Finals have ended, winter break has come to a conclusion (since I’m taking a winter term class) and I’ve finally gotten back to the blog. One thing that I have noticed over the break is that a few of my favorite bloggers (many of whom are academics) have been blogging like crazy. Seriously, it takes a good chunk of my day just to get through this stuff. In my case, winter break has had the opposite effect. If anything it has given me the chance to step back from writing and producing to think more about academics, my career, and a host of other things I am pursuing. Plus my mother made 13 different types of candy/cookies for the holidays and that takes some time to work through.
After some time in Chicago, eating the aforementioned candies and cookies, I am back in Boston reading about things like calculating mortality rates and the evaluation of military attempts at humanitarian assistance. Its good to be back to normal.
One of the exciting things about break was that I got a new book from my mother on anthropological research methods (it was on my amazon wish list, otherwise I’m sure my mother would not have been able to guess that one*). Its a general resource book but has been a good read for me, someone who has never been formally trained in the process but anticipates using the methods in the future and recognizes their importance. More and more I have been taking the time to think about the ways in which the international community learns and understands the places where we work. From my background as a Peace Corps volunteer, I take the subject very seriously. When I first arrived to my site village in Morocco (after 3 months of intensive technical, cultural and language training in country) it took me at least 6 months to figure out what was what. And even after two years of living and breathing my community, it was difficult to come to the conclusion that I would always be an outsider. Which is ok, as long as I remember that.
Fast forward to now, I keep getting a feeling in the pit of my stomach that most of the places I write about or read about in grad school, I have little to know experience in. So in the mean time I think its good for me to try and pick up some solid anthropological research skills for when I am back in the field. Because I’m pretty sure that wherever I am working next will not give me the luxury of 6 months to get acquainted with my new surroundings.
* My family gave me a lot of books this year from the wish list which was pretty great, from my sister a book on Sudan, from my brother a biography of Ataturk, and from my grandmother Vali Nasr’s new book on the Muslim middle class. Apparently she read it before wrapping it and really enjoyed it. I am hoping to run into him in the halls of Fletcher some day soon so I can tell him that my 80 year old grandmother from Kansas liked his book.
I came to Fletcher for my masters to gain both depth and breadth in my knowledge and understanding of conflict and international relations. Its interesting to sit back once in a while and think about the inherent tensions of seeking to be a specialist and generalist to certain degrees.
For me, I have always been a person who is sure of what I want. Picking classes is not a terrible experience like it is for a few of my classmates because I have a pretty clear vision of where I am going in my degree, what I want out of it, and my career once I graduate. I do have an occasional moment where I worry that I have closed myself off to opporunities or not explored the different specialities outside of my area of concentration, but generally I am ok.
The one time that I have difficulty though is when I have to write a paper for a class which has broad instructions. Its not that I can’t decide what topic to write on, but I usually have trouble picking specific cases and countries because I am torn between different regions of the world. My previous experience and study lie in Middle East, North Africa and Sub Saharan Africa and my Fletcher time has generally followed this path. It makes papers easier because I already know the history, current context and other factors at play. I also am pretty sure I will be working in this region owing to my experience and language abilities (French and Arabic) so gaining even more depth makes sense.
But then I pause and think about what I am missing out on. Isn’t it this the time that I should be using to explore other areas and regions outside my knowledge? Am I missing out on something that could give me an even more complex understanding of what I study? What if there are no jobs in the region that I specialize in? (Not much chance on this one though, while I wholeheartedly subscribe to the “working myself out of a job” philosophy, unfortunately working in conflict in MENA and Africa doesn’t look promising for this outcome). So I am trying to work my way out from my comfort zone little by little. My new and improved (although not yet approved) thesis topic will feature a case study from Latin America and one from the Balkans. I am writing a paper on Azerbaijan for a class. I lead quite a wild life, I know.
Overall, I still feel a little guilty for not going for even more depth on the areas that I already know. But in the end I figure that I spend so much time thinking and researching these regions anyways for my own amusement, I can spare some time for other places as well. Once the job search fires up this will be another big question, because if I thought that choosing a paper topic was hard, I can’t wait until I have to start worry about where I will be living.
This past Thursday I went to Fletcher’s annual Faculty Waits on You Dinner. Its a fun event where faculty and staff actually do wait on the students and then there is an auction after, featuring items donated by faculty (many of them involve chances to just hang out with or go to dinner with faculty members). I liked the event a lot because it reminds me that the Fletcher community is a unique one and we all go out of our way to make sure that this community is alive and well (despite our heavy workloads and frantic schedules this time of the year).
One of the most touching parts about this year’s event was that it was in honor of Ben Sklaver, a Fletcher ‘03 alum who was killed about a month ago by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan. Not only was Ben a loyal soldier, but also a humanitarian, who formed an NGO to provide clean water to communities who need it the most. I don’t know Ben personally, but I was incredibly touched hearing his father and his friend speak about how he dedicated his life to helping others and always held out hope that we could make a difference in the lives of others. It is clear that the Fletcher community, the US, and the world lost a wonderful person when Ben passed.
However, his NGO, Clear Water Initiative, lives on. All the proceeds from the dinner and auction went to support their sustainable water projects, which are mostly based in Northern Uganda. I would urge you to visit the organization’s website and see what they are doing. Bidding on auction items, I was happy that my money was going to a this cause and hope that Ben’s dream will continue to be realized even after his untimely death.
Peace Corps is going back into Sierra Leone following a 15 year absence when the civil war broke out and an estimated 100,000 people were killed. Its a great piece of news for those of us RPCVs who keep seeing PC pull out of places because of instability and not many new programs. As many know I don’t see Peace Corps as a terribly efficient development organization but rather a hybrid public diplomacy/culture sharing/capacity building for the volunteers. When PC recently pulled out of Guinea it was a signal that things are getting bad, here its a signal of things getting better and the US’s renewed support to stability in Sierra Leone.
In other Peace Corps news Hilarly visited the oldest Peace Corps volunteer in Marrakech. I’m a bit jealous that this happened after I left but loved the story and the picture.
This is a sort of interesting article about a recent report from Oxfam about how to address the drought and anticipated food shortage. The best part was that yesterday there were ads for World Vision all over the site, meaning that next to this article was a picture of a malnourished African child, staring up at you as if he was asking you to donate. Its gone today – why did I not capture that? My guess was that World Vision was not terribly pleased.
Interesting post from the new War and Peace blog at change.org that details a twitter account of the attack on a UN guesthouse in Kabul. It is sort of demonstrative of the type of people you have working in these situations, the humor, the rumors, the “life goes on” attitude. With all the hype about Twitter revolutions and the use of technology for positive social change, I can only hope that in this one instance it may have prevented further tragedy.
Its midterms here at the Fletcher School, which is the reason that I have been bloglazy. My increased amount of studies actually means that I have been producing a number of really interesting blog-worthy topics and discussions, but unfortunately they all stay in my head because I don’t have the time to actually write them down.
So this post will be a what I’m thinking/reading about one. Here we go.
- New Sudan policy from the Obama Administration and lots of reaction. My first take is that it is an articulation of what has been happening with Gration, but not terribly specific enough to mean anything by itself. (but they did say genocide, which to some people means everything and to me not much)
- Guinea is looking like it may get worse before it gets better. UN and ICC are checking into it, with apparently the most concrete reaction so far coming from . . . the Peace Corps? Texas in Africa has a good blog post on this and my reaction being a former Peace Corps Volunteer is that the pull out was most likely because of security reasons (they are quite touchy about that) but hopefully it was some sort of a political statement as well. While its not an effective way to influence governments (Peace Corps is not exactly the most enticing carrot when compared to other sorts of aid) it does have symbolic value that is useful in signaling. [Ok the EU imposed an arms embargo which is also sort of concrete]
- Thesis. I got the go ahead on my thesis topic last week on the characteristics of police reform in Southern Sudan most likely to effect internal violence. Its still in baby stages but thus far its looking good. One of the most exciting things is that I will be creating my own methodology for program development from the post-conflict police reform literature.
- Evaluation of transitional justice projects. I was searching for evaluations of TJ work out there and came up with next to nothing. There are lots of organizations out there who will tell you how to evaluation TJ and how important it it, but is anyone out there actually doing evaluations (and publishing them online)? This relates to the issue of orgs not posting evaluations of their work online. I understand their concerns but people in the aid/development/peacebuilding field – lets think about our priorities.
- AfPak is bad. Here’s hoping that someone out there knows what to do because I have no clue.
- US announces its support for an international Arms Trade Treaty. What an African Woman Thinks has some interesting insights into the posturing of states involved. I’m not entirely convinced that the UN is the best way to go about an Arms Trade Treaty, in fact it may be best for the big 5 arms exporters (Russia, US, UK, France, Germany) to start talking amongst themselves about a treaty, then see what happens. I’m a little influenced by the minilateralism idea of Moises Naim and think this may be a good candidate for this type of treaty. More thinking on that on the way since I’m writing an op-ed on it for a class.
- The Hummus War of 2009 – War is hell. In this case its delicious, tasty hell.
First the NCP and SPLM agree on a major point for the referendum (50% + 1 needed for Southern independence, which was the SPLM’s position all along), then the NCP drops the use of disputed (by the SPLM) census data for the referendum, then two kidnapped Irish Aid workers are released. Oh and by the way, the State Department will announce its new Sudan policy on Monday. Darfur advocacy orgs already have a conference call lined up to comment on the new Sudan policy, of which most of the content has probably already been written.
My question is this: how do these recent developments fit into the way that the new policy is received? Its obviously a step forward in the right direction that two major points on the referendum have been agreed upon and this could validate Gration’s work until now. “Cookie” comments aside, I’m curious if the NCP is getting anything in the near future that would explain these two developments – reductions in sanctions perhaps? Will the administration be touting these developments when discussing the new strategy? Is the strategy actually “new” or just formalizing what Gration has been doing until now (who won in the final say within the State Dept)?
One last question: when I saw the GoSS Head of Mission last week he assured some South Sudanese that they would be able to vote in the referendum but I have not seen mention of it anywhere. This is probably still an outstanding issue, one that I think could be quite contentious – has it been discussed yet?
A busy weekend and week ahead are looming large in my mind, but there is always time for The Onion:
This could have been written by Ugandan MP David Bahati given his recent remarks about his feelings towards homosexuality.
The conversation always goes the same. I am talking to someone, generally a person older than me, and they ask about my studies or work. I end up mentioning where I want to work or where I have worked and their eyes get big. I know what comes next.
It happened to me last night when I mentioned that I spent the last summer in Juba, Southern Sudan. The woman looked slightly alarmed at this fact and asked the question that I was expecting all along. “How do your parents feel about that?”
Maybe its because I was talking to someone roughly the same age as my mother. Or because I am a woman in her late 20’s who is not married. But either way I get this question a lot. And I don’t mind much since it comes from a genuine place of concern from these individuals. It also reminds me that the majority of people in the US consider going to places like Southern Sudan or Afghanistan a little crazy. But since I am surrounded by people who have done this and will continue to do this, I tend to forget that perspective.
Back to the question – how do I respond? I hear the worst in the question, an implication that my parent’s don’t care about my well being because they should not want me to work in these places or that an unmarried woman in her 20’s needs to have the approval of her parents to do anything. I also realize that they don’t really mean it like that, its just a general reaction and curiosity. I usually say that they are used to it by now, I broke them in little by little and now try and ease them into any new adventures I am considering. Thinking about it today I should probably say something more like this, “My parents love me and worry about me when I go to places that can be dangerous, but they also love me too much to stop me because they know it is what I am passionate about and they know that passion comes from a genuine desire to do good. My parents don’t want to stand in the way of that. They trust that I am very levelheaded and they believe in my ability to discern what is a good and bad decision. Plus deep down they understand that even if they tried they would not be able to stop me, it is my life after all.”
