It has been four months since my last note. In this time I have finished two courses, presented my initial research ideas and conceptual framework at an online conference and now working towards completing my proposal. As I write this I am realising that its heartening to mark the passage of time with the process (not even progress) rather than months.
That being said, I am struggling to swim in the academic pool – it is daunting, and I feel a bit unanchored since I have no grounding yet. In the years of practice before this, theories came second to the unfolding everydays of the places I was conducting research in. While the premise of a PhD is to upturn this and be able to theorise before I walk into the landscape I will study, it still feels counterintuitive to me. My words feels alien as I write them into my proposal because they are not informed by the language of the land or the people I am yet to meet. While I am surrounded by the language of scientists, it doesn’t yet easily roll off my tongue. For instance, I am currently at the operationalisation of my research stage. What is operationalisation? It took a long time before I could answer that for myself (I asked a lot of people and everyone had a very interesting take on it). Here is mine – It is essentially the concrete to be poured into all the theoretical scaffoldings I have constructed these past months. The problem is that I do not yet know the ratio of the concrete mix and as a person I need to know the exact ratio before I pour or else I cannot go ahead. There lies the challenge since I begin my field work only after I submit my proposal. So for now, intellectual speculation is where I stand. I shall fill this framework with a mix I estimate to be the best and let it cure. I will soon know if the structure stands or crumbles and that is when I can begin fixing it or building on it.
Experiential metaphors are essentially academic operationalisation as I understand it. How will I practically carry out my study within my research’s theoretical bounds? I do not know yet for sure, but I can base it on past experiences, other scholars’ studies etc, etc. What. methods will I use? How can I get the information I am looking for with these methods? Now that I have been able to define this process for myself, I am calling forth my prior work to buttress my current and I have found so much joy in that. This language I can speak, very well. I guess part of doing academic research is being able to codeswitch?
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