I posted on my Facebook page that my New Year's resolution is to complete my data collection within the scheduled timeframe. I have until November. And I was only half joking.In one week I'll hit the 2-month mark. That leaves 10 more months here in Burkina. After adjusting my research design two weeks ago to reflect the particulars on the ground (and to apply for some National Science Foundation money), I'm beginning to think I've bitten off more than I can chew.In a nutshell, my aim here is to understand how knowledge about the environment (particularly in relation to climate change and water resources) moves up and down the development chain during a water management project. I'm hooked up with the USAID program WA-WASH (West Africa-Water, Sanitation and Hygiene), so by "development chain," I mean this program, the local partner organization that is actually implementing the project, and the local community. I'm also considering USAID WA-WASH's ties to the larger USAID structure, and the US and Burkina governments. The schematic looks something like this:I'm focusing my research on the relationships between USAID WA-WASH and the community of Weglega. I'm using data collection in the village of Tama as something like a control. It has the same demographics and natural resource conditions as Weglega but there is currently no development project there.My main method, apart from classic participant observation, is cultural model analysis. This is a systematic way to uncover the cognitive structures people carry around with them that condition opinions about and behavior towards a particular topic. In this case, the cognitive structure is how people think the environment works. As a method, it also lends itself to verification since cultural models often can't be explicitly articulated.I want to see if the cultural models held by development agents are different than those held by community members. Because a year is far too little time to see if any knowledge exchange happens between organizations and communities, I've decided to look into the cultural model(s) of Tama residents. This comparison won't lead to definitive conclusions but would allow speculation and questions for future research.The only problem is that cultural model analysis takes a lot of time. After many many informational interviews you set up 10 key informants for each group. These groups are either entire populations are divisions within populations depending on your scale.Fortunately, there's likely to be one single cultural model of the environment held by WA-WASH and Winrock employees (there aren't too many employees to begin with). But there may be multiple models within Weglega and Tama. Both communities divide themselves similarly: Muslim men, non-Muslim men, and women (of all religions). My advisor wants me to additionally divide the communities by wealth. Because this is a sensitive subject I may use education level instead.Nonetheless, the key informant interviews have to be transcribed and you then comb through what the interviewee says, pulling out the basic components of the cultural model. This is done through inductive reasoning and takes many hours of combing, re-combing, and comparing transcripts from previous interviews and other interviewees within the same group.I'm combining this method with participant observation in order to see how knowledge between and within groups comes into contact in social settings, and what power dynamics are involved.Tick-tock, tick-tock!So, I have 10 months to get all this done while still studying Moore, collecting overarching information on climate change in Burkina Faso and West Africa, keeping up with my fieldnotes and journal, general analysis, and running basic errands that always seem to pop up (getting my oil changed, paying the electric bill--which takes ALL day, food shopping, etc). Life fills up pretty quick.I enjoy being busy and I enjoy this research, so I probably don't need to be too stressed. As another silver lining, I've found a couple of local research assistants that can help with my community survey and questionnaire work, translations, and some analysis. Maybe I don't have reason to stress but I can't help feeling the pressure.
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