What do you do?

12.03.2003

That's a question often asked of me. Yes, I'm working on my PhD in political science. Yes, it can be interesting (and sometimes mind-numbingly boring). Yes, I do teach (the best part of academic life, let me tell you). So. What am I doing in Bolivia? For Andy, who wondered why I never write about my research. Here goes (blame him if you die of boredom):

I'm staying in Bolivia until the end of July gathering data for my dissertation. This is what we overeducated types call "fieldwork" (rather than "study abroad") — where we spend a year on someone else's dime before going back home to write for a year (also on someone else's dime). All in all, it's not a bad life.

OK. Most days I go to the Vicepresidency building's basement, which is where the Bolivian Library of Congress is housed. Sitting at the information desk is a large binder which includes my reference sheet. This tells the staff who I am, why I'm here, and keeps a record of the items I ask for. Usually, my sheet is not in the binder, since the staff waits for me to come in. They hand me my sheet, I write down my request for the day, and go sit down. I invariable request a volume of old newspapers. Say, Ultima Hora, July 1989.

A few moments later, a young man comes out w/ an old & dusty hardcover collection of said newspaper. My name is called, and I go up to retrieve said book, and take it back to my seat. That's where the magic happens.

See, I read the newspapers. Day by day, article by article. I skip over anything that's clearly not "political" (e.g. the sports pages) or that deals w/ non-national news. When I find an article that deals w/ local news (and I focus almost exclusively on election coverage), I read the entire article. Slowly. Then I jot down the title of the article, the date it appeared, and the page. Below that, I summarize the article as carefully as I can (usually w/ long word-for-word sections), making sure to mark who said what to whom and where.

By the end of January, I should have enough collected that I can start a preliminary content analysis run w/ help of some local political scientists. We'll independently look at some sample articles, and code them along a long list of criteria I have. For example: In this article, did politician A speak about party X in a very positive, somewhat positive, neutral, somewhat negative, or very negative manner? Things like that. Are you excited yet? It gets better.

Once I've established that we have "inter-coder reliability" (that is, that all of us code the same statements in the same way), I'll go back to the archives and cover all the election periods from 1985 to 2002 (and, if possible, going back to 1978). This means at least 15 months, covering at least seven newspapers. Then, when I go back to Kalamazoo, I'll spend some time coding all the statements into a database, before running all kinds of statistical analysis (some sophisticated, most not) to see if the structure of "political public discourse" in Bolivia has changed in the way I predicted.

Of course, all of this in the context that October 2003 was a turning point in Bolivian politics and that no one seems to know what happens next. And. There you have it. Your tax dollars at work (a million thankyous, by the way).

I'll be sure to take a picture of the Vicepresidency and post it. I guarantee that it'll be much more exciting than this post.

Posted by Miguel at 10:13 PM

Comments

this was an awesome post. thank you very much. i try to explain to people what you do, and mostly the only part i can explain well is the whole teaching thing. this helps.

now i can know what you really do, and how my tax dollars are hard at work. i love doing things on other people's dimes. it is great. how else did i make it to all the fun places I had the pleasure of visiting this year?

keep up the hard work.

Posted by: sam at December 3, 2003 10:32 PM

I like Grandpa's question:

Are you working hard? Or hardly working?

Posted by: Miguel at December 3, 2003 10:38 PM

great post, I finally know what you do in La Paz, I was curious all this time.

Posted by: claudia at December 4, 2003 01:13 AM

I wrote you an email a little while ago asking the same question. It was written before I saw this entry, sorry!

Just in case, FYI, in Cochabamba there is an institute called Centro de Documentacion e Informacion Bolivia (CEDIB) that has a lot of research materials. They provide a service where you can request what you are looking for and provide the researcher. They make photocopies of the specific articles and charge something like diez centavos per copy. Maybe it could assist in some of your other research.

http://www.cedib.org

Posted by: eduardo at December 4, 2003 04:57 AM

This is such a coincidence. I meant to ask u what PhD fieldwork is abt. Am curious...

Posted by: Steph at December 4, 2003 09:39 AM

Well, PhD fieldwork is different depending on the discipline and the research topic. This is my first time dealing w/ content analysis in this way. I usually use electoral data and work based on that (I prefer it, actually).

As for the suggestion of CEDIB. Yes, I'm aware of it. Actually, I came hoping to work w/ the archives at CEDOIN (Centro de Documentación e Información) in La Paz. It no longer exists. The problem w/ Cochabamba is that I have to be in La Paz, since most other places are here (FUNDEMOS, ILDIS, CEBEM, Fundación Milenio, CNE, etc.). Plus, I can't afford the cost of photocopying all the materials, since I'm reading so many newspapers.

Posted by: miguel at December 4, 2003 12:16 PM

Yea! To be honest, it sounds fun. :)

Posted by: Andres at December 4, 2003 01:09 PM

Actually, sometimes I get so bored I want to vomit.

Posted by: Miguel at December 4, 2003 05:21 PM

Wow, sounds like alot of hard work.

I enjoyed your recent post concerning Bolivian politics and linked to it. It's amazing that the Trotskyites are using the same techniques that they've used for the last 90 years around the world. That they still exist as a force...is just stunningly horrific.

I hope you are doing well.--scott

Posted by: J.Scott Barnard at December 4, 2003 05:28 PM

Yes, the Trotskyites here in Bolivia are still a major force. Actually, Bolivia has one of the oldest/strongest Trostkyite movements (w/ at least three major factions) in the world. In an earlier post (a week earlier?) I posted a link to websites I found giving a history of Trotskyitism in Bolivia. Weird.

And, yes, they are stunningly horrific. I actually remember hearing one of them make a speech where he stated -- literally -- that his theories were right, it was the real world that was wrong. Sheesh. Talk about lunacy.

I respect the intellectual left, and even Marxism (when properly understood). Too bad the popular Marxists today are of the Lenin-Stalin-Trotsky-Mao schools. And not the Gramsci school, which promotes liberal democracy and comes to terms w/ the fact that modern capitalism is A) still around and B) actually improving the lives of workers (this, in the Gramscian lexicon is known as "Fordism").

Posted by: Miguel at December 4, 2003 05:38 PM