Searching, searching,
and re-searching
“What’s financialization?”
When I first learned I’d be conducting research in Zambia, I
had no idea I’d eventually find myself reading the latest academic work on the structure
of the commodity trade industry and the effect of shareholder interest on
company growth. It took us weeks to understand what financialization meant, but
now that we finally do, I’m grateful our research brought me into such
uncharted territory.
Financialization has become my new favorite word and the
fact that Microsoft adds a little squiggly red line beneath it every time I
type it into Word no longer induces a feeling of fear. Now, it’s just a
reminder that Karl and I have the potential to contribute to a truly new body
of research. If nothing else, my new knowledge has given me a much deeper
interest in the legal framework for business and finance, so I’m excited to
explore the topic more even after I return to America.
Though I’ve learned a lot in my time so far, our research
has been quite challenging. Because Karl and I initially planned to work on separate
papers, we got a late start on our research and are now scrambling for a few
more interviews to tie up some loose ends within our paper. As we’ve attempted
to secure these interviews, difficulties have arisen. For one, it’s often
tricky to determine the stakeholders who could provide us with unbiased,
relevant, significant information. The major actors in our research are the
government and mining companies, both of which are notoriously difficult to get
a hold of.
Once we are able to schedule meetings with the right people,
it becomes hard to know who to trust. We often encounter interviewees who cite
entirely contradictory facts, with one stating there is no problem where the
other tells us there is. It can be frustrating to choose a side, especially for
a research paper that is almost solely reliant on the information gathered in
interviews.
The solution to these issues is a tedious one. We’ve learned
to ask as many interviewees as possible a set of similar questions so we can
determine the prevailing view. When we don’t have enough experts in a given
area to do this, we back up our findings with whatever we can find in the
existing research available online. When neither strategy is possible, we
accept that a caveat is necessary for the corresponding section of the paper
and move on.
As I watch my final two weeks in Zambia come, I’m grateful
for the struggle and the success of our research experience. While I’m sure we’ll
have a few late nights ahead of us to catch up to where we want to be, I’m
confident that I’ll be satisfied with our work in the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment