So it has been almost a month since I arrived. Although I have been making ok progress, I need to push myself much more than I have been thus far.
In my mind, I am being held up by this IRB stuff. I do not want to reach out to too many people for interviews or to take my survey, then have to wait another month before I can actually do it/send it, you know? November and December are busy months with holidays here: Nov 2-5, 10, 18, December 8, graduations are in December, then Christmas, and new year. I wanted to have a few interviews under my belt before December hit and I am not sure that is going to happen : (
In the meantime I should be reading my ass off. That is not happening. I will fix that ASAP.
My Spanish class is also rich cultural context for this project. I will synthesize and post about that another time but as a teaser, one day my teacher said "West Indians were in a favorable position when they came to Panama because they spoke English. Discrimination is social, not racial. It was the Panamanians who suffered, not them."... the same woman who gave me the article about the unauthorized sterlization of West Indian men in the 1940's. si, bien interesante.
BUT I did get in contact with an organization called Voice of Our America. Their work sounds amazing and I will be able to access some of the life histories they have already done on my research population. Score! The good thing about this is: I will be able to listen to various interviews before performing my own (on different people, overlapping theme). This will allow me to change/add/reformat questions as needed before I actually do my interviews. It also gives me a large body of first person narratives to put my own event-based research into context. Super excited about this. (also, we were talking collaborations for presentations and such. yay!). I also have ties with SAMAAP and El Comité Panameño contra el Racismo.
My first research method is a survey. I have a survey hosted at surveymonkey.com in both Spanish and English, ready to go as soon as I get approval. I also have a list of people willing to take it. ** SHAMELESS PLUG: if you are Panamanian, are living/have lived in Panama or know anyone who has, please let me know if you are interested in taking the survey. many thanks ** The survey collection will be ongoing, but the data collected will give an intial read of my interview interests.
I have met with a few key organizations/people from key organizations, setting up meetings with a few professors, and in general have met people who I would like to interview later. I have a chart with the groups I need to interview. My column of Americans is full so I can start with them while my survey is being disseminated... once I get my approval.
I am just hoping I execute this project successfully. It has the potential to be very interesting (to me at least)
abstract of sorts pasted below si les interesa...
Past 45 years, urban panama has seen tremendous change. The cities of Panama City and Colón, as well as the Canal Zone, have experienced the flag riots in 1964; the signing of the Canal Treaties in 1977; a U.S. military invasion in 1989; and the U.S. withdrawal and turnover of the Canal and Canal Zone in 1999. These national and international events have contributed to a burgeoning post-colonial Panamanian identity. However, there have also been simultaneous persistent legal and social currents of racism and disparity.
The Panamanian government revoked and reinstated West Indian citizenship during the 1900s, directly affecting access to economic and social resources and creating mistrust between the West Indian community and the state. While the 1999 turnover celebrated Panamanian sovereignty, despite economic growth Panama as the fourth worst income distribution in the world. Further, the turnover disbanded the national “we” identity constructed around reclaiming the Canal and Canal Zone, and thus redefined the previous factions and divides which often left Black voices marginalized.
This study will explore, through participant observation, surveys and series of interviews, the struggles of Panamanian men and women of West Indian heritage from the 1960s to today. It seeks to understand how and where they create social networks and forge their identities in post-colonial urban Panamá. This project aims to understand how urban minority identities secure and protect their rights amid global trends of immigration, land reform and development from governments that marginalize them.
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