Conducting research in Zambia has been a great experience. Even though some days were harder than others it has granted me the opportunity to develop essential research skills and the opportunity to work with passionate human rights organization.
While working in Zambia I expected that having access to WIFI would be a challenge but experiencing it on a daily basis sometimes became frustrating. Not being able to quickly google a new term or organization that I came across in a reading was very limiting. However, it did teach me to prioritize my time at my workplace and be as efficient as possible. Another challenge I faced while conducting research was getting access to research papers. This was a privilege that I took for granted at Cornell where any journal was accessible through the University’s database. Even though I am able to search some papers through Cornell’s library, some are still not accessible. Another problem included gaining access to the projects and data on various NGO’s web sites. Many organizations do not update their websites or publish their data so it was hard to find what work was actually being done in the field. This then made me contact organizations directly to gain access to information. Next talking to governmental departments was also a barrier. This is a problem that I assumed would be present in any country, being that most government officials are not readily accessible to the public. Therefore our research became heavily reliant on the connections we made during interviews and talking to other experts, to gain us access to a personal contact of theirs within the ministries. This created a process of waiting for emails and phone calls from various people.
A challenge I faced specifically due to my research topic was becoming familiar with the current context of climate change in Zambia. Due to our lack of a strong environmental background, the first month was spent sifting through various international, national and local climate change policies and programs. Being that the data was scattered throughout multiple government departments and civil organizations throughout the country, it was hard to find gaps in the data because most times the information was available but hard to find. For this reason, it took us a long time to narrow our research topic and actually conduct interviews with more of a purpose rather than just gaining an understanding of the environmental issues that Zambia is facing.
Nevertheless, the challenges faced on the daily basis is minuscule to the effects that our research could have in helping to better the lives of many people. While conducting interviews I’ve heard a lot of stories from researchers based in rural communities who have watched people suffer whether from water pollution due to mining companies, malnutrition due to lack of arable land, or fatigue from trying to find water sources. Hopefully, these last two weeks will work in our favor and allow us to finish our research at the highest quality of work.
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