I've come back to the idea of doing a formal model, in part inspired by the very interesting and intuitive one developed in another of the books I got at LASA, on decentralization in the Andean region. I'd been struggling with the disconnect between the national-level policy choices and local outcomes that are both part of my project. The key insight was to see that it's a two-level game, with 1 local and 1 national component. The book I was reading offered one example of how to do that, so my writing today was about starting to sketch out another.
On the reading front, I focused on the parallels with Mexico, including a tradition of rural strongmen and armies that are getting more politicized by the drug war.
I find myself in need of some project management, as there're a lot of balls in the air right now, and I don't want to drop any too often as I move toward the finish line. I have a timeline, but any other suggestions of tools or techniques are welcome!
3 comments:
I can see you are working hard and am glad that you keep up the page count
although it sounds like it a struggle on keeping everything in line or finding the line right now. I have a couple of techniques that work well for me:
1. aside from making notes in the computer, write it down in a notebook too. That might sound futile but it helps thinking about the facts and how they relate to each other.
2. Write facts on little cards and spread them out on a table. You can move them around, put them into bundles that relate or order them regarding relevance, time or other categories that might be important.
3. lots and lots of clearly labeled bookmarks so you can quickly find again something that you read three days ago and suddenly makes more sense because of what you read today. My books looked like flattened hedgehogs by the time I was done with my diploma.
I hope those help a bit and - keep up the good work. You've come quite a long way.
Thanks, Tanja, those are great ideas! And I love the image of a flattened hedgehog! :)
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