When I was in graduate school, fellow students would often tell me they didn’t have time to work out because they felt they needed to constantly be reading/studying/working in the lab. However, my response was “you don’t have the time not to work out.” Sitting in front of the computer all day and being sedentary can harm productivity. Those exercise breaks, even if it’s just a walk, can help ideas solidify, relieve stress, and provide a much needed break for personal time, which can bring you back to your work more refreshed.

One of the greatest challenges in conducting fieldwork or while traveling for work is that normal routines are disrupted. It’s easy to forgo exercise especially if you’re in a place where exercise is not part of the culture or time is limited, like at conferences. Often these interruptions in exercise are accompanied by changes in diet as well as a tendency to slip into bad habits, like smoking or drinking more than usual, often to deal with the stress of fieldwork. It’s important to be conscious of the stressors you face in the field and head them off in positive ways that allow for productivity and health both in mind and body. In this post, I’ll detail a few key tips and one piece of equipment that can be used to stay fit in the field or while traveling.

Exercise, whether it’s running, biking, swimming, yoga, interval training, weight lifting, or body weight work, is critical to staying healthy in the field. For me, it provides a dedicated time to process what has happened throughout the day or the previous day, to plan for upcoming events, and to decompress as well as maintain fitness. While fieldwork for many involves a lot of walking or hiking (in the Bolivian Amazon, I sometimes walk 4 hours or more per day doing focal follows or interviews) and manual labor like carrying water, which can suffice for staying in shape, not all field sites offer that level of physical activity. I find that I still need dedicated time for exercise. Honestly, it’s where and when most of my best thinking takes place.

So, what can you do to stay fit in the field? The answer is to do what you can with what you have. It really depends where you’re conducting fieldwork and what facilities/environment you’re in and have access to. If you’re in a place where it’s safe to run, then tracing out a 3-4 mile route for an early morning or late evening run is a perfect way to stay in shape and have crucial time to yourself. In San Juan, Puerto Rico, I lived in a hotel for 4 months during 2016 while working on Zika Virus surveillance. Living in a hotel while working 10-14 hour days was extremely taxing. But I would get up at 5-5:30 am and go on runs 3 days a week. I also used the hotel gym a couple days a week, and I swam in the ocean on the weekends if the water was calm.

However, some field sites are more extreme and without access to safe areas to exercise or facilities. There, finding time and an appropriate place to exercise is more challenging. This problem can be compounded for women, who are more likely to face sexual assault and other dangers (as described by Clancy and colleagues) while conducting fieldwork. Safety while exercising is crucial, but field safety is such an important topic that we should devote a whole blog post to it that perhaps one of our readers could contribute, i.e. their best Anthrohacker tips (gadgets, apps, or safety behaviors) on staying safe in the field.

In one of my field sites, the Bolivian Amazon, running isn’t practical like in Puerto Rico because all the stray dogs are praying for you to come running by them so they can chase, bark, and potentially bite you. Not to mention the heat and humidity makes staying hydrated during even restful activity difficult. Also, gyms are scant and far in between, so creativity and flexibility is crucial. Stretching and body weight work are what I end up doing in Bolivia, and I found that only one piece of equipment was necessary.

I bought Nayoya gymnastic rings (Amazon.com), which have solid reviews, held up during my time in Bolivia and were fairly easy to assemble and dissemble. They were a little heavier than I expected, but not too heavy. Gymnastic rings are transportable, fun, and can be used for many exercises, which provide a great core and upper body workout. The only thing necessary for them is a beam or a solid tree branch to which you can connect the bands. (Disclaimer: if you use these, make sure that whatever you attach them to is structurally sound, otherwise injuries can occur!) With the gymnastic rings, you can perform three essential exercises – pull-ups, dips, and knees to elbows/toes to ring – that exercise most of your core and upper body. And for more advanced workouts: muscle ups.

Even if you don’t buy the gymnastic rings, body weight work is easy to do and doesn’t require any equipment. What I try to do is 3-5 rounds every morning of:

• 15-30 repetitions of push-ups, squats, and sit-ups alternated with 60 second planks and side-planks.
• Try not to rest between rounds to increase the cardio aspect of the workout
• On alternate days, switch out the squats and push-ups with burpees (check out an example video embedded below).
• Combine with sit-ups and planks to hit most major muscle groups.

This workout should take 20 minutes max.

I try to stretch daily even if I don’t workout. Stretching helps with flexibility, recovery, and provides a nice time for mindfulness (which may even decrease risk of heart disease). I stretch with a routine that utilizes some yoga poses: camel, cat, up-dog, down-dog, and pigeon. It can also be done in a private, small location, like a mosquito net or tent.

The timing of the workout can also increase or decrease likelihood of following through with the workout. I try to schedule my exercise before showering and before a meal so that the shower or food feels extra rewarding. Also, it’s important to remember to increase water intake with exercise and eat a diet that is healthy.

The key message is that like fieldwork, you have to adapt to the environment, be flexible, and take care of yourself. Don’t let the lack of a gym dissuade you, and if there are safety issues, talk to your trusted colleagues to either find out what you can do safely or exercise together. Carving out twenty to thirty minutes of exercise on a daily basis can create an amazing cascade of positive health effects. Knowing you’re going to work out in the morning also helps decision-making at night. Perhaps you pass on having that extra beer, because you know that your morning run is going to suffer or you’ll feel bad while running or you won’t want to get up early to work out. Even in field sites where exercise is built-in, adding in stretching and meditation can help deal with stress and improve health and well-being. Tell us what you do to stay fit in the field!

]]> 434 https://anthrohacker.com/2015/02/hacking-the-world-bank-on-the-freakonomics-podcast/ Sun, 22 Feb 2015 20:08:21 +0000 http://anthrohacker.com/?p=459

Freakonomics just posted a great interview with the physician-anthropologist president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim. In it, he talks about changes in the bank’s approach to encouraging development. He also talks about how he used to want to shut down the bank (before it shifted mission and he became president) and their current foci on automatic thinking, social pressure and mental models to encourage change that leads to better overall well-being. It’s based on the great new WBG report, Mind, Society and Behavior. Check out their info graphic below for a nice summary introduction.

Just four days ago kraftwerk launched a half-million dollar Kickstarter campaign–that has already surpassed half its goal–to fund final development and production of a portable butane fuel cell for consumer electronics. It’s one of the first of a new breed of fuel cell technology with widespread consumer applications. For travelers (and field researchers) it promises to provide 11 charges of an iPhone with each butane fluid refill.  And it does this while weighing just 7 oz.  Compare that to the Energizer/XPAL XP18000 100WH lithium battery with a similar charging capacity that weighs 2.3x as much. The kraftwerk also beats lithium ion batteries on refill time requiring just a couple of seconds while the XP18000 takes at least a couple of hours to charge from the mains. But there are sacrifices too.  For now, the kraftwerk can only provide 2 amps maximum at 5 volts, which is well under the XP18000 that can be used to charge most (powered off) laptops.

Coming on the heels of news about Toyota’s forthcoming Mirai hydrogen fuel cell car, it seems we may be close to a shift in use and thinking about direct power generation via fuel cells versus traditional battery charging—now even at the scale of USB chargers.  Check out more at kraftwerk’s kickstarter page.

Anthropology is known for its harsh living conditions for fieldwork. Conducting fieldwork in a remote desert, rainforest, mountaintop, or arctic conditions is commonplace and a seeming hazing ritual that each anthropology graduate student must undergo to be considered “in the club”. In fact, I’ve heard professors joking before that if you’re not suffering while conducting fieldwork, you’re not really doing anthropology. While this is clearly untrue, many of the populations we study are marginalized, living in rural, desolate or geopolitically sensitive areas that are hard to reach.

Nevertheless, specialized equipment and clothing, such as water filtration systems, therma-rests, sleeping bags, bug repellant clothing, waterproof backpacks and pelican cases, mosquito nets etc are costly and often not covered by grants but are essential for those of us who work in these remote settings. While we’re used to writing grants to funding agencies to support projects, a little-discussed topic is contacting companies directly for support. In this post, I’ll give advice on how to ask companies for support/donations of these items.

Before I received funding from NSF and Wenner-Gren after multiple rejections by both agencies and others, I was staring at taking out $20,000 in loans to self-finance my doctoral research and that wouldn’t even cover a lot of the items that can make living in the Bolivian Amazon a bit more comfortable. So I started a list of all of the major items I needed and thought that it would be a good idea to ask the companies for donations, because as poor graduate students asking for free stuff is not beneath us.

Here are some tips for navigating this little discussed process. You can modify it as you need.

1) Systematically go through each company’s catalogues online and make a spreadsheet with the specific items, the address, and the name of the president/person in charge of customer relations for each company.

2) Using a stock letter, you can personalize the letters to each company.
In the letter, have a) a brief introduction of who you are, b) what your research is about, c) the location of fieldwork, d) indicate the exact name and number of the products you want from the company, and e) write your name and give a link to your personal/research/blog webpages.

3) Print out each letter and sign it. However, some companies prefer that you inquire online for support/requests for products. Using snail mail is a good touch, but emailing can be effective as well.

I included 2 pictures that I printed out to include with the letters, of me conducting fieldwork and in South America. I ended up sending letters to 15 companies and spent a total of $12 for the postage and printing the 30 pictures.

Here is the stock letter I used:

Date

Your name
Your address

Name of the person to whom you are sending your letter
Job title of person to whom you are sending the letter
Name of business or organization
Street address
Town/city, state/province zip/postal code

Dear Mr./Ms. (name of person to whom you are sending the letter):

I am a PhD candidate at the University of Georgia in the anthropology department. I will be traveling to the Bolivian Amazon for 12 months to conduct my dissertation research. My research investigates socioeconomic and cultural factors and health outcomes associated with how people meet water needs during rapid social change among Tsimane’, an indigenous population in lowland Bolivia. The search for safe water remains an important challenge today as more than 1.1 billion people lack access to clean water. This research will increase knowledge about water sources, hydration, water-related diseases, and health during rapid change with implications for public health in developing countries.

I will leave for Bolivia in late June 2013 and stay through June 2014. I will conduct dietary interviews, participant observation, and economic surveys as well as measure height, weight, and body composition to answer these important anthropological and public health questions.

Having been to my field sites three times, I have many of the supplies needed to complete a longer trip. However, while I’ve applied for funding from many governmental and private organizations, the funding only applies to research-related expenses and does not cover costs for living supplies while I’m in the field. As a graduate student, I have limited income to purchase supplies necessary for this trip and am grateful for any support I can receive from generous companies. To complete this project, I could use (Specific Product(s) and product number). I would be most grateful if (name of business/organization) could donate any of these items to help us in our trip. If you are interested, I will keep you informed with regular updates on the progress of the project.

Please contact me at (XXX) XXX-XXXX or emailaddress@uga.edu if you are able to help. Thank you for your time and consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

Asher Rosinger
http://anthropology.uga.edu/people/grad_students/rosinger/

Out of the 15 companies I contacted, I had a response rate of 20% and a success rate of 13% – about par for the course if you’re applying for grants. I heard back from Exofficio, Lifesaver, and Sea to Summit. Exofficio told us they don’t normally support research with product, but would be glad to consider us as adventure correspondents and wanted to know what social media outlets I would use to advertise their products. I applied, but was not selected. Lifesaver responded to us, I asked them for a new water filter cartridge and other accessories for our Jerrycan water filter that costs about $300, they responded saying they could not give it to us for free but could give us a 30% discount, which was a savings of ~$100 #awesomediscount. Finally, Sea to Summit responded with the email posted below:

Their response highlighted 2 important points for writing letters: 1) personalize the letter; and 2) request specific products, rather than ‘anything helps’. Reviews are important to companies and who better to review products than anthropologists who are roughing it. They ended up sending us ~$200 worth of product (dry sacks, mosquito net, special towels) that I would have spent out of my own pocket. By the way, Sea to Summit rocks!

In summary, I spent about $12 (plus time I spent figuring out what I needed, which was important to get organized for the trip) and I got about $300 worth or products and discounts. Training in anthropology and grant writing has its advantages, mainly being able to concisely write about your research so that others will give you money or other forms of support. While you’re writing and getting rejected from grants, why not consider spending some time asking for (and getting rejected from) other sources of support because nobody is going to give you anything unless you ask for it.

This post is an introduction to the KoBo Toolbox, a suite of software programs which allows the user to create and complete survey and other data collection using cellular phones and mobile (Android) devices.  I used  KoBo for my research, and my goal for this post is to talk about why anthropologists should use it, how it can help them, and how they can get started.  I also give field-level experience and explanations.  I’ve actually used the software for two different research projects—for a quick review of how I felt about the experience after my first project see my blog post for ODK from 2011.  That one focuses mainly on managing a team of researchers and how KoBo helped with that.  For this post I’m focusing on my last project (2012) and how KoBo is useful for anthropological field work.

This post is divided into 4 different sections: 1) What is KoBo?  2) Why should anthropologists use KoBo? 3) How did KoBo work in practice? and 4) What does a researcher need to get started with KoBo?   I would also like to highlight that KoBo is both opensource and FREE.  That means there is a community of researchers and programmers ready to help you out and you don’t have to pay for the software.

Section 1) What is KoBo?

KoBo is a set of software that allows you to complete research using mobile, android devices.  KoBo is an implementation of ODK collect, a base code for survey programming.  This is an example of open-source, non-competitive cooperation, and the result is just awesome.  KoBo toolbox has implemented several supporting pieces of software that aid the researcher in creating assessments, collecting data, syncing that data to a format from which it can be analyzed, and mapping that data, too.  KoBo supports a variety of information types, including text, numerical, single answer, multiple answer, cascading questions, geopoint, audio, video, photo, and barcode data.  On android cell phones.  No paper.  KoBo is supported by the Harvard Humanitarian initiative.  It has been field-tested and researcher-approved.

So, here are the goods:

• KoBoCollect is a piece of software that allows you to collect data using mobile phones.
• KoBoForm allows you to create, edit, and export forms for data collection and assessments (e.g. surveys).
• KoBoSync allows you to synchronize and aggregate your data to HTML and CSV formats (e.g. you can read your data in an excel spreadsheet).
• KoBoMap provides software that utilizes google maps so that you can show your data spatially.

I used the first three of these components while in the field (see section 3), and intend to use KoBoMap to present my data (stay tuned for a future post on that one).

Section 2)  Why should Anthropologists use KoBo?

As I see it, KoBo holds a wealth of benefits for anthropologists.  It has the potential to assist researchers in interviewing, focus groups, community mapping, photo essay/photo elicitation, video/participatory video, and rapid ethnographic assessments.  The researcher creates their own format based on their own needs—so, if you need a combination of Likert scale questions along with a couple of in-depth interview questions, a couple of photos, and a GPS point, you can do that.  All that demographic data you need for each research participant?  KoBo can help you with that. Just need a map with photos and video?  KoBo can do that, too.

There are also field-based reasons why KoBo is a great choice.   KoBo was actually designed to be used after disasters and for human rights projects.  KoBo is a good choice for disaster research when you need to get data gathered, synced, and analyzed quickly.   It is also appropriate for when a full-scale paper project may not be feasible for reasons of confidentiality.  You can gather and send your data, leaving no paper trace of the responses in case of sensitive material.  You can get data out of a country where protection of participants may be extremely important (without having to explain yourself at the airport).  If you are working with non-literate populations, KoBo supports non-text questions.  You can have the question be voice or a picture, and then you can have the answer be recorded in voice or a picture, too.  Even though, yes, it is a cell phone—I think it is a great tool for lessening the technological divide between researcher and respondent.  Everyone has seen a cell phone, so it is a non-flashy way to gather and record data.

KoBo is also excellent for research teams.  KoBo allows for question and answer formats to be constrained or standardized.  So, say you only have IRB clearance for respondents over 18—if your research assistant enters an age of 17, you can have the software pop up a warning that the researcher should not continue (and actually bar them from doing so).  There are data constraints and logic for numerical questions (so you can’t be 1,000 years old, for instance—by setting the range from 0-107).  Furthermore, there are separate interfaces for staff and supervisors, which limits permissions to change, delete, or send finished data. Staff member can’t make changes to forms or completed data.  In my experience I had better accuracy and a lower error rate because of these data maintenance features.

A researcher can also change their survey or assessment mid-project.  Need to change a translation of a word to the local dialect of Spanish (instead of the kind that you learned, originally)?  You can do that, and have it changed for the next version of the survey within 15 minutes.  The program supports multiple languages (so I had the same questions in an English and a Spanish option for my research).  You can check your data daily, looking for errors or mistakes (I had one research assistant that seemed to always press the wrong town location for at least one survey a day)—but I knew where they were that day and could catch the mistake instantly.  Finally, there is near-instant aggregation of your survey data into a single file.

Want more benefits?  Once your data is collected, you can instantly (seriously, 15 seconds) aggregate your data into an excel spreadsheet/CSV file.  You can also get an instant (LABELED!)  SPSS file with an SPSS labeling function (part of KoBoForm).  And mapping is a breeze—you can collect GPS points and look at your data/responses topographically.  Excited yet?  KoboMap allows you to create maps with data display layers and a customizable legend. For example, your map might show different counties shaded brighter or darker according to the reported level of access to water.

Section 3) How did KoBo work in practice?

I used KoBo, exclusively, for my surveys in the field.  I have worked for the past two years in Alto Beni, Bolivia on research related to water and sanitation (with a specific focus on wastewater and wastewater treatment technologies).  Both times I used KoBo, and both times it worked well.  I will share a bit about how I used the software, how it worked, and what it was like to implement research using KoBo.

I mainly used KoBo for a structured survey and for GPS mapping.  I programmed the survey using KoBoForm, used KoBoCollect to gather data on Android phones, and used KoBoSync to get my data (nicely labeled!) into SPSS.  I’m still analyzing the data now—but I intend to use KoBoMap to present my data.  Each of my surveys was about 100 questions long and included a combination of text entry, numerical, multi-select, and single-select questions.  I also took GPS points at each location so that I could map answers and link them back to topography/neighborhoods.  I had 5 android cellular phones (Huawaei Ideos model—approximately 130$ each), and several (awesome) research assistants.

Prior to the Field:

First, I had to create the KoBo form.  Best practice for this is to create your survey in Excel using a template.  I wrote and edited the survey in Excel.  After this, you’re ready to start with KoBoForm.  During my first trip to the field there was no KoBoForm and I coded the survey by hand.  That took a few days.  Now, with the form builder, depending on the size of your survey, you could finish in a matter of hours.  For me, since my survey was lengthy, it took a couple of days (but this is the kind of stuff that you can do watching Battlestar Galactica reruns, so no worries).  For web tutorials on this part of the process see the KoBo website.  Then, I installed KoBoCollect onto the phones, and loaded the forms.  Always go into the field with working, completed forms, if possible.  You could do it in the field, there is an offline version of KoBoForm, but it is easiest if you do this in advance and save your precious field time for data collection.

In the Field:

Using KoBo in the field was great overall.  However, it was a process that required planning and forethought.  And a ton of hardware! Getting through customs with 5 cell phones, a variety of wires, two laptops, and a bunch of other related tech requires a bit of an explanation.  If you are completing research using KoBo somewhere without regular access to electricity, you’ll need a solar charger.  Luckily, we had regular access, so I only brought a couple in case of outages.

KoBo also requires training—for you and for others if you are going to employ research assistants.  You will need to make sure that you have knowledge of all of the KoBo components, know how to trouble-shoot, and can do a bit of rudimentary XML forms (X-forms) programming if you get into a pickle.  You can get all of this information and training from the KoBo website.  Depending on the technological savvy of your assistants, training them just to use this software on the phones could take anywhere from one day to one week.  The research assistants in my program required about 1 day of training.  During training you go through all of the steps with loading the form, asking questions, entering correct answers, and skip logic.  Obviously, if you are an anthropologist, there is other training to be done related to human subjects, informed consent, etc. –but for KoBo only, leave a day.  Assistants need to practice taking the surveys, saving them, etc.  If you are completing research by yourself, you can just hit the ground running because you’ll have studied up before the field.

Naturally, you may have to make changes to your form after an initial pilot.  This is pretty easy.  Is there a specific term used in your site that isn’t standard Spanish, for instance?  You can just go back, change it in KoBoForm, and reload it.  Do you need to add a neighborhood in a multi-select answer?  No problem.  My fixes took a couple of hours to tweak and reload.  All in all, training, pilot, and prep required 2 days of work upon arrival to the field.

Once the initial bugs were worked out, the data collection phase went smoothly.  All the research assistants loved the technology, it is fast, phones are light, and the tech is low-profile.  Researchers asked the questions and then entered the individual responses (for my research, oral surveys were much more appropriate than written).  All of the RAs had my cell number in case of any issues—but with good training there wasn’t much of a learning curve.  You don’t have to carry any paper with you do to do this research, so hiking up mountains, trekking through mud, getting chased by wild boars, and other such fun wasn’t hindered by a satchel full of paper surveys.  I got everyone involved in the research a phone case, and that was a great idea. Respondents barely even commented on the technology, and if they did it was usually because they thought it was cool. It was a great, fast way to collect quite a bit of data.  The GPS is a big selling point for me, too.

At the end of the day, I would collect all of the phones, sync (using KoBoSync) all of the answers to my computer, and check for errors or issues.  You don’t have to look through individual surveys because all the data is in one file you can review in Excel or SPSS, so it’s not hard to find errors like the one research assistant who entered the name of the town wrong once a day. I would also do quick look-throughs of the data to determine preliminary trends and stay abreast of the responses.  This did take some time—syncing the 5 phones each night took about 25-30 minutes, and then I had a rather extensive back-up routine for the outputs.  Expect to spend at least 45 minutes each day on maintenance for your data backups and syncs.  For me, it was a good way to decompress and then get ready to write some field notes.  I would say the benefits of being able to see your data each day outweigh this extra time, especially when you take into account that you don’t have to do any data entry later!

There are some things to think about when completing research with KoBo.  Security is a bit of a big deal with such a large amount of technology.  I had a lock box where I kept each of the phones when I was out of the room.  Charging is also a big deal, you’ll want to make sure that you have adapters and back-up adapters and a step-down converter if the country you are in has a different voltage.  The best advice I got before entering the field was this: “Think of the things that, if you didn’t have them, would ruin your research.  Bring two of those things.”  (Thanks, Micah!).  So, don’t go with one phone, one power cord, or one laptop.  Bring a couple of those things.  You need them.  Admittedly, if you didn’t want to sync your data until you got home you could do that. But lose a phone, you lose your data!  Of course, my computer crashed the DAY before I went to the field from La Paz.  I ended up getting it to work, but I was glad to have a backup netbook just in case.

I didn’t use the video, photo, or voice functions in my research in Bolivia.  However, that was more due to the fact that I had an awesome, hi-res GPS camera for photo and no need for voice or video in my research.  These functions work and work well; I have tested them through other projects.

After the field:

Admittedly, I’m still in the data analysis process.  But my survey data was in a beautiful, labeled, SPSS database before I even got back from the field (including GPS points).  I’ll be using KoBoMap to do some mapping.  However, for anthropologists it is important to ensure that using the GPS points doesn’t directly identify your respondents.  So, I’ll be using sections of data rather than household-level data for presenting results.  If you keep data on your SD cards from the phones, be sure to remember to keep them locked up with your other research components.

Section 4)  What do you need to get started with KoBo?

There is a bit of a learning curve with KoBo.  But it is nothing compared with entering all of your survey data by hand into an excel spreadsheet, so no worries.  For all the things I’ve discussed above and more, it is a great idea to learn and implement KoBo-based research.  You’ll need to really look into the KoBo website (kobotoolbox.org), and download KoBoForm, KoBoCollect, and KoBoSync, before you get started.  You can work with KoBoMap afterward if it is relevant to you.

Also, you will need to purchase some hardware.  Really, any android device will do.  But here are my recommendations:

1. An android operating system.
2. An unlocked platform (as opposed to a locked phone that only works with U.S. carriers, for instance).  This really only applies if you are doing international research and intend to also connect to a cell network.
3. A pretty good camera if you intend to take photos (go for 3 megapixels or above).
4. GPS.
5. A phone, NOT a tablet.  First, these are still pretty buggy.  Also, they will (in my opinion) not be as low-profile or easily accepted by respondents.
6. An SD card if your phone doesn’t have internal memory (a small one is fine (2 gigs) should be fine.  This stuff takes very little space.  If you are doing video, photo, or audio maybe kick it up to 8-16 gigs).

Optional:

1.  A fingerprint reader.  This could be really cool for bioanth data collection, but of course you’ll have to consider the ethical issues and IRB application.

Accessories (*=depending on location) and other hardware:

1. A working, reliable laptop.
2. *A backup laptop or netbook.
3. Extra power cords.
4. *Step-down converter.
5. *Solar batteries or chargers (Solios are pretty great)
6. Adapters.
7. *Lockbox.
8. The email address of KoBo technical assistance:  info@kobotoolbox.org

I will probably never complete a paper survey again.  KoBo works well, is a great help to the researcher and research assistants, and offers a wide range of capabilities.  I highly recommend the software and would be happy to help anyone who is interested in using KoBo in the field.  There are definitely things to consider before using KoBo, but with a bit of work and preparation it is a streamlined and beneficial field tool for anthropologists.  I do want to note that I didn’t do any of this without help. The team at KoBo helped me out quite a bit with getting started on the software, gave recommendations on hardware, and was in touch with me while I was in the field.  A big thank you to the KoBo team!  And of course, a big thank you to everyone who worked with me in the field!

My email address is mcairns@mail.usf.edu.  Seriously, feel free to email me if you have questions.

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0908425.  Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.”

From the Author: Hi, my name is Maryann Cairns.  I am currently a doctoral candidate in applied anthropology at University of South Florida.  Alan invited me to submit a guest post on the software that I used for my field research—KoBo.

After the novelty of what I do (medical anthropology) and where I do it (the Bolivian Amazon) wears off, people frequently ask me about the challenges.  And one of the foremost topics in these discussions is what I eat. “Whoa. But what are you going to eat there?” is a direct quote from a well-meaning friend.  I think the implication was that he or she thought I was likely to suffer and starve without a restaurant nearby or someone to cook for me.

I know I’m not the only researcher in a far-flung place who has heard these comments of concern from family and friends—whatever their impetus may be. And considering the remote nature of my field sites, it’s not so far-fetched to think that I’m out there suffering all-the-while. In reality, though, I eat quite well and I’ve even received a few compliments on my nascent culinary skills.  But it did take a lot of planning to make happen and much of what I use for ingredients would never get included in your local co-op crowd’s idea of haute cuisine. Still, it’s better than most of what you can find in Bolivian frontier restaurants (and many of the cities for that matter) and critical for me, it’s safe to eat.

Doing good ethnography frequently calls for considering your food and that which is offered to you with much more care than you otherwise might at other times in your life. And while a mixture of poverty, unspoken shame and custom keep me from being offered food by most of my Tsimane’ friends, my enthusiasm for cooking in the field has flipped that paradigm around.  I offer whatever I can to my neighbors and friends and we break, well, pancakes together. So consider this post commiseration with all my fellow fieldworkers in the far-flung reaches of our planet. I might even have some novel advice to aid those of you looking to live and eat well in the field—not just eat to live. Read on for my tips on eating well in the field.

Planning, Planning, Planning

As I’ve done with most of the bigger challenges in my fieldwork, I prepared for the necessity of doing all my own cooking in the middle of nowhere by planning ahead as much as possible—starting over a year in advance of my arrival. I can’t overstate the importance of doing this—well, at least if you intend to enjoy your meals. I knew, for example, that the group I work among, the Tsimane, present a particular challenge in that it is not typical to host outsiders in their kitchens.  Furthermore, hiring out the best cook in the village to prepare all of your meals is a virtual impossibility (believe me, I tried to find someone willing!).  And even if it was possible, it would likely be a bad idea since food preparation standards and an increasingly dense population frequently lead to the kind of food contamination from which a non-native can suffer gravely (including, but not limited to, fecal-to-oral transmission of viral and bacterial diseases, numerous parasites, insect and larvae contamination, and even cross-contamination from bacteria such as salmonella).

Sharing

Beyond maintaining my health, I think eating well has a very important role to play in helping me to be a better ethnographer. As I mentioned, I use food as one more opportunity to share with my neighbors and the community in a way that doesn’t feel as contrived as some of my other attempts (e.g. taking and printing free photos for families, giving out candy to children, soccer balls to the village team, or your standard thank you gifts/incentives for completing interviews).  So even though I don’t love cooking, my love of eating good food and the chance to breach the social divide is impetus enough to get me to cook well.

An Example Meal

With this post, I considered methodically going through a list of food, cooking and other items that have made the most difference for me but in place of that boring exercise, I’d instead like to describe prep of one of my favorite meals: Baked Three-cheese Macaroni and Bacon with a Tomato Compote (also a great vegetarian dish when made without bacon). And remember, life in the field will have you burning more calories than at almost any other time in your academic life…so enjoy the fatty goodness!

A standard recipe for this dish would call for some ingredients that are completely impractical where there is no electricity, refrigeration, potable (or running) water, nor many fresh vegetables.  And that’s where the planning comes in.  Some of the best advice I received from a colleague when I first headed to the field was this: takes spices (and anything else that will keep in the jungle). Along those lines, for this recipe you will need to buy and bring with you (sometimes from out-of-country) several items you likely would never use at home.  Whenever possible, get these as close to you site as you can but be ready to bring in things that are not likely available.  It will cost time and money to transport them but it’s worth it.  The worst-case scenario in the field is working like a dog all day long only to come back to the same bland hard-boiled eggs and rice as you have had for the last few days.  A useful tip is to buy thing in single-serving/use sizes since very little can be saved once it has been opened.  Example items for this recipe include:

• Powdered or canned milk
• Real bacon bits in 4oz packages
• Powdered cheddar cheese
• Dry grated cheese, like parmesan (parmigiano-reggiano)

Some fresh but more durable foods:

• Tomatos
• Hard bread/bagged bread crumbs
• Onions
• Garlic
• Queso fresco (and Tupperware to keep it fresh)

Other sundry ingredients:

• Flour
• Salt
• Pasta
• Bay leaves
• Whole black pepper & salt in grinder
• Sugar
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Dried thyme
• Dried basil
• Dried garlic salt

And some helpful items and equipment:

• Purified water or cooled boiled water stored in empty two-liter bottles for mixing dry ingredients without clumps and adjusting liquid levels without having to re-boil everything
• A fully sealable mug or thermos for better mixing milk
• A couple large non-stick skillets with at least one tight-fitting (glass) lid to use as a Dutch oven
• A propane range and tank

I won’t take you through the entire recipe but just the modifications. Check out Mark Bittman’s iPhone or iPad app (or the e-book), How to Cook Everything for all the recipes you’ll ever want in the field—provided you’re comfortable with the necessity for an occasional (frequent?) wild modification.

First, the tomato and onion compote.  The point of this ingredient is for the acidity in the tomatos to cut some of the heaviness of the three cheeses, rue and boiled milk.  This use is convenient for our purposes because it would waste far too many resources to oven dry your tomatos for four hours as done in a typical compote because I think the tomatos do their job better in this dish when less-cooked.  So instead of baking them I skin and de-snot them, chop them up and then slow-cook them with my caramelizing onions. When things are nice and dry after 20 or so minutes in my covered skillet , I add in the olive oil, basil, thyme, sugar, salt and pepper and cook them another five minutes. This should be done while you start the mac and cheese part of the recipe in another skillet.

Next, my prep of the mac and cheese is pretty standard but just takes a little more planning.  You need to have the right amount of milk mixed up and ready and this has to be done with cool water so that the dry milk doesn’t clump and then stick.  The Bittman recipe calls for butter so I instead use more milk powder to create a cream rather than milk.  I use a thermos sealable mug that I can shake to mix up my milk. Then, while the milk is heating on the stove with the bay leaves, I mix up the dried cheddar cheese in a separate dish.  This should be done with potable cool water as the cheese will not be vigorously boiled. I then boil my noodles and continue tending the compote. I cook a rue (not actually rue since I don’t have butter and use cream instead).   And when the noodles are done I drain them and set them aside. Then I prep my cheddar cheese, and once it’s ready I also add queso fresco since it’s cheap, locally available and usually keeps for 3-4 weeks in Tupperware without refrigeration (believe it!). You can then mix everything (save for the compote which goes on top of it all once cooked) in the pasta pot, transfer it into a greased skillet (again), and cover it in bread crumbs before cooking it covered on low heat for 10-15 minutes.

The end result is, well, baked macaroni and cheese and it’s delicious.  A momentary escape from the rigors, monotony and suffering of the field.

Final Notes

Some people can eat just about anything and be happy.  But most people cannot.  And one of the most common ways I see people suffer in the field is from bad food (and there’s been a constant parade of researchers and other foreigners over the past year and a half cycling through my field sites that I base this observation on).  I’m not talking about culture shock due to new and different flavors—only time and an open mind can address that—but genuinely terrible food.  Even if you are in charge of things, and you don’t care what you yourself eat, consider that those who work with, or for, you likely do not share this unique disposition.  I certainly do not.

My Tsimane’ colleagues have been much happier (and more productive!) ever since I stepped up my cooking.  I think that’s reason enough to spend time on this aspect of your work.  As Levi-Strauss observed in Tristes Tropiques, “Anthropology is, with music and mathematics, one of the few true vocations.” Don’t let this calling and passion for your work blind you to the practical things in life—like making sure you and your colleagues live and eat well in the field.

Other Helpful Equipment and Tips

• Lifesaver 20 liter jerrycan water purifier (these are on sale right now for $100 off!). Great for quickly providing great tasting potable water (and even the occasional/decadent 10L for a clean bag-shower…) for use in recipes without needing to boil everything before it’s eaten.
• Empty and clean 2L bottles to store purified water.  Keeping  5-10 of these full and at hand allows you to save on the use of gas (or firewood) because you no longer need to boil everything before consuming it (think hot water for coffee, oatmeal, etc.). Also, don’t let people drink directly from these as it will contaminate your water supply. You mouth is an incubator for bacteria as is a hot and wet jungle environment. Combine the two and it will get you sick.
• Take extra sugar, money, or milk to trade for fresh food items like yucca/manioc, eggs, fresh fish and whatever else might be available at your site
• A covered skillet can be used as an oven for things like pizza if you take dry yeast with you
• When you make your list of supplies for the field consider how many different dishes that ingredient can be used in and cut out ingredients only good for one recipe (the search utility in many food apps are great for giving you an idea of how useful any particular item might be)

What do YOU suggest?

We’d love to hear about your own experience and tips in the comments!

I live and do research in the Bolivian Amazon where there is a brutal mix of intense sun, heat, humidity, dust and rain mixed with a consistent lack of reliable electricity and potable running water.  I’ve been here for a year now and have learned many lessons along-the-way about how to do shoe-leather ethnographic research in these harsh conditions while still having some of the modern kit—many would say necessities—for collecting and analyzing data.  For me this includes a laptop for nightly transcription/entry, editing, fleshing out and—if there’s time—coding of my field notes and audio interviews. Yes, this can all be done without a laptop but it goes much smoother with one and keeps me from putting off analysis and processing until I’m “back from the field,” the death knell of iterative research.

But laptops need power, and a safe, cool, dry, relatively clean environment to operate in. My solution came in two parts.  First, protection and care of my laptop is provided by a Pelican 1620 everything-proof case and a reusable Eva-Dry 500 mini-dehumidifier.  The only other choice in this regard is to buy a ruggedized laptop like the Panasonic Toughbook line, but these computers are all Window’s machines and typically cost anywhere from $3,000 and up—and they’re still not submersible which likely means you need a protective case anyway. The second part of my solution is solar power.  To read more about how I tackled this daunting challenge (including an exhaustive list of my equipment) check out the rest of the post after the break.

Portability and Durability

So what does it take to make solar work in the field? My first concern was portability and durability.  This meant that I did not want to have 40-60lb glass-encased panels to lug around in dug-out canoes. With this in mind I purchased my first panel, a PowerFilm R-28 rollable 28W thin-film photovoltaic that weighs about 2lbs, when I started research in lowland Bolivia over two years ago.  My lastest panel, a UNI-SOLAR PVL-68 68W thin-flim panel that weighs 8lbs, was purchased just a couple of months ago through a new research grant.  You might think the new panel was likely about twice the price of the first but due to dramatic changes in the thin-film photovoltaic market over the last two years, the opposite is true.  What has been bad for American industry (it was China bullying into the markets with huge subsidies to its manufacturers that in fact caused the Obama administration’s stimulus-darling Solyndra to go out of business) has benefitted solar consumers. I was able to purchase a UNI-SOLAR 68W rollable solar panel for $157, almost half what a new PowerFilm 28W rollable panel still costs ($300 new on Amazon) but with over twice the power output.

Total Cost in Time and Money

The current price of solar is the good news but when it comes to doing solar right in the field the best advice I can give is to call an expert or friend who has actually done this sucessfully and be prepared to spend between $1,000-$2,000.  Failing that, be ready (and eager) to do this yourself by learning everything you can about amperage/current, voltage, shorts, appropriate wire gauges, fuses, inverters, converters, controllers, lead-acid, li-poly and ni-mh battery technology, meters, etc.  Anyone who tells you this is easy is either ignorant or lying to you.  My current 124W setup cost about $2,100 total including lights, fans, converters, chargers, cables, etc. (see my equipment list below for all the gory details) and three li-poly batteries but due to the price drops I described above  and if you stick with just one 100 amp lead-acid instead of li-poly, you could build a more powerful system right now (136W) for $850 less ($300 on a battery instead of $600 and $200 on two 68W panels) especially if you catch this sale at simpleray.com.

Alternatives?

You could always opt to buy a pre-packaged system but I cannot vouch for the whether it is even possible to transport such a system by commercial airline to a field site. If you can manage that then I can suggest a couple of options. Powerenz Inc. out of Kennesaw, GA sells the LFP40 Waterproof System for $3,250 which includes a 75 watt solar panel and a 40 amp Lithium Iron Phosphate battery that can be discharged to 30% (which means an effective energy storage of [(40A*13V=520)*(.70)=364 watt-hours). And EcoGeekLiving is selling a different version of the Powerenz product with a slightly smalled panel (64W) for $2,900. A word of warning, though, both of these products while ‘waterproof’ during temporary use are not meant to be left outside permanently, but instead stored inside and used as-needed.  Rollable panels (e.g. by Powerfilm or UNI-SOLAR) do not suffer this limitation and can be semi-permanently mounted/installed and left out with no adverse impact to the panels.

Power

But how much power do you need? Well, this depends.  If you’re doing what I do, which includes lots of daily fieldnotes and recorded interviews followed by nightly word processing/editing/coding, then you’re going to want enough power available—rain or shine—everyday to be able to work for about 5 hours on a laptop, run 6w lights for about four hours, run 6w fans for 5-12 hours, recharge ni-mh batteries on occasion, recharge a smart phone everyday, run a portable projector for movie night once a week, and occasionally recharge camera batteries or a mini-dehumidifier. So all-of-a-sudden the size of you laptop battery doesn’t matter as much as the efficiency of your computer’s power usage.  I have a MacBook Air so it is actually quite good in this regard so that if I have my screen brightness set to 50% and am not on wi-fi or bluetooth or blasting music I get 6-7 hours of battery life on one charge of its 50WH battery-or about 7 watts/hr. This is not typical of your average 13-15inch laptop, though most have improved dramatically.  Still, expect that an economically-priced Dell 15in laptop like the Inspiron i15RN-2354BK will get about 4.5 hours of life on its 48WH battery for a power usage rate of 11watts/hr.

In total, then, you’ll want enough charging power and reserve power to supply power even if it is completely cloudy and raining for 4-5 days straight.  Luckily, cloudy and rainy means you use fans less—unless, of course, you need to wash and dry clothes when there has been non-stop rain which requires fans unless you want everything to wreak after staying damp for several days. I estimate 50WH/day are needed for computer work, 100WH/day for fans, 25WH/day for lights, 25WH avg. for misc other. That’s 200 WH/day total.  So your reserve power supply for four cloudy days should, ideally, be 800WH.  With a lead-acid battery at 12V that means (800/13) 61.5 amps of available power (@ 13V in a fully charged lead-acid battery) .  But lead-acid batteries don’t work like li-poly laptop batteries so you need to get that 61.5 amps from your batteries while leaving 40% of their power unused so that you don’t ruin their life-span. In the end, you should be looking for a 100 amp sealed lead-acid battery, or a smaller lead-acid battery and additional (more expensive) li-poly batteries. Due to the weight and airplane-unfriendly nature of lead-acid batteries, you’ll have to look for one as close to your field site as possible. Friends living in big cities with access to bus courier services are a big help here. Unfortunately, batteries of this size and specification will cost more in the field than in the U.S.—likely around $200-300 depending on how big you want it. Full disclosure—I’m about 17 amps short of my 61.5 amp recommendation when you include 60% of my 33 amp lead-acid battery (257WH) and 320WH worth of li-poly batteries.

Conclusion

Can you do it? Yes, of course.  Is it more hassle and money than you expected? Probably so. Check out my equipment list below and good luck!—or as they say here in Bolivia “exito” (success).  If you have any questions/comments/suggestions, please leave a note below.

I’m an iPhone 4 user.  And whether you’re a fan of this brand or loyal to another smart phone and OS, you can understand my frustration at not being able to use my pricey—and useful—toy while living abroad.  Well, I solved that problem with a little piece of nifty technology (i.e. the Gevey Ultra SIM), but in the process discovered a common challenge that I had previously been unaware of: U.S. banks are not keen on allowing international home addresses.  This wouldn’t really matter save for the common requirement from U.S. online merchants that your credit card billing address must match you shipping address (this seems to be especially true when shipping internationally if the package/company is of U.S. origin).

Now, for those of you who might be living abroad in Europe this problem is easily circumvented by purchasing locally.  And in many other places you can simply get an account at an international bank with both U.S. and local branches wherever you are.  But when you’re in a country like Bolivia that has limited product choices locally and no U.S. banks currently operating domestically, the seemingly small requirement of a matching billing and shipping address can become a big challenge.  See how I solved it after the break and let us know what your experience has been! 

If you’re only abroad for a short time, then having family or friends (or even a service) forward what you need is no problem.  But when you’re living abroad for a substantial amount of time, it becomes burdensome to keep asking for favors.  And while many forwarding services work really well, unless you have a high volume of mail coming in and going out, their subscription prices are hard to justify.

My solution was to check with all of the banks I’ve ever done or currently do business with to find one that would allow an international address.  The lone bank that permitted this change? E*Trade bank. As in, the bank affiliated with the stock market trading company.  After making a free ACH transfer from my Schwab investor checking account I can now use my E*Trade checkcard for online orders to Bolivia with matching billing and shipping addresses. There’s no minimum balance to have the account and if I put too much in and need it back, transfers out to my Schwab account are also free and quick.

Links to: E*Trade bank and Charles Schwab Brokerage Account and High Yield Investor Checking

The Livescribe Echo Pen: Happy Recording!

This post is a review of how the Livescribe Pen can be useful to social scientists recording formal interviews and informal conversations in the field. Essentially, it is a pen that records what you hear and what your write – and it syncs the two together! You can upload the audio and the graphic files to your computer (Mac or Windows) or share it with email, Google Docs, Facebook, Evernote, or another mobile device. On your computer, your handwritten notes are searchable and you can click on any part of the page and the audio will “jump” to that spot of the conversation and playback the sound. And finally, they have new hardware and software to facilitate transcriptions. For more information and video tutorials, see www.livescribe.com.

The Livescribe Pen has been a huge asset in the fieldwork that I’ve done. For example, say that you are going to do a formal interview with the principal of a school. Before you begin your questioning, you “tap” the point of the pen on the “record” button that is printed on the special dot paper that it requires (read later on about the paper). The pen will then start recording what it/you “hears” and what it is/you are “writing”. As you write, if you feel that the interviewee said something really important, you can “tap” a picture of a star (and then later go back to hear/see those parts). You can also “tap” the “pause” button (e.g. when an interviewee asks you not to record their answer for a particular question) and then hit “record” again to continue the interview. When you are finished you “tap” the “stop” button.

The next part is where the fun really begins. Once you have finished recording an interview session, you can “tap” the point of the pen anywhere on the page and the pen turns into a speaker and will playback the audio that it recorded at that very point! You can tap the “jump” button on the page and it will fast forward or rewind 30 seconds in the audio recording. This is a great feature for interviews, because often times you just want to hear exactly what the interviewee said either because their wording was really interesting or you forgot what they said. With the Livescribe pen, you don’t have to scan through the whole recording to find the particular spot you want to hear. This feature makes fieldnote write-ups and transcriptions much easier (check out their transcription software too).

Next, you can attach your pen to your computer and upload the audio and graphic files to your computer (software is available for Mac and Windows). Each page of your notebook will appear on your computer as if you took a picture of it, meaning your notes are still all handwritten (not converted into typeset). And now all your handwritten notes are searchable (it even picks up my awful handwriting, which my husband is amazed by). This is a great feature to help with coding. When you search for a word, all pages containing that word will be displayed together and highlighted. On your computer, you can also click anywhere on the page with your mouse and your computer will playback the audio from that particular point. This means that you can simply and quickly hear a part of an interview whether you have your hard copy notebook in front of you. Again, you can “jump” ahead or behind in the recording by 30 seconds. You can also “speed up” the audio so that you can scan faster through a particular portion of the interview or you can “slow down” the audio to make it easier for transcription. AND As the audio progresses the color of the text you wrote changes so that you can see what you were writing literally as that person was speaking!

You can also share these files of written text and audio with anyone via email, Google Docs, Facebook, Evernote, and other mobile devices. I haven’t done this yet so I can’t vouch for it from personal experience but the video tutorial shows you how to do it and it looks really easy.

In terms of the special paper that it requires, don’t get scared off. You have to have special microdots on the page because that enables the pen’s infrared to “read” and remember what you write. You can print this special paper from your own computer OR you can purchase it from the Livescribe website or any of their third party retailers (like Best Buy). It costs the same amount as any regular notebook would cost AND it comes in multiple sizes. So you can buy the regular 8 1/2 x 11 notebook or you can buy smaller journal sizes and even pocket notebooks.

Other pluses:

• The sound quality that it picks up is just as good as the sound quality from the attachment (Belkin) that I used to use on my iPod for interviews.
• I find it less intrusive to an interview because it just looks like an oversized pen.
• They have new transcription hardware and software to use with the pen (I haven’t tried it yet)

So I use it during formal interviews in the field, but it could also be used during informal conversations when you’re just writing regular fieldnotes. I think this could be a huge potential bonus for social scientists. For example, there are cases in my own fieldwork when I don’t understand exactly what the person is saying (mainly because the language the person is speaking in is either my second or third language). It would be great to use the Livescribe pen to just quickly tap the record button and record what they are saying so I can go back over it later. Now you could just record anytime you’re in the field for hours. For those newbies out there, although this may be tempting, I wouldn’t recommend this because it just creates too much data to store and maintain. It would also be an impossible task to transcribe it all. BUT it may be helpful so that you can go back to double check some of your notes. I say “potential”, “would be”, and “may” here, because I haven’t tried to use the Livescribe pen in this way because I don’t have IRB approval for it. In writing up my IRB  application, I anticipated that it would be too hard to get IRB approval for this type of use (and rightly so as it is an everyday identity/privacy issue).

Downsides to the pen:

• It is heavier than a normal pen, so your hand can get tired after an hour or two.
• The pen itself has a certain battery life and storage capacity. This will all depend on the what version you get. But their older model that I used in the field lasts for at least 2-4 hours.

Cost:

• Refurbished pens: start at $50
• 2GB new pen: $100
• 4GB new pen: $150
• 8GB new pen: $200
• 8GB echo pro pack w/transcription stuff: $250

Happy recording!

This is the first screencast in a series meant to provide an introduction to geographic information systems. It is primarily intended for social scientists, but should be relevant to anyone with an interest in GIS. The screencast was originally produced for and posted on Placing Culture.