Ooops I did it again!

No, I'm not Britney, although some say I do play her on international soap operas. I seem to have a tendency to make incredible faux-paxs while (trying to) dine in foreign restaurants...some may remember my experience in India three years ago, for those that don't I'll recount it: Eating at a fairly fine dining restaurant with Jade, we finished our sumptuous meal; the waiter brought us out each a little dessert glass of water with a slice of lemon in it, "Oh, thinks I, this must be a fine water beverage for which I can cleanse my palate...." Oh no, it was the hand washing water. Whether or not that contributed to my GI misery only my stomach flora can tell, and boy were they talking.

So this morning, I get up to have breakfast (I'm in a "french" hotel now, whatever that means-((in Belem for those who are googlemapping my "progress" or "downfall"))). Anyways, so I'm having breakfast, eating my sandwich, drinking my coffee and juice, and I go up to the buffet table for some dessert.

I see cakes of various types, and a tray of small pudding dishes. Next to the pudding dishes is another dish that says dolce de leche (which is like a very sweet topping), so me thinks "hmm...some dolce de leche on top of what looks like tapioca pudding, not a bad end to the meal". I sit down to sample this fine pudding and load up a big spoonful, only to determine after putting the airplane in the hanger---that it's butter, which promptly landed in my napkin as I spit it's warm nastiness out (we are talking about butter that has the consistency of tapioca pudding mind you).

All of which is to say, you need to be able to laugh at yourself sometimes, or else you'll be eating butter for breakfast. And no one wants that. Not even the guy who was probably biting his tongue while eating breakfast next to me.

First Contact...

Well....drumroll...first contact has been made! Quite an exciting afternoon. I had tried to set up a meeting with an individual from the Landless Workers' Movement (MST), which has it's national headquarters here in Sao Paulo. I spoke with someone on Tuesday, and sent them a copy of my research proposal. However, I kinda got put on the back burner, and never heard back. As I'm leaving tomorrow for Belem (in the North), from where I'll travel down to Maraba where I'll be staying at the Eldorado das Carajas settlement (I know it's confusing), I needed (really wanted) to meet with someone today. So I called again, and although the guy I originally spoke with wasn't there, someone else was......and so I downed some coffee, grabbed my equivalent of a physician's bag (complete with GPS, digital audio recorder, waterproof field book, and consent forms) and headed off into the rain and onto the metro....

Across town, I walked to the proper address (and actually found it!). The MST have a very beautiful old house in the city as their headquarters. There is nothing from the exterior that gives the building away. But when one enters there is incredible MST related artworks, art that captures the nature of the movement, and the struggle of the settlers for land (I'll try to grab some pictures next time). What followed was very intense: I met with a young woman, who basically interviewed me for about 45 minutes about the nature of my research and all sorts of stuff. Luckily, she spoke Spanish, as I would have done an even more abominable job in Portuguese. It was an interesting discussion, that I won't go into too much, but the upshot is that I think I passed...the first gauntlet. She gave me the go ahead, and from a critical anthropological perspective gave me some meaty bones to chew on, namely that I couldn't compare settlements that are using agroecological education curricula with those that are not (my original plan) because they are all using such curricula; that's the kind of meaty theoretical bone that I was kinda waiting for as it obfuscates more than it illuminates; with settlements spread throughout the country, and in a wide variety of ecological and sociopolitical conditions, it seems clear that the ubiquity of agroecological curricula is if anything a discursive and political phenomenon, and one that I doubt is having as widespread on the ground impact as one lets on....ok well that's kinda letting the cat out of the bag. (Un)fortunately, that meaty bone is also a monkey wrench in the gears of my proposed research, because it will make it essentially impossible to investigate changes in soil fertility as a proxy for the effectiveness of an agroecological program (if all settlements are ostensibly using such curricula); yes, I still could use remote sensing images and look at vegetation changes over time as an ecological proxy for effectiveness of these programs (i.e. charting the changes in vegetation over the last tweny years using aerial/satellite photos, examining the changes as one moves from a non-agroecological curricula to an agroecological one)...but whether that type of analysis will actually work is a completely different story. Ok, well if you made it to the end of that soliloquy...congrats! Now you have a better idea of what doing anthropological research feels like....on the metro home I surmised it as such: waking up from a nap in the middle of the day (when you shouldn't be napping) and then having someone waterboard you, and then letting you go and giving you a double shot of espresso, followed by a giant slurpee that gives you a brain freeze that makes the world starts to spin, and then makes you do a handstand.....all fun and games right.....

and that's not even broaching the subject of what happens when you forget to tell your credit card company that you're leaving the country for a few months and not to block your card....but that's another brain freeze....

caving in

Alright, after many requests from dear friends and family, I am going to try to make a post every now and then...although I'm afraid that I've never been much of a blogger. I much prefer to actually correspond with people, but I will try this.

Anyway, things are going alright here in India. It's very hot, as you might imagine, and my apartment (like most apartments) has no AC...at the moment. I am looking into renting a unit for the summer, but I need my landlord's permission, and I would also probably have to get an electrician in here to add a new switch to the circuit breaker. Seems like a big deal, but in India's service economy it wouldn't cost much and would probably be worth it. We'll see if that pans out. Other than the AC issue, the apartment is great. A friend of mine from a previous study abroad program in India has been living here teaching English for the past year, so she has already done all the legwork of finding the place and getting it outfitted with the basic necessities. She unfortunately leaves the country in early June, but I'm going to stay on in the apartment thereafter. This has made for a very easy transition; I tried looking for a place of my own, but I had no luck.

The first few days here were really, really hard. I had made very few contacts, my roommate was traveling, and I had nothing much to do yet. I also got a bit sick from a bad lassi at a very reputable restaurant. However, things have been looking up. Every day I have at least one meeting with a doctor or a researcher who's doing something related to diabetes, and I've started taking detailed field notes in the mornings like a good anthropologist. Today I'll start translating my questionnaires into Hindi with a friend of my roommate who's going to work for me on a paid basis. I have gotten at least four diabetologists in Delhi to agree to participate in my research at this point. I will call them all to follow up today, and hopefully I will soon be able to start interviewing patients. Before this happens, however, I need to find a research assistant. This has proven to be the biggest obstacle to my research so far. I have literally more than 10 people in Delhi helping me look for someone, but nothing has worked out as of yet.

So that's the play-by-play on the research end. In other news, I have several friends who will be traveling through Delhi over the course of the summer, so I'll get to see people here and there. My roommate and I are planning a short trip up to the mountains just before she leaves the country. The other night, we went out to Subway (yes, there is Subway here, and it's right around the corner from my house, no less!), and tonight we're going to her friend's wedding reception.

...and I'm monopolizing her computer, so I should go. How was that for a first blog post?

Baby steps....

In my experience, "baby steps" are the perfect metaphor for fieldwork. Part of the reason is because you're learning (a lot from the culture(s) {both ethnic and organizational) of the area and issue to the language and so many other things) and you'll inevitably fall on your face and start crying...(will someone hand me a tissue?). However, also like baby steps, when someone isn't there to pick you up you have to do it for yourself, and that leads to a beaming smile, which is a sign of accomplishment and growth. Wow, that was incredibly cheesy and a ridiculous sentiment.

So my baby step for today: I had asked my contact within the MST if there was anything (supplies or what not) that I could bring with me to the settlement, as a sort of thank you/welcome gift. I was thinking rice, or oil, perhaps pencils and paper, but oh no...apparently their hot for radical American protest music, posters, signs or other forms of propaganda. Goes to show that functionality is in the eye of the beholder. Anyways, so i consulted the list of radical bookstores that's listed on Slingshot, and found that there is one in Sao Paolo. After determining how on earth to get there via the metro and foot, I strapped on my murse, that's code for man-purse (seen below) ((I went for the leather thinking I would fit in....I think that works better than the straw hat that I've jettisoned to under the bed...we'll save that for when I'm in the campo proper))



Anyways, murse strapped on, I took about an hour metro ride, then braved the streets of Sao Paolo only to find that this radical bookstore was either a)no longer in existence, b)closed, or c) planning something radical and couldn't be bothered to open the door {Those anarchists can't trust them...no structure}. So it looks like my future comrades in the north will have to do with some downloaded from the internet protest music. Luckily, I know where to look http://www.davidrovics.com/

So, feeling a little discouraged (Although I did actually find the place, which is always a small "baby step" {see there's a theme here}, I got back on the metro and headed back to the Osa hostel. One small rumination, a tangent, if you will, is that it is always interesting to compare cities. No, I'm not saying that Sao Paolo is objectively better than Atlanta, although it's public transport system certainly is, and well it's public art is as well (see the sculpture below from the metro)



and well, literature has beat out coke for a primary place in the Metro's "snack machines"



Yes, that's right, they sell books from vending machines at approximately a dollar a pop...anyone want to read up on MLK or perhaps Excel? Probably a cultural/political/material vestige of when Paulo Freire served as the Cities minister of education from 1987 to 1993 (and you thought this blog was just for shits and giggles, no you will get educated here!)

Of course, like any good story, today's blog entry will end on a good note (it has to by definition, right?). Upon returning to the Oca I played mandolin for nearly an hour and a half, oh no that is just the apertif, although the neighbors probably wished it was the dessert. No, the real upshot of the day was that I got an email response back from a networked query I had earlier sent out. A friend of mine, Sergio Bernardes, who is a doctoral student in UGA's Geography department, is Brazilian and has worked for a number of years with remote sensing applications (think fancy mapping from space). He provided me with the email contacts (and perhaps more importantly proof-read my Portuguese email!) of individuals working within EMBRAPA (Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária) r/ , which is the equivalent of our....hmmm...maybe the USDA plus the EPA plus our USGS? Not quite sure, but it's a major Brazilian research arm of the government, and I've got a meeting with their research team for Monday (fingers crossed) in Belem, where we will be talking about potential areas for collaboration! Very exciting indeed. They are working on a project using remote sensing to monitor land change in the northeastern Amazon, wait as second...so am I! Anyways, so I'm really excited about this baby step and hope the meeting turns out well. If nothing else, you gotta crawl before you can walk, and you gotta fall before you can crawl. Someone hand me a bucket so I can vomit, I disgust myself....

Ruminations

No, I'm not a cow, although, yes I did eat (part of) one for lunch today. Yes, it's true, I've gone completely over to the dark side, i've had meat during each meal I've been south of the equator....who knows where it'll all end....mmm my arm is looking tasty! No! There's bug spray on it, not for eating!

So, as you the blog reader might surmise, these are random ruminations. But beware, you might get something out of them.....

Rumination 1) It is imperative that one have a musical instrument in the field. This serves not only as an ice breaker, and a time-killer, but is instrumental (OMG that is too funny) in warding off marauding tropical plants (see previous post).

Rumination 2) It is imperative that one have a computer...Ok, maybe not, I'm sure our anthropological forefathers somehow survived...but how I don't know. Seriously though, when one has internet access it makes maintaining communication with friends and loved ones, not to mention potential research collaborators and interviewees, much easier.

Rumination 3) It constantly astonishes me how much literature is out there in other languages (namely that of the country you're working in-yes they do read and write down here!) I came across a bibliography of MST related scholarship at http://www.landless-voices.org (which is a great sight for those interested in finding out what this MST thing is really about.

Rumination 4) One must eat and drink (not just coffee). It is too easy to keep doing whatever one is doing (walking all over the city, fighting figs with a mandolin, deep hanging out) without stopping for an actual meal...now where did that meandering cow go to.......

Day 2-Deep Hanging Out

Dispatch 2 from Sao Paulo

It's funny, when I arrived I thought "Great, there's only an hour time difference from the East coast, so I'm not jet lagged!". Only thing I didn't realize is that it gets dark here at 5:30 because it's winter in the Southern hemisphere! I don't know if I've ever experienced a "day light change" like this before, but it's quite strange, because the time hasn't really changed (like it does when you arrive in India thinking it's breakfast when in fact it's dinner) but my body feels confused (yes, more than normal) because I left the states with it getting dark around 9. Ok, enough cursing the oscillations of the sun and its effects on our wonderful little planet.

Today I took care of some more logistics related to my research. Unfortunately, this involved what we in the field of anthropology refer to as "deep hanging out". As you can see from the photos below, taken at the unbelievable Parque Ibapuera (the equivalent of central park on steroids for Sao Paolo), deep hanging out can be very tough...




What this green oasis doesn't show is that I was forced to battle plants, yes, that's right, wild plants, such as this strangler fig!



Which for those of you aren't familiar with Latin American botany, was a harrowing experience that I barely escaped from...

Aside from battling strangler figs with my mandolin, which might be all it's good for, I've been working on setting up the framework for a collaborative research protocol. What this means, is that unlike our anthropological forefathers, who went and observed the "natives" taking their "data" back to the "first world" (ok, enough quotation marks) I'm interested in having my research be more ethically guided, and thus collaborative with the organization that I am interested in working with and studying. For those of you not familiar with the field of "deep hanging out", this move towards collaborative ethnography (ethnography being the methodological bread and butter, or steak if you will, of the discipline. What this entails is a longer process than most research/researchers would take in terms of laying the groundwork and working to determine in collaboration with one's traditional research "subjects" what the goals of the research should be, from each entities perspective, what benefits as well as potential threats could arise from it (no, no lobotomies scheduled yet), and how data will be used, repatriated, etc. All of which requires some very deep hanging out......

Saudações do Brazil!

Greetings all!

Hard to believe it's been going on two years since this blog has been updated. Much has changed, and much has stayed the same. Following on my last entry (from 2007), I'm down in the big south, no, not Atlanta this time, but Sao Paulo, Brazil. For those of you who don't know, I'm here for the summer doing pilot research for my anthropology doctorate at UGA. For my research, I'm studying the role of education within a social movement known as the Landless Workers' Movement. That's the one sentence cocktail party version. I'll try to figure out how to upload a document where those interested can get a clearer understanding of what in the world I'm doing traipsing around the Amazon.

First impressions: wow! Sao Paulo is a BIG city. Ok, that's an understatement, it's apparently the biggest city in the Western hemisphere, and I can believe it. Between flying over the waves of skyscrapers to taking an hour and a half public transport voyage involving buses and various metro lines (beat that ATL!), and then walking to the hostel, I've realized that Sao Paulo is a city of superlatives. The hostel I'm staying at is absolutely perfect. I will take some photos, but it's in a quiet neighborhood, near a huge park (my goal for this afternoon), it has an amazing breakfast of fruit and assorted goodies, wifi, friendly service, and all for about $16 USD (so not too bad)...did I mention that there's always a carafe of coffee full? And, no, we're not talking nescafe here.

What additionally was really nice about the trip, was that Sao Paulo is only 1 hour ahead of the east coast, so even though I've had an insane few days of traveling to get here, from driving from ATL to DE, running around, then flying down here etc etc. I'm not in that surreal state of exhaustion that hangs over me for a week when I go to India. In terms of what everyone at home was asking me b4 I left, the Portuguese is going....tudo bem! I feel like my mind is like a sieve (although sometimes it feels like as much is leaving as entering); taking the public transport to the hostel I was reading all the posters and signs, asking directions, and I made it without getting lost (partially due to the detailed instructions I had gotten in English from the hostel prior to traveling!) So, yeah, the trip is off to a great start. I brought my mandolin and was sitting here serenading the unfortunate passerbys earlier as I drank my coffee, after this I'm going to get to "work" translating some questions courtesy of google translate (the most amazing app I've run into recently) and then (fingers crossed) I'm going to call the headquarters of the Landless Workers Movement and try to schedule a meeting for tomorrow (meeting with these people is why I'm in Sao Paulo to begin with, and they don't "do" email, so I wasn't able to organize it from the states). This meeting is a pretty big deal in terms of my research, and so I'll be really happy if I can actually orchestrate it, and get a few questions that I'll have translated answered. Aside from that.....it's time for some "deep hanging out"
Ate logo!
David