Research notes and ramblings
Research is a weird kind of job. In my line of work, public policy research – or, as my uncle would call it, a waste of public funds – you are expected to know stuff. That's your job, studying, learning, knowing things. It's a debatable reason for getting a salary, but I would not be the one raising this objection. Fieldwork, is a big part of this job. I follow people, what they do, with a set of assumptions about how policy is being made, and ask them how and why they do what they do. I record my interviews or jot down my notes and watch those assumption crumble, question after question. So, I go back to reflect on my failures, and I read, read, and read again about all the interesting things very smart people have written over the past decades. I work out a couple of slightly sharper, brand-new interpretations, I get face to face with my interviewees and watch them proving me wrong again. So, I roll up my sleeves and… well, you get it at this point.
This process, I came to realise, is not necessarly a waste of time. One of the things I have learned over the past few years, is that to understand how something works, get a somewhat truthful interpretation of what is going on, you need to dwell. To stay with your topic, your objects of study, and – crucially – your thoughts. I believe that research, at least the kind of research I do, requires this dwelling, pondering, doubting what you see and yourself. As a chronically anxious and self-doubting person, I have spent a lot of time with my thoughts as a researcher that I know may have a few things to say about (at least) my reseach practice, methods, and the role of the research in this broader picture. This is what this blog is about. Occasionally, I plan to publish some of my ramblings also in research-based ramblings about how policy theories can be useful to think about our present in my unsystematic sort of newsletter, Policy Unmaking, on Substack.