Research Diaries

Post 3: 11th February 2024- Arriving @ the Fieldsite, kids & all

Sitio Pasil, Barangay Tambaliza, Concepcion, Iloilo, Western Visayas, Philippines

We arrived to the amazing fieldsite! Back to my honorary Tito and Tita- Alo and Gina in Sitio Pasil (Barangay Tambaliza) whom I stayed with in 2017 to run the behavioural economic experiments and finish up my PhD research (for results see experiments and patron-client relationships in typhoon Yolanda). I was proper panicking before we got here as it turned out there wasn’t really a field team or any students available/interested in the project. I had expected to try and support Filipino students in their thesis, like they could use the project as a way to cover fieldwork expenses and follow their interests too. I flew my friend Simon West out to Iloilo to share his interpretive wisdom and was hoping there would be a field team to share him with. It turned out there was just my great friend Jelai (who I had worked with before in 2017), she came back to research especially to work with me and help me! She was on her way to other adventures. I guess I was panicked because of the old colonial guilt- I want to contribute to students here and their learning journeys and not just collect data! But actually how it has turned out has been amazing, a great start to the project! Simon, Jelai and I hunkered down as a tight knit team and really got into understanding and exploring an interpretive approach to interviewing and doing research. I managed to get the emails of so many lovely professors and lectures across the University of the Philippines who were interested to help me out or connect students, just one email to one of my academic Gurus from Luzon (who I haven’t even met yet) and the word went out amongst Filipino researchers about me! 

There are so many threads of thought to share here in my diary but maybe to start with i’ll follow up on how I felt after I got out of the city and back to the province (countryside). I still have a DEEP anger for the travel agency I’m forced to deal with, they charged me 80 BLEEPING USD to call their emergency line when Simon’s flight got changed and actually created so much more work for me, Philippines airlines then wouldn’t assist me because I used a third party. My deep seated RAGE for how Stockholm University manages their contracts and travel systems (for-profit only) is only growing but ANYWAY-

Sitting on Tito Alo’s fishing boat as we went to buy fish for lunch from another sitio on our first day back in his house brought back what you might call some type of passion- which I haven’t felt about research in a LONG time. I think I’ve felt a bit trodden-on over the last while. The last time I went to the field, to feedback research in Zanzibar 2022, I was told by fishery managers and academics how useless my qualitative approach was in the project OctoPINTS, they couldn’t understand why I had asked people to tell their own stories of how they felt about marine conservation interventions. That was a real kick to the vag, if the people who make decisions about Zanzibar’s marine resources, which can impact so many people, don’t see the point of openly asking people about how they feel and what they think…..like not much hope hey. And then the lack of stability in research, being just based on projects that you can bring in the money for, it’s like a bit devaluing in a way. Also there is a salary issue at our research centre, the longer you are at the centre the lower your salary is, so people who started 4 or 5 years after me have 3000 SEK more than me a month. Which really miffs me off. So I was just getting bogged down by all these other aspects of research, but then I got back to the Visayan sea…..I felt a happiness in research again.

It made me think “Oh wait, maybe I can do 6 months of sticking receipts to A4 pages with a special sellotape and inputting them individually into a system that keeps telling me no”, it was really nice to feel that joy again, i don’t even know what words to use to describe that! 

I think I felt that too because I have my two boys here, I was holding my 3 year old on the boat and watching his pure F-ING JOY at being in this environment! On the flip side it’s HARD to have two kids in the field with you, intense would be the word. There is no room for reflection, showers alone or time-off as I have two little sets of feet following me around! Thanks to Tita Gina, who takes Fién when we go off to interview, and the many amazing people in Sitio Pasil for helping us with the kiddos, the feeling of kinship and community here is AMAZING. It makes me DREAD going back to Sweden where nobody chats, there is no banter, there is no support (besides formalized daycare) and I can’t just let Ferdia loose. I haven’t seen him for hours but I know he is safe, the whole village is watching him as he runs free with his new found friends from Tambaliza Island.