Genevieve, an SWDTP-funded PGR in the University of Bristol on the Health and Wellbeing pathway received OFA funding to travel to Mexico to conduct data collection for her project.
After a year of preparation, I set off to Mexico in October 2023, thanks to the SWDTP’s Overseas Fieldwork Allowance, to begin my PhD fieldwork. I spent seven months under the sun in the city of Minatitlán, working with the civil society organization Fundación Cucharada de Amor to conduct data collection for this project. Read on if you are curious to hear how my fieldwork experience unfolded month by month (the highs, the lows and the unexpected!):
October– Mónica (dear friend and fellow SWDTP student) hosted me for the celebrations of ‘Día de los Muertos’ in the beautiful mountains of Oaxaca. Grateful to be sharing the PhD journey with her as we both embark on a year of fieldwork!
November– Quick stop with my supervisor Alejandra in Xalapa, a lovely reunion after seven years of working together (mostly remotely)! I arrived in Minatitlán after a long bus journey through the lush pineapple fields of Veracruz and was greeted by the brilliant Lucía who runs Cucharada de Amor. In November we mostly drank coffee, got to know new colleagues, and strategize on the project. We made new connections and partnered with the Faculty of Medicine at the Universidad Veracruzana to form a team for the survey. Five trainee medical students joined us for the research project: Christian, Emi, Josseane, Alejandra, and Lessa.
December– This was the month for pilot research. We held three focus groups among women in the communities with whom we worked to prepare the next stage of research. Aimé, a dear friend and professor at the Intercultural Universidad Veracruzana provided her expert advice on setting these up and facilitated the first conversations. Then we put a hold on the work and focused on getting ready for Christmas celebrations!
January– January kicked off strong! We trained everyone to prepare for the survey, and then started the quantitative data collection. We assembled an eight-person research team, with twelve community volunteers from the Foundation who committed their time and energy to help the logistics of data collection. Every week for eight weeks we held a social fair in different neighborhoods of Minatitlán, with 15 to 60 people attending each. Our first social fair had unexpected hurricane level winds, and the tents flew up into the air! A dramatic start.
February– We continued with our intense survey data collection efforts all of February. Our wonderful friend and colleague María Eugenia invited us to take part in the celebrations to the Virgen de la Candelaria, a four-day party that honors the traditions of the region of the Istmo de Tehuantepec in Oaxaca. It was without a doubt the most dancing-filled, flower-decorated, and beautiful party I have ever attended.
March– In March we finished the survey and then conducted 16 interviews for the qualitative phase of the project, together with Lucía and María Eugenia. I also did plenty of data entry, cleaning and analysis before flying to Los Angeles to present preliminary results at the Human Biology Association Meeting.
April– In April we worked with students doing their internship at the Universidad Veracruzana on transcriptions. We also spent time interviewing key informants that worked at the civil society organization, as well as the official historian of Cosoleacaque and Minatitlán, to further enrich the data.
May– Time for goodbye parties, wrapping-up, a week of vacation by the beach to relax after an intense seven months of fieldwork and before heading back to write up the thesis. But before this, an unexpected opportunity: Lucía, María Eugenia and I were invited on the Mina Medica live community podcast hosted by two doctors to talk about our project, reaching an audience of 3.2k!
I’ve heard many times that doing a PhD is a lonely experience. My main takeaway from this time, was that research can be a communal, formative, and life-giving experience, especially when set up as a collaborative endeavor. Knowledge production, particularly when working on social issues never arises in a vacuum. More perspectives are always better, and research projects can only be enriched when conceived considering our distinctive points of view, whether these be community expertise, wisdom from lived experience, or interdisciplinary dialogue, among others. I learned the most about the process of what it means to ‘do research’ through these relationships, which became friendships, allowing space for mutual discussions, for creative thinking, strategizing on our strengths and weaknesses. Without the SWDTP OFA I would not have had the chance to participate in such a collaborative and rich PhD experience that will no doubt shape my next steps as an early career researcher.