Marianne is writing an interesting series of blog posts addressing questions about aid and development organisations at Zen and the Art of Peacekeeping.  Today’s post was on a topic I have great interest in, Secular vs Religious Organisations.  I attempted to leave a comment on there but typepad will not accept it so I am posting it here:

“Great question, more relevant than most secular NZers would probably realise. I don’t know what it is like in Afghanistan, but here in Honduras there are literally thousands of volunteer and professional development agencies and a huge percentage are religious. As a result I have spent a lot of time with religious groups in the course of my research. I certainly agree that there is a clear distinction between evangelical (proselytising) and non-evangelical groups, and that the development efforts of the latter are often amongst the best. I do have some concerns however, from my close association with religious groups and my own religious upbringing, regarding religious agencies. We are all products of our culture and history, and Christian agencies carry the legacy of their background and beliefs with them wherever they go. These do have an influence on where they go and what they do. This may be positive (a focus on peace, acceptance of all, preference for the poor), or it may be negative (restrictions on the types of programs that can be run, ultra-conservative moral values). I guess as with all decisions about support for aid and development, the key is to research well the organisations you are interested in, find out what type of programmes and projects they run, and investigate their underlying values so that you know your money is going where your heart is.”

Further to my last post on Why I Support the Resistencia, the following is a post I wrote at the end of June but never posted.  Interestingly, although my thoughts on who is doing the posting has not changed over the past few months, my impressions of the resistencia have.  Perhaps I was more influenced by the golpista’s characterisation of Zelaya supporters than I thought:

I’ve been thinking and writing and deleting and rewriting posts about the political crisis here in Honduras and had all but decided to just keep quiet and post only the most apolitical updates and personal news. But I can’t quite bring myself to do that.  As an Internet researcher I am fascinated with the onging conversations and debates about the Zelaya and about the coup, and with what they reveal about Honduran politics and scoiety.

While most people probably still rely on traditional media outlets for news about the crisis in Honduras, the news from these sources has been less than reliable.   Domestic media coverage has been tightly controlled with some pro-Zelaya outlets shut down, and programmes or talkback callers have been cut short if they are pro-Zelaya or anti-coup. There have been reports of the arrest and detention of pro- Zelaya journalists.  Within Honduras the truth can be hard to come by. However the International media has not been great either.  Although there has had more coverage of the anti-coup message, reports are often inaccurate treating rumours as fact and many seem overly sensational.

As a result many here have turned to the new social media to read about, and to report events and information, and to promote thier point of view. Giordano wrote yesterday of the Twitter War over Honduras, reporting that at the time of his writing the anti-coup twitterers were winning the war.  With the weight of the worlds leadership on thier side they quickly worked to spread the word regarding the seriousness of the coup, particularly in the face of solid media coverage of the death of Michael Jackson.   But pro-coup Honduran twitterers (and bloggers, emailers and journalists) have fought back, and hard.  My informal observation has been that the strongest messages coming through over the past day have been anti-Zelaya and pro coup (or as they would have it, constitional succession?).  A count of the last 100 messages in a Twitter search using the term ‘Honduras’ showed 51 pro-coup, and just 11 anti-coup (the 40 other were news only, personal tweets or unclear).  In particular there seems to be a concerted effort by the pro-coup Twitterers to inform the international media and politicians that this was a legal change of power not a coup, and that Hondurans do not want Zelaya back.  At face value the battle  now seems to indicate that Honduras is largely anti-Zelaya. Pro-coup Twitterers and bloggers report 70-80% of Hondurans are anti-Zelaya.  As there are never any links to actual statistical data I read these as 70-80% of Hondurans known to the writer are anti-Zelaya.  The significance  of this becomes apparent when one looks more closely at eaxctly who is writing the posts and twitters.

The first characteristic of anyone using the new social media is that they must have access to the internet. They also need to be able to string words together in a compelling and readable manner. In a place like Honduras,to be able to blog or twitter means the author in general has a higher than average level of education, and an income that supports regular access to a computer and the internet.  As a result it is primarily middle class and above who are doing most of the Internet posting.  And these also happen to be the groups in Honduran society that are clearly anti-Zelaya.  Zelaya’s support, and the resistance to the coup on the other hand, comes mostly from the working poor and campesinos.  These are the ones who are least likely to be writing blog posts or filing newspaper reports. The voice of the poor is, as usual, largely absent from the online conversation.

Even where Zelaya’s supporters in Honduras do raise a voice it is often ignored or ridiculed. They are frequently referred to as naive, uneducated and manipulated. Certainly there is evidence that he tried to buy peoples support, and it is highly likely he was thinking about more than (or something completely different to) the well-being of the poor when he raised the minimum wage and handed out free light bulbs.  But that this should lead to the wholesale dismissal of their point of view is I think, indicative of the class and societal divisions in Honduras.

That Zelaya was supported by the unions, campesino and indigenous groups is not insignificant.  That the social internet is authored by the middle class and above, I think is significant and needs to be taken into account when assessing the support for, and against the coup and the new government.

I guess you could call this a reveal, or a coming out. I’ve carefully and deliberately kept this blog apolitical for what I considered to be very good reasons, but those reasons don’t seem to be making much sense any longer, and I don’t want to keep quiet about it anymore.

On June 28, when Zelaya was removed from office and flown out of the country I has only been back in Honduras for a couple of weeks.  I was out of touch with the political climate and atmosphere in the country, and felt I didn’t know enough about Honduran politics to have an educated opinion.  In addition I was here primarily to do research and didn’t want to risk compromising that.  However over the past 3 months I have watched, listened and discussed the events unfolding and my initial neutrality has given way to open support for the resistencia.   Here’s why.

• I don’t trust MichelettiWhile there has been ample discussion of Zelaya’s sins in the traditional media here in Honduras, and in online media, I have been surprised at how little  talk there has been regarding Micheletti and others in the defacto government.  Without even having to look into the past, or at the accusations of death squads and violent repression, it is easy to see actions that are far from ethical. The manner of Zelaya’s illegal removal from the country (even coup supporters will admit that now), the faked resignation letter, the forced closure of pro-Zelaya media outlets, the overkill of a nation-wide 48 hour curfew… none of this is the behavior of an honest and responsible democratic government.  With accusations of disappearing money and the selling off of grain reserves, one has to wonder what is actually happening behind the scenes.
• The constitutionMaybe it is because I come from a country without a codified constitution, or maybe it is just because I am not a political or legal scholar, but the constitutional arguments don’t convince me.  The Honduran constitution has been bent backwards and forwards by both sides to try and support their position, and as a result it is perhaps no wonder Oscar Arias called the Honduran constitution the worst in the world.  While that might be an overstatement, from what I can tell the constitution appears to have hindered, rather than helped the democratic process.  A constitution that has articles that simply cannot be altered, and that make it difficult or even impossible for the people to instigate change, is at best a dinosaur, and at worst repressive of future generations.  Additionally, while the argument for Zelaya’s removal rests on the importance of upholding the constitution, it wasn’t a problem for the Micheletti government to suspend constitutional civil rights it on Zelaya’s return, indeed it seems to be becoming a major problem for them to reinstate them.
• Misinformation, disinformationControl of the media seems to be one of the key strategies of Michelitti’s government. Certainly here within Honduras it is difficult to find any traditional media outlets not endlessly repeating the governments line and pro-Zelaya outlets have been shut down for inciting rebellion and uprising.  However I find it hard to believe that this was done in the public’s interest, as in several days of watching Canal 57 (Cholusat) near continuously my husband and I did not once hear Zelaya call for violence, although he did call his supporters to Tegucigalpa for peaceful protest.  We also did hear many callers describing the violent and repressive actions of the police and military in their neighbourhoods.  Characterising pro-Zelaya media outlets as inciters of violence allowed the regime to shut them down, and to shut down any reports that were not favorable to their regime. Again, this is not the actions of a democratic and enlightened government.I am also comfortably certain that the pro-coup media’s characterisation of Zelaya supporters as violent thugs, paid mercenaries or ignorant and uneducated is not correct.  While my academic background leads me to be highly suspicious of anecdotal evidence (and yes this post is full of it), this characterisation has not been my experience or observation. The resistence includes people from all walks of life. The Zelaya supporters I’ve met include grandmothers, small business owners and farmers. While I don’t deny there has been violence I don’t believe there is a simple “they are bad” explanation. For example in mid-July my husband had an interesting conversation with  a young street kid in Tegucigalpa who had no political interest (or knowledge) but who had joined the pro-Zelaya marches with his friends and thrown stones at the police for the fun of it.   More recently, on 21 Sept when Zelaya returned to Honduras, I spent the day watching TV footage of peaceful, happy Zelaya supporters outside the Brazilian Embassy, later I was saddened to watch scenes of chaos in that same street as the police and army moved in.  The violence is not necessarily endorsed, nor perpetrated by Zelaya or the resistance.

  Another example of misinformation from the media and many pro-coup commentators is that most of Honduras is supportive of Micheletti and the new government.  Again at risk of being accused of using anecdotal evidence, I have to say the majority of Hondurans my husband and I have spoken to are either pro-Zelaya or are ambivalent.  More convincingly, last week poll results from the authorized polling agency for the Honduran elections were released, which showed only 17.4% were in favor of the June 28 ousting of Zelaya, and 52.7% against. Interestingly I don’t think this poll was reported in the newpapers here.

• The root of the crisis is fearSocialist, communist, dictator… there was , and is, a strong fear that Zelaya was going to usher in an era of Chavez-style politics to Honduras.  I am less interested in whether or not he was going to do that (and I’m not convinced he would have been able to anyway) than I am in the underlying fear of the left that drove Micheletti and co to desperate measures.  This fear is reflected throughout the pro-coup media and blogosphere, and I have been very frustrated over the past months reading posts and articles endlessly misusing the terms socialist and communist, and misunderstanding left wing politics and the rise of the left in Latin America. The United States has done very well promoting a right-wing, market-oriented form of development, and at vilifying all other approaches.  To read some of the pro-coup postings on the web is to step back to the cold war and to feel the fear of communism, ironically a communism that Zelaya was far far away from implementing. Talking to the poor, raising the minimum wage, convening a national constituent assembly… this is not communism, nor even socialism.  But it was enough for the elites and business community to feel threatened.
• This is no changeFollowing on from the above – this was a clearly a coup to protect the status quo, not for change.  The coup leaders have vested interest in maintaining Honduras the way it was.  Michelettistas don’t like the term oligarchy, and would love to contest the idea that Honduras is run by just 10 families, but they can’t deny that the coup leaders are largely from the social class that had the most to loose from a change to the left. The coup was a means of retaining, rather than taking power. I don’t believe they were thinking of the good of the country, or of the poor when they took the actions they did, but rather of saving their position and power, and their businesses. The coup does not represent a fresh start for Honduras, but the ability for Honduras to continue with business as usual.  It means business as usual for the poor, selling candy on the street, picking someone else’s coffee, buying just a few tortillas with a little salt to feed their children.

So this is why I support the resistencia. Not because I think Zelaya is wonderful.  He’s not.  Not because I think Micheletti is evil, although I am very worried about what he is up to.  Because I want to align myself with the poor, with those that don’t have a voice, with those that will loose whoever wins the political battle.  I support the resistencia because I see this as an opening to begin a conversation about a Honduras that works for all, about what real change would mean.  Not a change controlled by the elite for their own benefit, but one where all Hondurans get a voice.

If you want to read more about the Honduran crisis (in English), I can recommend the following thoughtful and insightful blogs:

Honduras Coup 2009 – “Responses to the Coup d’etat in Honduras on Sunday June 28, with special emphasis on producing English-language versions of commentaries by Honduran scholars and editorial writers and addressing the confusion encouraged by lack of basic knowledge about Honduras.”

Quotha – Anthropologist Adrienne Pine posts online field notes and first-hand accounts of the coup from Hondurans.

Hermano Juancito

Carne con Frijol

El  Cinquito

By now much of the world will be aware that there is chaos in Honduras right now. Exiled President Manuel Zelaya has found his way back to Tegucigalpa and is holed up at the Brazilian Embassy.  The interim / defacto / golpista government has responded with what seems to be to be alarming overkill, breaking up protests, shutting airports and borders and putting the entire country under a 24 hour curfew.  While this is supposedly for the protection of the citizens, those same citizens are suffering as people can’t work and can’t get food. Businesses are suffering.

News reports are conflicting.  TV and radio stations have been intermittently shut down leaving those without internet access to get news (propganda?) from those supportive of the current government. Depending on the news source, there have either been no deaths or hundreds; the violence is the result of the raging protesters, or the provocation of the police and army; the vandalism is the work of the pro-Mel groups or a set-up by the golpistas.  Who knows.  I suspect the truth is in the middle somewhere but it is very hard to get an honest report here.  What I do know is that the whole situation is causing significant suffering for the ordinary people here, and the longer the power-hungry leaders in Tegucigalpa continue to refuse to negotiate properly, the more they will suffer and that breaks my heart.

Personally, the situation is causing some difficulties.  I am supposed to be at the conference on Honduras starting tomorrow, and I will, but it has been shortened and will be small as conferees may not be able to get here.  Luckily we came early, before the return of Zelaya, as my sister was visiting and we wanted to chow her Copan.  However it wasn’t so lucky for her as she arrived in San Pedro Sula to catch her flight home just as all airports were closed.  She is still in SPS, holed up in a guesthouse and waiting for the first plane out.

Here in Copan the streets are quiet, but the curfew has not been enforced so we are able to get out and about (and I am able to do my work and blogging from a sun-drenched rooftop cafe!).  I am enjoying the relaxed pace here, and the personal and cheerful service from businesses who are so grateful for my custom, but I would far rather things returned to normal as quickly as possible.  Honduras, and Hondurans, can’t afford this shut-down.

My academic supervisor just suggested my latest theoretical analogy reminded her of mille feuille. Apart from the fact that it makes me really want to eat something sweet and custardy (and I’m highly unlikely to find anything like that around here), I think the idea of envisaging theoretical ideas as food is great.  It means I can combine two of my favourite things – theorising and eating.

Actually that is probably something I do really well already.  My recent research trip to the North Coast and Roatan was characterised both by very interesting interviews and discussions, and by great food – fresh fried fish and tajadas, chorizo, many many baleadas and yummy tropical fruit.  Some of my best research conversations have happened over food, both in restaurants and homes. I’m not sure what it is about sharing food that encourages good discussions (I wonder if anyone has research that yet – now that would be fun research to do!), but it does seem to work that way.   It doesn’t take much of a step from there to start making theory from the mix of food and ideas.

The trip wasn’t all work and eating.  I managed to have a lovely mini-holiday on the beach in Roatan with my family.  While there we were able to stay a little more up-market than we normally would, the political crisis and travel advisories have succeeded in significantly reducing the number of tourists arriving, and hotel prices have been slashed as a result.  Not good for business (and I do feel for the hoteliers) but nice for us.  We swam, watched dolphin shows and lay in the hammock and just relaxed.

Now I am back at my desk with a pile of notes and a voice recorder full of interesting interviews.  But this time I’m not the only one who was at ’school’ – my little big girl is now a big school girl.  Well, almost, she’s a big pre-k (preschool) girl, and today was her first day.  She loved it.

All round, life is going well.  The research is progressing.  I am enjoying living here, and my family is happy.  All I need now is a slice of mille feuille and all will be perfect.

This is a long planned research trip which had been delayed due to the ongoing political crisis.  Given that things had been more or less normal and I needed to get on and get some research work done, we decided earlier this week to just go.  Of course, as soon as I had made the plans, booked accomodation and scheduled interview appointments we were warned that the unions and pro-Zalaya faction were organising strikes and roadblocks for later in the week. After a very late night on Tuesday revewing our plans we finally decided to go Wednesday and attempt to get all the way to La Ceiba before the strikes started on Thursday, a decision helped by a changed interview date in the SPS area (we had planned to stop there for a night or two en route).

It proved to be a good decision – we made it and did avoid some disruption on Thursday – but also a bad one, it was a looong trip with a small child and very tiring – it took us 9 hours of driving, 100km of road works, one forced detour through the countryside, 2 broken bridges, 2.5 meal breaks and 5 toilet stops before we finally made it to La Ceiba. But it was good to get the North Coast, and get started on the business of this trip, gathering data for my research.

Of course it’s not all work.  Today we took a drive to Sambo Creek, where we ate seafood, and my daughter was able to have her first splash in the Caribbean.  She as convinced it would be cold (and that there might be sharks!) but it didn’t take her long to realise it was not a kiwi beach… it was nice and warm and only a light shade of brown (lots of rain here yesterday). In the next few days we’ll be sailing over that water to Roatan, where she and her Dad can spend all the time they want in clear blue water, while I keep working (ok, yes I’m sure I’ll have a few swims myself!).

We are of course watching the political situation carefully.  At the moment all the action is near the Nicaraguan border at Las Manos, ironically not too far from our little casa on the hillside but far away from where we are now.  I think we made the right decision after all.

While I should really be planning interviews, transcribing or otherwise engaged with my research work, I’ve been distracted this morning by a foray into the world of aid worker blogs, and specifically an ongoing conversation about the role, or non-role, of expatriate volunteers in aid projects.  This is a topic I have a great interest in – being central to both my Masters and PhD research, and to my own experience as a wanna-be volunteer.

It started with a single tweet from @SarahMDC:   “Good dig at some of the muky issues surrounding international dev #volunteers + volunteer projects http://digg.com/u18jMS“.  The link is to Tales From the Hood, and the post is the final in a series on international volunteers.  I found myself nodding in agreement with the post as it reflected my own academic scepticism of international volunteers, particilarly short term ones.  It set me thinking once again about my reasons for pursuing post-graduate study in development, and for choosing my research topic.

Here’s an abridged excerpt from some work I did last year on international volunteering:

Despite mounting evidence of the altruistic nature, and global popularity of international volunteering, I remained in a critical frame of mind.  Much of the literature surrounding volunteering for development is explicitly positive, identifying it is something that can potentially shape such new thinking and help to ‘humanise’ globalisation (Lewis, 2005, p. 15).  However I was reading with the eyes of a cynic, and found that not only was it easy to find literature that highlighted the problems with international volunteering, it seemed the critiques overshadowed the positivity.

The first criticism is the related to altruism.  While volunteering is generally considered an altruistic activity, in most cases there is considerable benefit to the volunteer, perhaps even more than to the community or hosts.  Benefits to the volunteer include personal development, enhanced career prospects, friendship and adventure . This criticism is strengthened by the lack of research on the impacts on communities, who arguably may in fact be adversely affected as they spend time, energy and resources to accommodate the volunteer. This argument is particularly directed at volunteer tourism, where programmes may be explicitly developed for, or marketed to tourists rather than being developed from and for the community to be served.

In addition to this, while one of the purported benefits of international volunteering is the development of cross-cultural appreciation and understanding, research suggests that it may actually have the reverse effect, reinforcing stereotypes and actively promoting an image of a ‘third world other’ that is dominated an ‘us and them’ mindset…  The ‘us and them’ mentality is reinforced by the inherent inequality of the volunteer experience, where “the processes that allow young westerners to access the financial resources, and moral imperatives, necessary to travel and volunteer in a ‘third world country’, are the same as the ones that make the reverse process almost impossible” (Simpson, 2004).

International volunteering is also criticised as the volunteers come from outside the host community, with limited skills, experience, and understanding of the local context.  My research on short term, volunteer medical missions was very critical on this point, arguing that language and cultural differences, inadequate resources and time, and a lack of local knowledge significantly limits what the volunteers could do and often results in poor medical care.  (Other studies have found that short term volunteers programmes may) encourage the (false) view that development is a simple matter, and something which can be ‘done’ by non-skilled, but enthusiastic volunteer-tourists.

Another criticism is that international volunteering cultivates dependency.  A host community may become dependent on volunteers and voluntary programmes when these are promoted at the expense of longer term or community driven initiatives.  Dependency is also fostered when volunteers undermine the dignity of communities with handouts.  In addition Western volunteers can be seen as ‘modelling’ a lifestyle of cultural and material values that may be inappropriate, and which promotes modernisation, or development as westernisation.

All of these are reflected in the significant criticism of neo-colonialism.  This criticism… is reinforced by claims that volunteer programmes are built on the structures of colonialism (Smith & Elkin, 1980), use developing countries as training grounds for future professionals (Raymond & Hall, 2008) and are modelling a Western way of living (Roberts; Simpson, 2004).  At it’s extreme, is the argument that international volunteers are a form of Northern imperialism, as their activities boost Northern Government interests rather than tackling the root causes of poverty and injustice (Devereux, 2008).

This excerpt is part of a larger piece that explores both the positive and critical literature on international volunteering, and expands on the ideas as they apply to my research (probably not so interesting to blog readers!). It ends on a more hopeful note, one that is looking forward, looking for ways in which the passion and skills of wanna-be volunteers  (like myself 10 years ago) can be harnessed in ways that are mutually beneficial and constructive; and in which Westeners can learn about the reality of life in other parts of the world in way that break down rather than reinforce stereotypes.  I find it interesting that this is actually the starting place for the series from Tales From the Hood:

Appropriate, structured cultural exchange can be a very positive thing.This, I think, is an important starting place…  We blame lack of having traveled and lack of awareness and understanding of international issues for everything from Third World Poverty to the fact the George W. Bush initiated the Iraq war. But then, when someone has the idea of taking some ordinary citizens from “here” and letting them see what it’s like “over there”, we’re very quick to pick them apart for that. And perhaps in some cases, rightly so. But we ourselves offer no alternatives.

We need an accepted mechanism for exposing aid-work-outsiders. Our work is critical. It is (or should be) making a difference…
But we need a way to meaningfully and appropriately expose our work to our third audience: ordinary people in our home countries. I’m not saying development tourism is the answer. But it’s one possibility.

I guess I have taken this as my challenge.  I’m not sure whether my PhD study will find any definitive answers (actually I’m quite sure it won’t) but I know the questions will continue to haunt me in my future career, be it academic or in practice.

For now I really need to get back to work.  There will be no answers without actually doing some research.

Some other good posts on the issue:
Good intentions are not enough (series on guidelines for international volunteers)
Aid Watch

Next post – back to the non-drama of living and doing research during a (non-?) coup!

My Mum is worried.  Back home in New Zealand reports of the coup in Honduras are filtering through, along with images of protests and clashes, and warnings against unnecessary travel to Honduras.  It’s a surreal experience being here, aware of the events taking place not far from where we live, yet carrying on with life as usual.

Politically the country is still in a stand-off.   The international community yesterday gave the coup leaders 72 hours to reinstate Zelaya or face sanctions.  Zelaya initially stated he would return today but now seems to be waiting for the 72 hours to pass before making a move.  The interim government has declared Zelaya will not be welcome here and, amongst those who have a voice anyway, it is clear much of the population does not want him back either, although both pro and anti- Zelaya marches and protests continue.  So most of us wait.  No-one really really knows how this will play out.

Of course this tension and political unease in the background has an impact on daily life.  We don’t have a TV but listen to the radio, and read newspapers, blogs and twitterers online.  We have prolonged discussions about the situation, and are constantly reassessing our plans taking into account the political events each day.  But the reality is that life goes on.  I go to university.  My husbandand daughter spend thier days playing on the porch, going for walks to collect fruit and swimming in the pool.  The people around us also carry on as normal, the workmen next door rebuilding another little casita, the staff and students at the university all still working.  The pulpurias (small dairy-like shops) are open, as is the local supermarkets and petrol station.

All appeared normal in Tegucigalpa on Tuesday when we finally took a much needed trip to the supermarket and to have a look at a few cars (we are reliant on others for transport at the moment but are looking for a car of our own). People were out and about on the streets as usual, and the malls and supermarkets are all open. The only evidence of the political strife was a handful of soldiers on the road into town, and a small, peaceful pro-Zelaya march (about 300-400 people I would guess) passing by the mall.

Our biggest worry so far is the potential effect of trade sanctions.  Already there are rumours of prices rises in some places.  We are well stocked for rice and beans, and have a whole fruit orchard to enjoy but it is a concern when we really still are here on a student budget.  It is even more of a worry for the 60% or so of the population who are poor.  Petrol shortages are also likely as Chavez cuts the flow of Venezuelan oil to Honduras, and our neighbour has already experienced significant difficulty filling his car in Tegus. earlier this week.  While I’m not sure if it is linked with the political crisis, I have also had difficult accessing my Visa and NZ bank accounts from the ATM we usually use, the message stating that my istitution was not connected to the bank at this time. I’m hoping that is just a normal ‘travel in Honduras’ related issue otherwise we’ll be very short of cash for a while – although the Visa works fine for normal in store payments so we won’t starve.

The other impact this crisis is having is on my planning.  I should be well into making plans and appointments for my research trip to the North Coast later this month, but have put it on hold until things are a little clearer.  At the moment things are safe, and people are travelling normally, but the threat of the escalation of violence exists and if so, we will be happier and safer on our mountainside than on the road.  It isn’t a big deal except that it delays the data collection, but I do have my supervisors permission to stay home and make chocolate cake should I be unable to travel!

So, life goes on.  We wait and see.  We eat, sleep, work, swim… and hope and pray this passes quickly and peacefully.

After a month of organising, packing, travelling, holidaying (vacationing) and settling in we are now officially, properly here in Honduras.  This trip is a little different to our past visits here. We have a home, I have an office, and we are working on getting a car. Simply having a home base and a kitchen makes life in Honduras a lot easier, and we feel we have hit the jackpot with our little casita (pictured).

We found the house through a client of a friend of ours here last year.  At the time we looked at it last year it was an empty concrete shell which the owner was planning to finish and furnish for rental.  We took a risk agreeing to rent it before seeing the final result but we are very pleased.  It is slightly upgraded traditional Honduran style – tile floors, painted concrete walls, concrete kitchen and cold running water.  But it is comfortably furnished, has a coffee maker and hot shower (shower head water heater) so I’m happy.  It also helps that it is on a small farm surrounded by mango, orange, lemon, mandarin and avocado trees, and banana, coffee and corn.  It is very quiet ( a small miracle in Honduras), very safe and absolutely beautiful. The only problem at the moment is transportation, we are reliant on others for rides or it is a long walk to the main road for buses.  Hopefully in the next week or so we will find a car, and we’ll be properly mobile again.

We have arrived here in Honduras just in time for the big news of the year, that is of course the (rumoured? currently underway? attempted?) coup in Tegucigalpa.  I’m not going to go into detail in this post (that would be a whole post of it’s own… La Gringa has a good one here), my feeling is that while I can’t really see any sort of good outcome for the Honduran people, I also do not think it will escalate into the kind of violence seen in this region in the past.  We are very safe where we are, all is quiet and life goes on as normal.

While mindful of the potential for civic and political unrest, I am continuing with my research plans.  I am lucky enough to have been offered office space at a nearby (and respected) university, and am making the most of both the facilities and the contacts.  Over the next few weeks I will be meeting with people around here and in Tegucigalpa, then in late July will be taking the family to the North Coast for another round of interviews and a few days on the beach in Roatan. Apparently fieldwork is supposed to be rough and challenging but political instability aside, so far I think I’m going to enjoy the next few months.

Next week I am off to Honduras to do my research fieldwork.  Although I am crazy busy at the moment  juggling home and research preparations, I thought it would be a good time to review Mama, PhD, an anthology of essays by academic Mums (actually Moms, they’re all US Americans).  

I bought the book last year, having followed the Mama, PhD blog for a while, looking for some insights into how others have managed the precarious balancing act that is being a mother and being an academic.  And a precarious act it certainly seems to be. The overwhelming impression I came away with was that maintaining both a family and an academic position is hugely challenging, and at in some cases the two are simply incompatable.  This was neatly summed up by my sister, who is neither an academic nor a mother, after I caught her reading the book and teased her about it.  She laughed and commented that it was kind of like watching a road crash.  It’s often horrific, but you just can’t look away. 

I couldn’t look away either, the writing is compelling with a mix of humor, emotion and insight.  It lays bare the patriarchy of academia, and the reality of work in an environment that seems to still be adjusting to the presence of women.  Over and over the contributors write of the difficulty getting sufficient maternity leave and the lack of childcare facilities.  They also write of the need to disconnect themselves from mothering when at work, of being ignored or worse by collegues, and of missed opportunities and compromises made.  In Scholar, Negated Jessica Smart Gullion writes of how her Sociology department, her “feminist enclave”, attempted to kick her out because she was pregnant.  The reality of the institution seems to override the rhetoric of feminism and equal opportunity. 

Fortunately for me, this has not been my experience so far.  Maybe I have drawn the lucky straw when it came to choosing a university.  Or maybe New Zealand universities are ahead of the US in thier approach to motherhood. I think mostly I have had the great fortune of having supervisors (advisors) who are both mothers, and of being surrounded by an awesome community of female staff and students.  When my husband wasn’t well last week, I had no hesitation in taking my daughter with me to campus.  She sat though an hour long presentation quietly with her crayons and books, but even if she had been disruptive I know the rest of the room (all bar one also Mums) would have been fully understanding.  My daughter knows her way to my office at the “versity”, knows several of the staff and students, and is always made a fuss of when she drops in for a visit.  Conversations over lunch range comfortably from post-structural analyses of development theory to toilet training techniques. And if I am late turning in work or unable to attend a meeting the excuse my daughter is sick is perfectly acceptable.

I do share with the contributors to Mama, PhD a frustration in finding enough time to give to my PhD and to my daughter.  I know the guilt associated with leaving my child in the care of others 4-5 days per week.  I am enormously grateful for on-campus childcare, government subsidies to pay for that childcare, and that my daughter loves her childcare centre, but I still wallow in guilt at times, especially after a visit to stay-at-home Mum friends with perfect (and clean!) homes and home-cooked meals every night. While this frustration and guilt is not unique to academia, Mama, PhD has made me more aware of the peculiarities of academic work, and how motherhood impinges on that – such as the need to be intellectual, and to have space to think.

While many of the contibutors have negotiated, or are successfully negotiating an academic career while rasing a family, many have also left academia or gone to ‘non-traditional’ jobs.  It is abundantly clear from reading Mama, PhD that if the academic community wants to attract and retain great teachers and researchers, they need to address the issue of patriarchal and outdated systems that make motherhood and academic life so difficult for many.  This is I believe the strength of the book.  While it is an interesting read (with plenty of laughs thrown in – anyone game to let undergraduate males choose thier child’s name?), it is the underlying commentary on the institution of academia that is most powerful – and necessary.  

After reading some of the essays my sister has no desire to become an academic or a mum.  I on the other hand continue to have no regrets about either.  Reading Mama, PhD has opened my eyes to both the wider community of Mums in academia and the challenges they face, and to the potential pitfalls and challenges I may have to face in the future.  Here’s hoping that whereever  find myself working I will continue to feel the same support I do now.  If not, at least I know I will not be alone.