The Phases of Research

For a while now I’ve been meaning to write a blog post illustrating some of the stages of the research process (I’m going to wait on my more artistically oriented friends, you know who you are Charrow, to illustrate this post, and for you Joao to write music to accompany it….perhaps if (when) my research flops we can turn it into a broadway show)….

Well here are some of them:

1) The absolute B.S. phase
In my experiences to date, before one goes “to the field” it doesn’t matter how prepared (theoretically) you think you are, how much you’ve read on the topic etc. Everything changes when the proverbial bus pulls away and you’re there “alone” with “the natives”(satirical anthropological humor). But that’s the point of pilot research, right? Anyway, as part of this phase the young intrepid researcher must write numerous grant applications, for which s/he must pull together disparate theories, random factoids, and find some pressing global/local issue that ties them all together…..and make it sound like only s/he is omniscient enough to see the relationship between these issues, and that only s/he can conduct the research…absolute B.S.

2) The Staring into the Crystal Ball Phase

Then there’s that strange and nebulous time that follows arrival at the field site. I would say this time period usually lasts about a month, but will likely return with periodically smaller episodes. “The Staring into the Crystal Ball Phase” is just that: one is struggling with a language barrier, a foreign culture, and an issue that s/he though existed and important while several thousand miles away, but upon touchdown has realized that perhaps things aren’t quite how one pictured them, as a result one is staring through the fog of reality, trying to see the outline of a phenomenon that s/he is “certain” exists somewhere out there….if only the fog would just dissipate. There are many other metaphors one could apply to this phase, “the needle in the haystack phase”, “the trying to put together a puzzle and then having someone take away half the pieces and give you different ones phase”, you take your pick.

3) The I know Everything Phase
No, this wasn’t my childhood, or teenage years (although some might disagree, at which point I’d disagree with them). Rather, this is the “something is finally starting to make sense”, aka “I think I’ve found what I came for”, aka “I’m putting all my eggs in this basket regardless of the fact my basket has a whole in it (recurring theme song)” sentiment. This “thing” is what we graduate students basically sell ourselves (literally and metaphorically) on. It can be an observation, a nascent theory, a hair-brained idea…or more than likely all three. However, silly, the exuberance that is part of this phase erases the fuzzy-navel gazing (to quote Dr. Dan) uncertainty of the previous phase.

4) The I Think I know Enough to Reenter the B.S. Phase
Whether it’s the consistency of your BM (please excuse the poddy humor, but to conduct research in a “developing” country, one must become intimate and as comfortable as possible with such topics), sun stroke, or reality just setting in, this phase is characterized by a decrease in the omnipotence of the previous phase, and a slight touch of reality. However, the not-so-bright-or-bushy-tailed researcher knows s/he is in this phase when s/he thinks that they just might have a topic that they can re-enter the B.S. phase with….

And that topic is….

TO BE CONTINUED