Doctoral research as a trajectory of successful and failed experimental initiatives: Five crucial lessons for new sustainability transition scholars interested in the developing world
This blog was originally written for STRN: Blog link
https://phdsintransitions.wordpress.com/2016/05/19/post-2-five-crucial-lessons-for-new-sustainability-transition-scholars-interested-in-the-developing-world/
As sustainability transition scholars we are quite familiar with terms such as ‘first’ and ‘second’ order learning and sustainability experiments. We have used these terms multiple times while writing our articles and often hear them several times during STRN conferences. We have become attached to these terms and they are also integral parts of our lives. I think that these terms are also very useful for understanding our own personal learning trajectories than just sustainable niches.
I have never written such a blog post before and it seemed a good opportunity to write about one’s experiences when Bipashyee (one of the editors of the blog) asked me to do so ( She wrote: “ If I may suggest, can you write a brief piece about your experience of conducting fieldwork in India during the early phase of your PhD - talking to policy makers – what kind of difficulties did you face and how you overcame the challenges and whether and how the experience was rewarding at the end? I think this could be great advice for new PhD students as well as those who are starting their work in Global South – on what to expect and how they should be prepared.” ). This blog post seemed a good opportunity for me to share my experiences to new doctoral researchers and to also offer some lessons based on mistakes I made during my doctoral research. After writing few academic articles in the field of transition studies and even finishing a doctoral dissertation, I still feel I have just started learning about intricacies of research in the field of transition studies and ready to learn new things by making new mistakes. When I recollect multiple instances during my doctoral research journey, I find that there were more difficult moments, tensions, frustrations and my lack of ability to cope with difficult situations at times than pleasant moments such as acceptance of articles for conferences and publication in journals.
I learned many lessons about finishing a doctoral dissertation and thanks to my supervisor Rob Raven who also taught me many essential lessons. My master's supervisor Henny Romijn also taught me many interesting lessons early on for research in developing countries. My supervisor and I were well aware of my several weaknesses as a doctoral student in certain areas such as getting lost in new literature, lack of focus and difficulties in terms of articulating my ideas while writing articles. I have managed to learn a lot about the functioning of the academic world and improve on many aspects but I still think that I need to improve a lot. I am not writing this blog post by considering myself as an expert who can offer advice to new researchers but as an ex doctoral researcher who also faced struggles and partially overcame them. Unfortunately, I cannot summarize all my experiences here and cannot offer direct advice to all new PhD researcher as we all have different learning trajectories. It is also difficult to articulate conditions for successful PhD as lot of factors are responsible for it. I try to offer five crucial lessons I learned during my doctoral research.
In order to write this post, I tried to first look at what others had written before. I did not want to repeat what others have mentioned before, I read all the previous posts in this blog series (see examples here: https://goo.gl/XBKEKP; https://goo.gl/n4DkP2; https://goo.gl/chsqR0; https://goo.gl/zYbAwB; https://goo.gl/AFwiO0) and decided to summarize lessons learned from earlier posts while adding some lessons by providing reflection on my doctoral research. This guest post is therefore more detailed than some of the previous posts in this blog and is particularly suitable for new researchers interested in studying in sustainability transitions in the global south or the developing world. However many of these lessons are also useful and relevant for new researchers working in developed countries. The lessons are based on my personal experiences while researching on sustainable energy challenges in India during my doctoral research, engaging in discussions with other scholars working in the developing world and also reading multiple debates in related disciplines.
This guest blog is divided into series of different guest blogs. It will begin with a brief overview of my research experiences and then I will discuss five crucial lessons (1) Be pragmatic about choice of research questions and research problem; (2) Frame your research clearly and clarify your theoretical contribution; (3) Patience is very necessary during field research; (4) Capture low hanging fruits early on; (5) Develop a unique scholarly identity from the beginning of your research. I will end the long guest post with a summary and an appendix which lists out necessary for doctoral research. In the lessons, I share I often use the word 'also ', 'us' and 'our' which is used for all new scholars and I also consider myself as a new scholar like you. In some cases I use the word ' you ' in order to address the new sustainability transition scholars. I also use the words ' global south' and ' developing countries' as I specifically focus on emerging and developing economies in the world. The lessons I mention here are mostly based on my research experiences in India as this is the context, I know best about. I hope these five lessons are useful for you
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