Dissertation Field Work

For those of you who don't know, I'm heading down to Central America in a few weeks to start field work for my dissertation. I've set up this blog so anyone who is interested can follow my trials and tribulations as an academic researcher in Latin America. Sounds like fun, right? Dusty libraries, layers of bureaucracy, thumbing through archives, newspaper ink on my fingers everyday. But I also will be interviewing journalists, politicians, and activists. So if you're interested in (a) the nuts and bolts of academic inquiry, (b) what I'm up to while I'm out of the country, (c) the dynamics of political rhetoric in Latin America, and/or (c) stories about interesting places and the interesting people you can meet there, then check back here every once in a while.

Here's a quick run down of my game plane for the next few months. I'm heading down to Guatemala and El Salvador to get started on my field research. My project is, more or less, about the issue of crime control during political campaigns, and the relationship between the media, public opinion, and politicians during political campaigns. Crime is a very hot topic in Latin America, and campaigning on crime control issues often follows a pattern that was made famous in the US by Rudy Giuliani in New York. Candidates will often support mano dura (loosely translated as "iron fist" or "heavy hand") policies against crime, which often include harshly punitive measures. I am interested in how the debate over crime control policies evolves during electoral campaigns. So I will be in Guatemala and El Salvador for about two months digging in newspaper archives, talking to journalists, and interviewing politicians. I'll be doing the same thing in Brazil over the summer, and, if all goes well, I'll be in Argentina in the fall. But first I'm heading out to New York to visit friends and get a quick Poekoelan fix before heading out of the country. And I'm taking a short vacation in Guatemala before I get to work. So stay tuned...more posting to come when I've actually on the road.