visibility...or something. Not articulating this well, but it's so amazing and out there, that I had to share it. I'm not sure whether I should call this blog an NSFW (not safe for work) or not...is it lewd to look at photos of a cervix on company computers?
As you can see, I'm revisiting my email/internet research phase with vigor. I get so many emails about variations of things that I'm studying that it can be overwhelming. I'm really backlogged on the digest-forms of my listservs, and I tend to find it daunting to wade back through them. I try to write fieldnotes about the postings I find interesting, but it still can feel like a glut of information.
As you can see, I'm revisiting my email/internet research phase with vigor. I get so many emails about variations of things that I'm studying that it can be overwhelming. I'm really backlogged on the digest-forms of my listservs, and I tend to find it daunting to wade back through them. I try to write fieldnotes about the postings I find interesting, but it still can feel like a glut of information.
Somewhat following up on the earlier post -- Surveillance Society
I found this cartoon on the newsletter's site:
I find it interesting when public discourse engages with terms that I think of as existing predominantly in academic circles. I know that theoretical terms do not just appear from nowhere nor would I say that the public is too unsophisticated to make use of theoretically derived terms. It's just fascinating to me to watch the dissemination and evolution of concepts across very disparate social groups.
I find it interesting when public discourse engages with terms that I think of as existing predominantly in academic circles. I know that theoretical terms do not just appear from nowhere nor would I say that the public is too unsophisticated to make use of theoretically derived terms. It's just fascinating to me to watch the dissemination and evolution of concepts across very disparate social groups.
Badly-handled analysis of capitalism and health
My work in the U.S. forces the question of the role of capitalism and privatization in all spheres of life. I mentioned, many posts ago, the simplistic assumption (by some) that capitalism's "value" to drive health advances neglected all sorts of important aspects of health and may even be detrimental, if one's goal is to actually improve health outcomes for all.
I've been noticing that one of the gazillion listservs I'm on keeps sending business or company recommendations. The first one I noticed (and I'm not sure if it was the first time they've sent such a thing, or if it was the first time I'd remarked upon it) was a promotion for buying land in Ecuador. It was the strangest thing to me, about being able to live a certain kind of life in Latin America, among a community of like-minded people. It contained all sorts of admonishments about not getting scammed, some of which were amazingly simplistic about who "these people" were, but it also had an eerie colonialization feel. (I admit, I'm woefully under-read on colonialization theory (strange especially since I worked in Morocco, a place that to my uneducated eyes, seems to have all sorts of post-colonial connundrums), but I grasp the basics, I think!) The romanticization of both under-developed land and a place with few regulatory restrictions about health (this was the central gist of the email update) seemed extremely ill-thought out. (To be fair, the newsletter author pointed out that one has to be prepared to be self-sufficient as one wouldn't have access to the health care system Americans are used to. But it still sounded incredibly naive.) Subsequently, this newsletter has also sent out "coupons" for products and will make recommendations for some food or vitamin product.
What stands out for me, however, is that there's no self-reflexivity about condemning the majority of products (sunscreen is bad for you! vitamins contain contaminants! who to trust for pharmaceuticals!). And I guess what I'm trying to parse out is why some categories of things do not elicit the same scrutiny as others. I've written about this in other contexts -- why do government regulations of vaccines elicit anti-government reactions from some of my informants, but other forms of regulation do not?
In other words, the forms of libertarianism that come out of these reactions do not seem to be internally consistent. Of course, few of us are ever consistent, even when we think we've developed our belief systems carefully. But I think the contexts in which people react so strongly are revealing about other social and political convictions. And what I think I want to do is to uncover what these anxieties are about, to propose that there is a connection between the types of government suspicion and conspiracy theories I hear circulating among my participants that have deeper resonance and meaning for America today.
God, so bloody grandiose.
I've been noticing that one of the gazillion listservs I'm on keeps sending business or company recommendations. The first one I noticed (and I'm not sure if it was the first time they've sent such a thing, or if it was the first time I'd remarked upon it) was a promotion for buying land in Ecuador. It was the strangest thing to me, about being able to live a certain kind of life in Latin America, among a community of like-minded people. It contained all sorts of admonishments about not getting scammed, some of which were amazingly simplistic about who "these people" were, but it also had an eerie colonialization feel. (I admit, I'm woefully under-read on colonialization theory (strange especially since I worked in Morocco, a place that to my uneducated eyes, seems to have all sorts of post-colonial connundrums), but I grasp the basics, I think!) The romanticization of both under-developed land and a place with few regulatory restrictions about health (this was the central gist of the email update) seemed extremely ill-thought out. (To be fair, the newsletter author pointed out that one has to be prepared to be self-sufficient as one wouldn't have access to the health care system Americans are used to. But it still sounded incredibly naive.) Subsequently, this newsletter has also sent out "coupons" for products and will make recommendations for some food or vitamin product.
What stands out for me, however, is that there's no self-reflexivity about condemning the majority of products (sunscreen is bad for you! vitamins contain contaminants! who to trust for pharmaceuticals!). And I guess what I'm trying to parse out is why some categories of things do not elicit the same scrutiny as others. I've written about this in other contexts -- why do government regulations of vaccines elicit anti-government reactions from some of my informants, but other forms of regulation do not?
In other words, the forms of libertarianism that come out of these reactions do not seem to be internally consistent. Of course, few of us are ever consistent, even when we think we've developed our belief systems carefully. But I think the contexts in which people react so strongly are revealing about other social and political convictions. And what I think I want to do is to uncover what these anxieties are about, to propose that there is a connection between the types of government suspicion and conspiracy theories I hear circulating among my participants that have deeper resonance and meaning for America today.
God, so bloody grandiose.
5.02.2008
Netflix has a wry sense of humor
I signed into my netflix account, with which I have a love-hate relationship (The Wire! love, but the subscription perpetuity, hate!). Today it proposed to me: "Because you enjoyed Au revoir les enfants and Downfall, we think you'll enjoy The Nazis: a warning from history". I realize these are automatically generated and that the phrasing is standardized, but somehow "enjoy" seems to be the wrong word choice for "The Nazis: a warning from history". Is it just me, or is that proposal insanely funny?
5.01.2008
Doppelganger!
It's a little weird that my cousin and I have the same exact initials. He was visiting LA last week and had his tote bag with him that is embroidered with his/our initials. Apparently it was a gift from a former girlfriend. Clearly my parents weren't thinking when they gave me the same three-lettered acronym as my cousin. But for the most part, I don't think people will confuse us. There is, however, a public health researcher, with whom I will indirectly be working very shortly, with the exact same name as me. This is deeply unsettling. She also works on STDs, though she is a certified MD, MPH, which I am not. But still....she does, however, go by an unfortunate (in my very experienced opinion) nickname. She must be at least 5-10 years older than me, but it's weird that we are working in more or less the same field and have the same name. I've yet to inquire about her initials, as it would be freaky if we had the same initials, as well. Perhaps it's just as well that I do not know.
-----
Fieldwork is slow right now. It's partly my fault, as I'm not contacting or calling or writing to anyone. I can't get over the hump of lethargy. Also, because I feel so behind on data organizing, it's hard to motivate to collect more stuff that I will be behind on reviewing. Maybe next week I'll get the work bug? Where is that little pocket academic guru for which I have longed for so long?
-----
Fieldwork is slow right now. It's partly my fault, as I'm not contacting or calling or writing to anyone. I can't get over the hump of lethargy. Also, because I feel so behind on data organizing, it's hard to motivate to collect more stuff that I will be behind on reviewing. Maybe next week I'll get the work bug? Where is that little pocket academic guru for which I have longed for so long?
4.30.2008
Somewhere there's fieldwork
I've been a bit of a slacker...though that implies a decision to slack. I'm not sure how much of a decision it's been. I've done a bit on the public health side of things, but really, I feel, at the 6 month mark, a bit of exhaustion and uncertainty. The project is shifting, and I've started to lose focus in the actual work and where my fieldwork is situated, even as the ideas that I think are compelling seem to be more clear. I actually am starting to develop a bit of a theory about things. That sounds so grandiose. It's just that for so long, I've been cobbling other people's theories onto my own work. Sort of stuffing my ideas into a framework that someone else has developed. Hoping that all these citations and references will convince someone that I know what I'm talking about.
It's a weird shift, to go from the earnest graduate student to the more laconic theorizing slacker. I think that might be a brilliant evolution, to be able to capitalize on the lifestyle academia affords. But, ironically, it doesn't really "afford" much of anything, hence prompting my anxiety about collecting research. Conducting research. Doing...something. Not just lolling about thinking about what I am not doing.
My friend SJ came to spend the night last weekend, and I launched into the early stirrings of this theory -- some of which I began to articulate (inarticulately) in the Slate comment, posted below (from days and days ago, it seems). Maybe I'm just a big conspiracy theorist at heart, but I'm pretty convinced that the work that I'm doing is a bit of an echo, or a snippet of something larger. I like theories and research that are expansive, that cross boundaries and challenge disciplinarity. This has not won me many supporters -- academics can be a bit touchy about interdisciplinarity (not all academics...duh).
I had lunch with one of the public health people I'm working with, and she commented that I stand out on the west coast because of my pedigrees and higher education. She asked me about how I got to be so ambitious. It was an odd question, because I don't think of myself as ambitious. I think of myself as a perpetual student precisely because I lack ambition. It's a distraction, all this education. But somehow I then launched into a bit of a monologue about my trajectory, and how I think public health is very nervous about being truly interdisciplinary. She concurred, saying that her medical director boss had said that not specializing in a field is a bad thing. I pointed out that public health, perhaps more than some fields, can be quite territorial and that unlike medicine, it is intrinsically an interdisciplinary field. (Anyone who studies non-western medicines will realize that successful medicine must be interdisciplinary -- or at the very least more holistic than the increasingly specialized western medical field usually is.) I think public health struggles with the shadow of medicine and the natural sciences. Or really, what I ought to say, it seems that a lot of the social sciences demand a level of defensiveness to assert their authority. It's nerve-wracking to realize how broad the effects of your object of study might go. It gets messy, when you start looking at structural determinants of health, for example. Where does it end? Who's ultimately responsible? Etc...
I need to get back on the fieldwork wagon, but it can be incredibly draining chasing after subjects and pursuing people. It's hard to do for 6 months and to know that it will continue for a while. I've lost touch with the minority women's health group, though I emailed last week to see if they wanted me to come in. I was, again, put off, told: maybe Friday afternoon or next week. I interpret that comment as ambivalence about my returning. And maybe it's not, but it's hard to put oneself out there over and over again. I'm not good at deflecting various forms of rejection. I find it tiring to continue on as though all the subtext weren't there. And it seems to me that is how one has to go about doing fieldwork, shaking off the disappointments and soldiering on. Hmmmm...remarkably like grad school in its own way. I admit, shame-facedly, that I have not read Beckett, but I often find "I can't go on. I'll go on," to be perfect for so many occasions.
It's a weird shift, to go from the earnest graduate student to the more laconic theorizing slacker. I think that might be a brilliant evolution, to be able to capitalize on the lifestyle academia affords. But, ironically, it doesn't really "afford" much of anything, hence prompting my anxiety about collecting research. Conducting research. Doing...something. Not just lolling about thinking about what I am not doing.
My friend SJ came to spend the night last weekend, and I launched into the early stirrings of this theory -- some of which I began to articulate (inarticulately) in the Slate comment, posted below (from days and days ago, it seems). Maybe I'm just a big conspiracy theorist at heart, but I'm pretty convinced that the work that I'm doing is a bit of an echo, or a snippet of something larger. I like theories and research that are expansive, that cross boundaries and challenge disciplinarity. This has not won me many supporters -- academics can be a bit touchy about interdisciplinarity (not all academics...duh).
I had lunch with one of the public health people I'm working with, and she commented that I stand out on the west coast because of my pedigrees and higher education. She asked me about how I got to be so ambitious. It was an odd question, because I don't think of myself as ambitious. I think of myself as a perpetual student precisely because I lack ambition. It's a distraction, all this education. But somehow I then launched into a bit of a monologue about my trajectory, and how I think public health is very nervous about being truly interdisciplinary. She concurred, saying that her medical director boss had said that not specializing in a field is a bad thing. I pointed out that public health, perhaps more than some fields, can be quite territorial and that unlike medicine, it is intrinsically an interdisciplinary field. (Anyone who studies non-western medicines will realize that successful medicine must be interdisciplinary -- or at the very least more holistic than the increasingly specialized western medical field usually is.) I think public health struggles with the shadow of medicine and the natural sciences. Or really, what I ought to say, it seems that a lot of the social sciences demand a level of defensiveness to assert their authority. It's nerve-wracking to realize how broad the effects of your object of study might go. It gets messy, when you start looking at structural determinants of health, for example. Where does it end? Who's ultimately responsible? Etc...
I need to get back on the fieldwork wagon, but it can be incredibly draining chasing after subjects and pursuing people. It's hard to do for 6 months and to know that it will continue for a while. I've lost touch with the minority women's health group, though I emailed last week to see if they wanted me to come in. I was, again, put off, told: maybe Friday afternoon or next week. I interpret that comment as ambivalence about my returning. And maybe it's not, but it's hard to put oneself out there over and over again. I'm not good at deflecting various forms of rejection. I find it tiring to continue on as though all the subtext weren't there. And it seems to me that is how one has to go about doing fieldwork, shaking off the disappointments and soldiering on. Hmmmm...remarkably like grad school in its own way. I admit, shame-facedly, that I have not read Beckett, but I often find "I can't go on. I'll go on," to be perfect for so many occasions.
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