PhD Diary in Quarantine
(started on Monday, 30/03/2020)
This is going to be hard to write. Not because I haven't gone over it in my head time and time again, trying to get to grips with the situation... But because I am very much aware that I am privileged in having nothing to worry about except my research. And yet I have to unload these thoughts somewhere, somehow.
The biggest worry is that, because the pandemic means I have to change my design, I don't think I can have a project that will answer any actually useful questions which are interesting to more than just me (if that). And I don't know who to ask for help with this, or how. I don't know how to make any connection between the questions I can think of off the top of my head and any real-world concerns. Even if I say, well this qualitative analysis could help to develop a more robust (read: interesting) research project where actual problems are – maybe – solved, I still can't think of how that could even happen. I am also worried that this crisis has exposed how little I know. I know it sounds dramatic, so let me explain.
(continued on 18/04)
My project was based on data that I could only obtain face-to-face, and the interaction cannot be replicated online. Now, I have to transform the project into something that works with data gathered online, which by necessity is a different type of data (for example, I can still carry out interviews with participants, but I can no longer set up mock police interviews, which means I can no longer OBSERVE interpreter behaviour.) Different data => different analytical tools => different questions. I truly feel like I have to start from scratch, to study what kinds of methods I can use with this data (that I don't have yet – that's another story) and what kind of questions those analyses can answer, because right now I just don't know. And, I feel like by now (6+ years of studying Linguistics) I should have a few ideas in my back pocket.
There's another possibility, or a complementary explanation. Over time, it's become more and more obvious to me that to carry out this project I need to be creative. I need to have imagination. It is possible – if not indeed probable – that the more 'out there' ideas about how to collect data, how to analyse it, what questions to ask etc., are constantly being preempted by fear. My critical voice comes in before those ideas can even be formed or put into words, and shuts them down. 'No, that won't work.' 'No, that's scary to do.' 'No, you don't actually know how to do that.' (where "that" is unknown, or as yet hasn’t, erm, risen to the level of consciousness?)
Another thing that I'm missing, which I wasn't aware of earlier on, was the intellectual community, which is not something I'm sure I had before the quarantine because I didn't pay attention to finding or building one for myself. I need this because now, a couple of weeks of not attending to my research – or any intellectual pursuits – at all, I feel really far removed from all of it – physically, intellectually, emotionally. (I don't do work as an interpreter anymore, so I'm removed from that community as well, which I'm sure doesn't help.)
So it looks like I can do a few things here. I can study other methods of online data collection and analysis, ignoring that voice that says that I should know this already. I can maybe look into some 'creativity for academics' shit (I don't even know where to start with that one...) to try and unlock some creative potential (which I am skeptical even exists but whatever). I can look up Jennifer Polk's Twitter feed and other writings (and maybe consider paying for her coaching sessions?) I just don't know how to explain this to my supervisor and in what order I should do any of this and what doing it looks like. *giant shrug emoji*
