Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Back in the high life again

5 hours researching, 1 hour interviewing, 2 hours processing data, 1 hour traveling, page count = 140

Well, I'm back in Bogotá after an eventful trip to Medellín. Many thanks to Carlos Gustavo Zea, alias El Gato, for the use of his family's lovely apartment and for his enjoyable company over the past several days. We flew to Medellín together last Sunday, and Carlos took us through the Avianca VIP lounge, which featured plush chairs, free drinks (if only I'd been in the mood for a scotch...) and WiFi. Plus we went in first class on the plane. Not a bad way to live! (Almost makes me want to take back what I said yesterday about Avianca. But not quite.) El Gato and his family are in the process of moving to Medellín, and I know they'll have a great time there. They're the kind of people who know how to make you feel welcome, and that'll get you far in this life. Gracias, Gato!

I went to a public library this morning to get some additional sources to complement the records from the governor´s archive. They were resolutions passed by the state assembly, and a number mentioned the police or dealt with budget matters that will help provide an overall context. There's so much data that I've mainly been taking photos to process later, to get as much info as I can while I´m down here. Last night and this morning I went through the literally hundreds and hundreds of photographed pages to check which ones were out of focus, and then went back and re-took those pictures in the governor's archive today. (I think my temporary monitor Diana will be proud of me for that one!) Finally, I had the great pleasure of interviewing two retired police colonels, who provided a nonstop stream of history, commentary, opinion, and experience, from which I'll benefit enormously. I've added significantly to the "Acknowledgments" section of my dissertation over the past couple of weeks, and I look forward to sharing the final product with the people I've met and who've helped me.

Tomorrow morning, I have a meeting with a leading researcher on the contemporary police, so it's go-go-go until my plane leaves on Saturday. I'm back at altitude (Bogotá is at 8500 feet) but the thin air won't stop me motoring around the city the next three days!

4 comments:

Geordan said...

Sounds like somebody needs to invent the "document photography tripod" by repurposing one of those brackets they use to suspend pizzas above your table at a restaurant. Chris, I think this is your chance to make a fortune helping all of those other PhD candidates with their documentation efforts...

Unknown said...

First class! You never told me that!

By they way, I think someone beat you to the punch with the document photogarphy tripod. It's not made of a pizza stand, but they do have something like that in the digital imaging lab at work that cameras hook into so they can photograph old books and documents.

Unknown said...

Luisfer tiene una frase que cada vez tiene mas sentido para mi: "Es mejor tener amigos que tener dinero". Me alegra que hayas conocido al Gato y seas participe de sus cualidades. Me alegra tambien saber que este viaje ha sido tan provechoso para ti y tu investigacion a la que le deseo lo mejor. Tu esfuerzo y dedicación dara sus frutos estoy segura.

Unknown said...

I remember when Diana was facing a similar problem of not being able to make photocopies of various materials for further study and analysis...

Back then figuring out that you could simply use a digital camera was such a great discovery. Now some 40k pictures later we know that system works. An interesting problem to solve next will be how to search all those pictures for relevant data ;)

Now lets see how your doing against your target schedule ;-) (hey you asked)

Daily target for work:

3h - reading/ruminating/research
3h - writing

Looks like you are doing agreat job on the research part and in fact gaining ground against your schedule. From this post though it looks like some more time writing is called for... yeah yeah we all know how distracting being in the field can be with all that raw data just waiting to be grabbed for future analysis. Good work keep it up.