Distractions or - Why Doesn't My Brain Have a Subject Filter?
Posted by Jess is Jess , Sunday, January 31, 2010 Sunday, January 31, 2010
Now, in the interest of full disclosure I should point out that this pretty much is my favorite activity.
However today I am finding it more than a little bit challenging for a number of reasons.
1) The challenge of a specifically vague research topic. Yes, I meant to say "specifically vague." What that means is that I am researching a really narrow topic that as far as traditional academic work is concerned has not really been specifically studied. It's actually really awesome to be part of a developing field, but this aspect is not so fun. (So if anyone knows of great academic resources out there on military interaction with local communities send them my way.)
2) When researching anything on the internet it is common for things other than your specific search to come up. It is very time consuming to wade through all of the slightly related items that come up, even when using an academic site like JSTOR (my personal favorite) or a university library.
(Don't even talk to me about wikipedia or I will harm you).
3) Research ADD is perhaps my greatest challenge of all. I'm a big nerd, I know this, but I am genuinely interested in so many things. So if my search on "U.S. Military Intelligence Interaction Indigenous Communities" brings me articles on Mesoamerica during the Contact Period or the Letters of George Washington or Healing Practices in Australia's Outback it is very hard for me to not bookmark these items. The result of this is that I end up with 142 saved citations and only probably about 75 of them directly relate to my research.
Here are my top 5 completely unrelated cites:
Kevin Dawe
Reviewed work(s): The Passion of Music and Dance: Body, Gender and Sexuality by William Washabaugh
British Journal of Ethnomusicology, Vol. 6 (1997), pp. i-vi+1-219
L. Carl Brown
Reviewed work(s): The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq by Fouad Ajami
Foreign Affairs, Vol. 85, No. 5 (Sep. - Oct., 2006), pp. 1-184
Paul R. Williams
Reviewed work(s): Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Polity on the Brink by Francine Friedman
Slavic Review, Vol. 64, No. 3 (Autumn, 2005), pp. 491-709
Richard H. Davis
Reviewed work(s): Saints, Goddesses and Kings: Muslims and Christians in South Indian Society, 1700-1900 by Susan Bayly
Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 114, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1994), pp. i-ii+1-144
Gregory Forth
Reviewed work(s): Conceiving Spirits: Birth Rituals and Contested Identities among Laujé of Indonesia by Jennifer W. Nourse
American Ethnologist, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Nov., 2000), pp. 801-1016
Posted in
academic research,
jstor,
us military intelligence
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