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On the importance and relevance of fieldwork

When I was doing my doctorate, I took a variety of methods courses. Seeing as I had taken economics during my Masters and that I was originally a chemical engineer, I thought it was advisable to do coursework that would actually help me in a variety of situations. I took quantitative methods, qualitative methods, spatial analysis and GIS, etc. My PhD advisor never once questioned my intention to undertake fieldwork in order to validate what the quantitative datasets and spatial analyses were telling me. I do not think for a second he wanted me to be a “one trick pony”.

Mishima (water and river restoration fieldwork for IASC 2013)

Me during fieldwork last year (2013) in Mishima, in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan

To me, field research is fundamental to understanding social phenomena, and many natural phenomena. In particular, for the kind of research I do (wastewater governance, water privatization, informal waste recycling), much of what I have to do to understand how waste and water governance processes work is to observe, interview, dialogue with stakeholders. While I am fond of quantitative datasets that one can download from the internet, many of the databases I have created have been obtained from undertaking archival research and fieldwork. Much of what I know about wastewater treatment plants in Mexico comes from actually visiting them, and seeing them operate (i.e., from doing fieldwork).

I tweeted a few weeks ago that I wasn’t sure why people were searching on my blog for answers to the importance and relevance of fieldwork. I think that there are at least 3 reasons why doing fieldwork in my area (comparative public policy) is important (and why my own graduate and undergraduate students are required to go on the field for their research).

1. Fieldwork gives the researcher an “on-the-ground”, more realistic perspective than any second-hand, pre-digested/analyzed account.

2. Fieldwork enables the researcher to create networks of similarly-minded scholars, and to share insights about the same field site.

3. Fieldwork allows the researcher to examine political and policy processes as they occur, giving a complementary perspective to historical or diachronic analyses.

There are, of course, all sorts of drawbacks to engaging in fieldwork, particularly when it is on potentially triggering and painful subjects (violence against women or children both come to mind, but even my own field, the social science of sanitation, provides ample opportunity to witness a lot of pain and therefore, to create emotional pain from being witness). Thus the importance of self-care when undertaking fieldwork in dangerous places or areas where there is a lot of violence or emotional pain. Dr. Kimberly Theidon wrote about this subject for a recently published DSD working paper.

Overall, I love fieldwork and find that it is important and relevant for my own work and my students’ work. Even if I find it very challenging (particularly because I work with and study vulnerable populations and thus I need to be extra careful about ethical considerations), and sometimes not particularly pleasant, I gain insights I would not be able to otherwise.

If you have additional insights on why fieldwork is important and relevant, I’d appreciate it if you left them in the comments section.

UPDATE: Several colleagues chimed in, here are their insights.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – June 12, 2014

On misguided policy decisions and complex choices

A few weeks ago, the Information Bank for Applied Social Science Research at CIDE (BIIACS or Banco de Información para la Investigación Aplicada en Ciencias Sociales, in Spanish) invited me and a few other colleagues to give a talk about how I use spatial analysis in my public policy research. The event took place last Thursday, and I was joined by my colleagues Carlos Vilalta (who studies the spatial and temporal elements of crime), Jaime Sainz (who does spatial analysis in environmental justice and urban expansion issues), and Alfredo Ramirez (who studies urban pricing and rent/buy choices).

Something that struck me very strongly (particularly because I have a very big beef with the way Mexican public policies are designed and implemented) was how Carlos emphasized policy choices in his presentation. He spoke on the beginnings of a macro-theory of crime, and he emphasized something that really hit home with me:

Crime and fear of crime caused costs and damages for 25.4 billion USD in 2012. Yet, the federal government will spend this 2014, approximately 190 million USD in social crime prevention policy versus almost 1 billion USD for the functioning of the National Institute of Elections (INE) and the financing of political parties – in a year with no federal elections.

What Carlos highlights here is something that has made my blood boil for decades, ever since I decided that I wanted to be a public policy scholar. The absolute mismatch between policy objectives and the sheer idiocy behind policy decisions. As Carlos indicates, why on Earth do you want to spend 1 billion USD for an institute that coordinates elections in a non-electoral year? Why not focus on, oh well say, poverty alleviation? Or crime prevention strategies? Or water infrastructure?

That stupid policy decisions are made in Mexico just as much as in other countries is true. In Canada, in my former province, Christy Clark (the Premier of British Columbia and someone whose policy decisions I’ve criticized for a long time now) increased her cabinet’s salaries (already hefty) by 18% while getting into stupid fights with BC teachers on issues of salaries and educational infrastructure.

But this doesn’t make me happy. I am not happy that misguided policy decisions occur worldwide. I’m appalled that we have so many talented scholars of corruption, of public policy analysis, and yet governments keep doing what they do without any regard for whether their policies are sound and whether their analyses are robust. It’s frustrating and I have no idea how to change this. I have always set my faith in the third sector, civil society, to correct governmental failures. But we need a galvanized, active civil society AND perhaps it’s high time we, academics who know how to design proper policy, get involved in activism.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – June 1, 2014

Towards a holistic understanding of sanitation: The links between menstrual hygiene management, open defecation and violence against women

When analyzing complex phenomena, such as the lack of access to proper water supply and sanitation that more than 2.1 billion people in this world face, we tend to isolate components of the problem, without regard for other compounding factors that also influence how policy decisions are constructed. Thus, we often find ourselves blinded by one sole policy goal without trying to map out the complex interrelationships that affect that particular phenomenon.

Women Collecting Water in Malawi

Photo credit: Water For People/Kate Harawa on Flickr

While I’m not a scholar of violence against women, I’m keenly aware of the fact that lack of access to proper sanitation facilities has a profound and disproportionately negative effect on women and girls. Not only do they need proper facilities during menstruation, but also to relieve themselves. Countries where open defecation rates are disproportionately high, such as India, often are also countries where violence against women is also high. But the linkages aren’t visible to everyone, all the time. Much of the work on sanitation, water and gender has focused on the distance that girls and women need to travel to fetch water, with lesser attention paid to issues of menstrual hygiene management and open defecation.

Open defecation along the river bank

Photo credit: Sustainable Sanitation Alliance on Flickr

Situations like the one described in this article (trigger warning: violence against women) are not rare in countries where rates of open defecation are high.

The international charity Water Aid said around 300 million women and girls in India were still obliged to practise open defecation, exposing them to risk of harassment and assault. Lower caste women were especially at risk, it said.

When looking for a place to relieve themselves, girls and women often need to hide with the consequent heightened probability of being attacked.

Globally, India continues to be the country with the highest number of people (597 million people) practising open defecation

Open defecation is said to cost about $260 billion globally. Maybe it is high time that we start investing money in building low-cost, highly-accessible toilets rather than skyscrapers.

Additional reading:

– A good briefing note by the charity Water Aid on the social dynamics of abandoning open defecation in Ghana.
– May 28th was just announced as Menstrual Hygiene Management Day. Read some good facts on MHM here.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – May 31, 2014

The fallacy of “efficiency” in water privatization discourse

My current project on the politics of water privatization in Mexico has yielded three interesting sub-strands. The first one is an analysis of global trends in remunicipalization (the process whereby municipalities take back public water supply from private concession holders). The second one is a study of social struggles around water privatization in several Mexican municipalities. The third one (and the most related to my career-long interest in wastewater and sanitation governance) is a study of privatization of sanitation and wastewater treatment plants. These projects are part of my overarching research programme on the spatial, political, environmental and human dimensions of public service infrastructure.

Mishima (water and river restoration fieldwork for IASC 2013)Given what I have found in my survey of the literature on why local governments choose to privatize their public service delivery, I’m really puzzled as to why would municipalities want to continue going ahead with this process. Several Mexican sub-national governments like the metropolitan zones of Puebla and Guadalajara have started the process of privatizing their public water supply.

This is disheartening, particularly because the global discourse of efficiency gains of water privatization has been thoroughly debunked. I have a piece currently under review where I discuss findings by Mildred Warner, David Hall, Emanuele Lobina, Germa Bel, Naren Prasad and other scholars who have found that those alleged efficiency gains are countered by numerous problems, including exacerbating social inequities, increasing social welfare gaps and raising concerns about intergenerational (and intra-regional) injustices.

Parque Explora (Leon, Guanajuato)Properly implementing a right to water (a very challenging process, indeed) will require policy makers to change their paradigmatic stance on “passing the buck” and wanting to get out of sub-national, municipal public service delivery. Privatizing water supply is an easy way out to avoid being accountable to the public, beyond the alleged efficiency gains. I remain skeptical of private water supply.

Given what I have found in my research, I sincerely doubt that private concession of water utilities is actually a workable solution for public service delivery. However, it appears that it will be up to civil society to challenge politicians to change their stance and face the reality: governments are elected to service the public, whether they like it or not. This will be an interesting challenge. Recent media rhetoric around social protest towards water privatization has stigmatized and portrayed local residents of Mexican towns who mobilize to prevent private intervention in water delivery.

I also think reversing the current trend towards water privatization in Mexico will require the mobilization of scholarly knowledge (maybe in the form of public intellectualism) to educate policy makers in Mexico on why yielding to private interests isn’t always in the best interest of the public, and a smart use of scarce resources. New alternatives to water privatization include of course public-public partnerships, and co-production of public service delivery (Ostrom 1996)

Posted in academia, water governance, water policy.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – May 25, 2014

Teaching public administration with cases

When I did my MBA coursework at The University of British Columbia, we used the case study method for several courses. In particular, we (students) purchased a course packet with photocopies of Harvard case studies, produced by the Harvard Business School. These cases were written accounts of challenges facing corporations and firms and we were, as students, supposed to find ways to solve them, using the methods, techniques and tools we had just learned.

At UBC (now as a faculty member, and in political science), I used a problem-based method that enabled me to teach my students “hire-able” skills: how to write a case study, a policy briefing, a policy memorandum, etc. I am teaching now in Spanish (for the past year, I’ve only taught one course in Spanish, whereas most of my university-level teaching was in English), and I am finding it somewhat hard to use case-study-based teaching. Most of the cases that have been produced that I am aware of are either in English (check the amazing collection of the Electronic Hallway at the Evans School of Public Affairs, which I’ve used before when I taught in Canada) or in Spanish, but too old (the 2000 Cabrero book is well, 14 years old).

Debate CIDE Region Centro Students Local GovernmentMy goal for the fall (I’m teaching State-and-Local Government, and Regional Development) is to use case studies to assess how my students learn. I am also planning to teach my students to write case studies on specific Mexican municipalities and states, so that in the future we can refine them for an edited volume that could be used to teach these courses.

I’ve found some great resources on teaching public administration with case studies, in particular the following ones:

– The American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) has a Teaching Guide with lots of resources to teach public affairs and public policy.
– Powell et al (2014) on using a capstone case study to assess whether students learn NASPAA competencies.
– Morse and Stephens (2014) on teaching collaborative governance with case studies.
– National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science. Has a broad range of case study selections and websites, including some for public and international affairs.
– The Harvard Kennedy School of Government has also developed a Case Program.
– The American Political Science Association (APSA) also has some resources on teaching, including case studies.
– Walsh (2006) on how to use case studies to teach public administration in cross-national contexts.
– Graham on teaching public administration with case studies, with some great rationales.
– The Rutgers-Newark School of Public Affairs and Administration portal also has lots of resources on teaching cases in public policy and public administration.
– Resources on interactive teaching in public administration.

Addendum:
– Ines Mergel pointed me out to the Program for the Advancement of Research in Conflict and Collaboration Cases Databaseat the Maxwell School of Syracuse University.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – May 18, 2014

Call for Papers #ISA2015 on the global politics of water (International Studies Association)

If you are interested in the global dimensions of water governance, you may be interested in participating in this panel I am organizing for the International Studies Association 2015 conference in New Orleans.

ISA 2015 Proposed panel
“The global politics of water: Towards a research agenda”
Organizer:
Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega
Assistant Professor, Public Administration Division
Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas (CIDE)

The notion of water as a global commons has been gaining notoriety as abrupt climate change, expansive urbanization and population growth have put additional pressure on dwindling water resources. As global water governance patterns and interactions become increasingly complex, we need to re-examine and reassess where we are in the study of the global politics of water governance. This panel seeks papers that explore questions related (but not limited) to new models and ideas around transboundary water governance, the role of UN-WATER in the global water governance system, water as a global commons, the role of multinational corporations in the global water market, the global emergence of private actors in public water supply, the cross-scalar dynamics of water management in the face of climate change, etc.

If interested in participating in this panel, please send a draft abstract (200 words) and your institutional affiliation to raul(.)pacheco(-)vega(@)cide(.)edu by end-of-day May 22nd, 2014.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – May 17, 2014

Feliz Dia del Maestro! (Happy Educator’s Day) May 15th – on why I teach

Today (May 15th) is the Day of the Educator in Mexico (Dia del Maestro). Technically, I’m not a “teacher” (I teach university and post-graduate) and thus I am a professor, but I celebrate (and I am celebrated) just the same.

Adornando el Arbol de Navidad del CIDE Region Centro

While I don’t have the same teaching load I used to have at The University of British Columbia’s Department of Political Science (2-1-2), I still teach and I enjoy it enormously.

CIDE branded cake

I searched through my Teaching Portfolio for my teaching philosophy to see whether anything had changed.

As a teacher, my philosophy is that learning should be constructive, challenging, fun and exciting. Constructive in that my role is to help the student feel confident about his/her skills for the future. Challenging, insofar it should present difficulties that both the student and I will have to work together to overcome. Fun, in that it should provide joy for the student and me as the teacher. And exciting in that learning should be an activity to which both student and teacher should be looking forward. The feedback I have received from students is that I am able to provide all of these in a comfortable learning environment.

I think very little has changed, even though now I’m on my second year teaching Mexican students instead of Canadian and international students. I still want my students to succeed, to get jobs, to gain employable skills.

I teach not because I HAVE to, but because I LOVE to. There are very few things that make me happier than seeing a student succeed. I think the Twitter ID Sh!t Academics Say summarized it best in two tweets:

On what teaching is…

On student success…

Happy Educator’s Day! Feliz Dia del Maestro, colegas!

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – May 15, 2014

Five ways in which Twitter can be useful in academic contexts

I can’t believe I had to spend some of my time (that I so jealously guard to do academic writing) to write an actual defense of a social media site and its use in academia, but it surprises me how many times I have had to explain why I am on Twitter, as a busy academic.

1. To consume current knowledge in a timely fashion.

We are academics. We want to be on top of things. We want to stay current, and hear when the latest journal article on the fanciest quantitative technique. We want to read the most articulate defense of a particular methodology or theoretical view. I use Twitter to follow trends in water governance, sanitation, climate politics, research methods, etc.

2. To build scholarly networks.

Even though I’m very well connected because of all the travel I do and all the emails I sent when I was in graduate school, and all the meetings I’ve attended and workshops I’ve presented (I used to do networking the old fashioned way), Twitter enables network building in a much faster, dynamic way. I now have a network of trusted scholars whom I can fire quick questions on ideas I’ve been mulling around, share tips on academic writing productivity, etc. That’s also the philosophy underlying #ScholarSunday.

3. To refine research ideas.

Because I follow scholars in specific areas (and I follow in a broad variety of disciplines), I am always able to point out and ask questions on a specific paper, an idea I’m developing, request suggestions for specific authors, etc.

4. To obtain and provide emotional support.

Anybody who doesn’t realize academia is a lonely activity sometimes, where the increased pressure of publishing and shrinking budgets and dwindling resources make academia much harder, is fooling him/herself. Emotions are part of research, teaching and mentoring. And they are part of our every day life. I use Twitter to receive and provide emotional support. It’s like a large network of positive energy all around. And we are all nerds, so we are always able to relate to what other scholars are feeling at least in some way.


5. To share resources in an environment of scarcity

One of the ways in which Twitter has helped me is sharing resources. There are times when it’s practically impossible to find a journal article or a book chapter, and I can ask for help to get me those resources. Even when my institution has paid access, sometimes I’m unable to remotely connect, and I can always ask around on Twitter if anybody can send me a journal article that I’m missing. My requests are very often granted, luckily.

So, there you have it. There are many ways in which a social media site that is often criticized for inanity and enabling people to post what they had for breakfast actually have helped me refine arguments, learn more and build networks of knowledge and support. These were just five of them.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – May 14, 2014

Protecting your time as an early career academic

Anybody who knows me is well aware that I’m extremely protective of my time. It’s not that I am participating in the “Busy Olympics“, as my good friend Janni Aragon calls them. I’m not “perpetually busy” as most academics, because if you look at my rather regimented (and sometimes rigid) schedule, you will see that I schedule self-care every single day. The thing is, I have a really hard time making time for anything else other than my priorities. For me, my priorities are: my parents’ well being, my own, my friends, my research, my teaching, my students, my service to the university and my contribution to the academic world and my discipline. The last thing I want is be extinguishing “last minute fires”.

Door stopperI’ve decided to implement a number of strategies to protect myself and my writing and research, given my perennial lack of available time. First, I unpacked and posted my “door stopper” sign (thank you Oxford University Press Canada for giving it to me). This sign tells people if I am willing to interrupt my time for anything that needs to be done. It may sound snobbish to some people, but actually I have found that most folks are extremely respectful of the sign. If I actually need to focus, I just signal that I am busy and that I can’t take phone calls or uninvited guests.

Second, I stick to my schedule and make it public in conversations. Most people know that I write from 4:00am to 6:00 am, and thus are very mindful of the fact that by 12 noon, I’ve already packed most of a full day of work. Most people also know that I drive back to Leon on Friday afternoons so I can see my parents for the weekend. Therefore, when scheduling meetings, I always make sure they are held when I am low on energy to focus on writing, but I can still provide intellectual input and useful feedback. Meetings for me need to be held after 1pm, so that I know that the mornings (when I am most productive and I write best) are being productive.

Third, I am learning to say NO to most things that I would love to say YES to, but that I know will not bring me forward in my research or teaching. I get invitations to give talks, deliver lectures, teach seminars, all over the world on a regular basis. But given that I promised myself last year that this year I’d be pretty much 100% focused on my research, I am saying NO to most of the things that I know are not advancing my research further. I am still developing strategies to go on the field, developing questionnaires and interview protocols, and setting up a randomized controlled trial for another project. There is no way I’m going to be able to give a guest lecture in Europe if I need four to five days to recover from the trip. These days can be used for a project I’m doing or to write protocols, or to create code for randomization, etc.

Finally, I make it clear to people that I value my time and theirs, so I try really hard to stick to deadlines, timelines and schedules. By staying on course with friends and colleagues, it creates a virtuous circle where most folks will feel appreciated. I am trying really hard NOT to read my research email (not very successfully, often!) while I am out with my friends or family. But if I promise a student or a friend that I will be spending time with them, I do so within the strict time constraints I face.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – May 10, 2014

Remunicipalization: Bringing back “the public” in public service delivery

In my current study of water privatization in Mexico, I’ve been immersing myself in the literature on remunicipalization of public services delivery. This is not a random occurrence, and as I mentioned on Twitter, it makes sense as I delve more into the research. I’ve been a scholar of sanitation for over a decade. I’ve studied urban water governance. It makes sense that I have found the linkages between sanitation, waste, public services and public service delivery. Remunicipalization is one model of public service delivery where the local government takes back provision by ending private concession contracts. In the words of Wollman and Bakker (both of whom have used the “swinging pendulum” metaphor), we’re moving from public to private to public again.

Waste water treatment basin

Photo credit: Global Water Partnership on Flickr

My work using neoinstitutionalism in understanding institutional arrangements for resource governance very much follows the earlier work of Elinor Ostrom and Vincent Ostrom on co-production of public services. When I teach State and Local Government, I devote one class to co-production. Yet, it wasn’t until recently that I realized how all these pieces were interconnected with each other. Sanitation is linked to solid waste management, both of which are public services that require infrastructure and organizational arrangements. There are a broad variety of governance models for public service delivery, and one of these (highly criticized) is privatization. Thus, remunicipalization is seen as a way of “bringing back the public” in “public service delivery”.

I’ve found some really interesting and relevant websites on remunicipalization, water justice and models of alternative service delivery.
– The Municipal Services Project (Queen’s University)
– The work of Emanuele Lobina and David Hall at Public Services International Research Unit (University of Greenwich)
– The Our Water Commons network.
– The Water Remunicipalization Tracker (a tool to track all instances/case studies of remunicipalization).
– The work of the Transnational Institute on reclaiming public water, and the public/private divide in service delivery.

I still have much work to do, but understanding how these pieces of research all connect with each other has really become a breakthrough in how I think about the governance of urban water and the spatial and political dimensions of public service infrastructure.

Posted in academia, water governance, water policy.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – May 4, 2014