Today, I'm going to throw out a story about a fieldwork fail, before I strike out for "the field" for 2.5 weeks. Hopefully when I come back, I'll have something more positive to talk about.
My dissertation fieldwork has taken a real hit recently, as a person I thought I would be able to meet declined the offer. Ultimately, it's not so much choosing to decline meeting me, as it is receiving the news by text message that drives home to me that I've been making a fundamental error. 7 months in to my F-H grant, and I have yet to meet the major players. I have passively waited for people who have offered to help. What I have not done, however, is actively try to maintain my guanxi and relationships. I have not hosted a dinner in over a year (we've been short of funds, but ultimately that's poor excuse). I have not maintained, let alone cultivated the sorts of relationships that one needs to get things done here. I have met with friends, but not really tried to move upwards. This must change, I suppose. The above point drives home why this project is so ambitious for me. I've always been good at having friends in low places (shout out to Garth Brooks), but not so good at networking, and cultivating relationships with those one might term "a big deal." This was highlighted, retrospectively by my inability to really get in and network with a scholar who was recently passing through town. There's no real use in crying over spilt milk, but there is use in trying to learn from these mistakes. And what I'm learning is that I'll have to throw fiscal responsibility (sort of) and my liver to the wind if I really want to get where I should. I don't know if people will be around enough in the summer to really make this work, but starting in the fall at the latest, I need to up my game...
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About TimAs you can see elsewhere on this webpage, I conduct research on ethnic minorities in western China. This blog offers semi-academic musings on the minutiae of daily life out here--the sort of information otherwise destined for footnotes. Categories |