Research Reflections

A friend of a friend of a colleague and a phone number. As a frequent traveller and budding researcher, I have found that a few degrees of separation in no way minimizes the possibility of a connection made through casual suggestions and chance encounters. Rather, more often than not they hold the key to unlocking some of the most illuminating and profound linkages. As a master’s student placed with PRIA to conduct research, I organized and meticulously tracked interviews for two months with Delhi-based organizations hoping to answer the question “How do international volunteers impact the organizations that host them?”. In keeping with participatory research principles, I followed the research when it led me to Kolkata, which appeared to be a veritable hub of NGOs hosting international volunteers. I quickly filled this last minute week-long trip with appointments to interview organizations contacted and verified with the help of PRIA staff. A few days before boarding the train for a 20-plus hour journey across the northern border of India, a conversation with a colleague wound its way through friends and acquaintances, and produced the number of a man in Kolkata. I was assured that he hosted many international volunteers through his organization, and would be very much worth talking to. One week later, I found myself sitting under a tree on a cool stone patio surrounded by international volunteers newly returned from work in Darjeeling medical clinics. I chatted with the volunteers, drinking tea and taking notes about their experience preparing for and working in a semi-urban neighborhood of Kolkata. Were they learning Bengali? Adjusting to the heat? Activity continued on around us until a tidy and energetic Indian man approached us. “You must be Aislin! And you have found our volunteers, acha!” As all focus turned toward him, it was clear that the casual connection I had made was with the organizations director and it would be some time before he would be free to entertain my questions. The volunteers finished their tea and paired off in twos and threes, attending to various chores. I was led around the compound that I still knew so little about, to find a workshop for making the uniforms and backpacks for children in the 30-plus schools started and supported by the organization. I was shown a kitchen where communities unable to access enough nutritious food were provided meals. Around each corner was a new endeavor or initiative to support the growth of the community. But how did it all work? The list of questions I had was growing longer by the minute. At the end of the tour, I stood next to a monument to Mother Theresa and watched the sun sink behind trees and roofs waiting for the chance to ask my multiplying questions. Eventually, I was brought in to sit in the office of this friend of a friend of a colleague. I smiled, uncertain where to begin, and asked the same basic question I started almost all my interviews with: “can you tell a little bit about what your organization hopes to achieve?” Suddenly this felt like a silly and rather small question to ask. Like I hadn’t done my homework. Graciously, for the next 20 minutes he answered this question through stories of his own work with Mother Theresa, of how the clinic began with two friends and a cowshed, and of his funders who are all infrequent but sincere contributors. The “interview” lasted well over an hour, and I asked only a handful of questions, most of which were not what I had planned. Still, his story of the organization he nurtured and the web of interactions with the hundreds of volunteers he hosts every year told me more about the impact of international volunteers than I could have learned through the direct question and answer structure I had anticipated would be most efficient. Listening to the entirety of an experience rather than just the bits and pieces deemed most relevant is far more time consuming, but also far richer with the kind of information that supports a fuller understanding of the unanticipated issues connected to a research question that brief and condensed answers pass over as inconsequential. As our conversation began to wind down, I was confronted in so many words with the reality that even this one interview is not enough. There is no way that I could more than superficially understand the impact of international volunteers on the functioning of this organization, nor truly be able to separate it from my own inherent biases. I found myself near tears with the weight of it. “I’m just a summer researcher, I don’t have the time or the money” I was saying to myself knowing well these words ring with the sound of excuses. Participatory research can’t be conducted according to a schedule, nor demand convenient answers. It happens slowly over time, and then all at once. While I am still just a summer researcher with limited summer funding, I can adhere to the non-extractive, participant-led methods that reveal context rich interpretations of how communities and the individuals within them deal with a given issue. Had I planned more meticulously for this meeting, perhaps I would have been less inclined to sit back and listen. Either way, this experience was a lesson in the importance of following the research where it leads, and leaving a little room for chance. By: Aislin Lavin PRIA Research Intern Master of Development Practice Candidate Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

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