Just like reading tea leaves
You know you´ve created an institution when Dan, the fourth et al of this project, comes back to you with "Do you know what people are calling us now? The et als!" I smiled. Yes, in fact, I do know. I believe the phrase was created at the beginning of the summer for the purpose of this very blog. I also know that Jeremy retorted by coining us, the student staff on the project, the Matoke Bunch. It´s truly surprising what catches on and what does not. But this expression apparently does not belong to me anymore, which is a sign of a strong institution, something this country´s president could stand to learn a little bit about. But I digress.
This week has seen the flooding of Kampala by a host of et als, as the Laboratory in Comparative Ethnic Processes Conference took place, bringing together truly impressive scholars from NYU, Princeton, Wisconsin, Columbia, Stanford, Duke, etc... If inspiration has come in spurts over the past month and a half, I enjoyed a great big spike of it this week. I said goodbye to my dirt-infused boots and clothes and the slums of Kampala for a few days, and hello to a pristine academic room in the Grand Imperial Hotel – the name could not be any more sadistically ironic. I was treated to actual morning croissants, mid-morning coffee, and a buffet of choices beyond matoke and potatoes and then more starch for lunch. But most importantly, I was offered a taste of some really exciting interactions, discussions among young assistant professors on their research projects in their very infancy or in progress. It was a wonderful intellectual treat, and my little blue inspiration notebook – the first thing I bought this summer off the streets of Kampala’s City Square – was soon covered with ink.
The excitement that I am trying to convey didn´t just stem from the research ideas that suddenly captured my mind or from the overdose of caffeine I´ve had today. It also came from an increasing level of comfort and confidence that I have surprised myself with around these scholars. We all went out to dinner last night, and after a flustering boda ride that got me lost in the depths of expat hill, I grabbed a bottle of Nile Club beer, plopped myself down next to a 33-year old superstar who just got offered tenure at NYU, and proceeded to spend the entire evening making casual and intellectual conversation. Perhaps it was the end of another busy day and I was too tired to guard my insecurities; perhaps it was the boda ride that disarmed me a little bit; perhaps it was temporary larium-induced insanity; or perhaps it was simply a growing level of comfort with the kinds of questions, ideas, thoughts, impressions that I have and a deepening confidence in the contribution I can pretend to make. No doubt hanging out with the et als on a daily basis for a month and a half has helped demystify these young rockstar professors we often place on pedestals. I mean, playing pool in teams of student against advisor, talking smack as I auction off my horse in Kuhandel, "throwing" frisbee at the Kololo airstrip under a bright orange sunset, this summer has also had its fill of beautifully disarming and equal opportunity embarrassing moments that have helped equalize the status a little bit between the et als and the matoke bunch.
So when these scholars start talking about using fMRI to figure out whether social identity is emotionally fixed or instrumentally constructed, I have no problem agreeing with Jim Fearon that the project seems like little more than "reading tea leaves."
We are now the Matoke Bunch and the Et Als in their most complete state. A real system, a new ethnic group all to ourselves. We believe in micro-foundations of political processes and we're not afraid to pretend like we're doing real science. We are four professors, six students. Two apartments. Six rooms. One operational kitchen. Four bathrooms. Five bottles of Coke. Two bottles of Diet Pepsi. One exhausted collection of Cape Verdean, Senegalese, Brazilian and American music. Two news channels. Five Bollywood channels. Eight cell phones. No mailbox. Four sets of keys. Eight computers. One modem connection. Four memory sticks. One stabilizer. 300 subjects. Ten thousand envelopes. 20 local staff members. One coffee maker.
And one rejected application for a visa extension. But that, my friends, is for another post.
This week has seen the flooding of Kampala by a host of et als, as the Laboratory in Comparative Ethnic Processes Conference took place, bringing together truly impressive scholars from NYU, Princeton, Wisconsin, Columbia, Stanford, Duke, etc... If inspiration has come in spurts over the past month and a half, I enjoyed a great big spike of it this week. I said goodbye to my dirt-infused boots and clothes and the slums of Kampala for a few days, and hello to a pristine academic room in the Grand Imperial Hotel – the name could not be any more sadistically ironic. I was treated to actual morning croissants, mid-morning coffee, and a buffet of choices beyond matoke and potatoes and then more starch for lunch. But most importantly, I was offered a taste of some really exciting interactions, discussions among young assistant professors on their research projects in their very infancy or in progress. It was a wonderful intellectual treat, and my little blue inspiration notebook – the first thing I bought this summer off the streets of Kampala’s City Square – was soon covered with ink.
The excitement that I am trying to convey didn´t just stem from the research ideas that suddenly captured my mind or from the overdose of caffeine I´ve had today. It also came from an increasing level of comfort and confidence that I have surprised myself with around these scholars. We all went out to dinner last night, and after a flustering boda ride that got me lost in the depths of expat hill, I grabbed a bottle of Nile Club beer, plopped myself down next to a 33-year old superstar who just got offered tenure at NYU, and proceeded to spend the entire evening making casual and intellectual conversation. Perhaps it was the end of another busy day and I was too tired to guard my insecurities; perhaps it was the boda ride that disarmed me a little bit; perhaps it was temporary larium-induced insanity; or perhaps it was simply a growing level of comfort with the kinds of questions, ideas, thoughts, impressions that I have and a deepening confidence in the contribution I can pretend to make. No doubt hanging out with the et als on a daily basis for a month and a half has helped demystify these young rockstar professors we often place on pedestals. I mean, playing pool in teams of student against advisor, talking smack as I auction off my horse in Kuhandel, "throwing" frisbee at the Kololo airstrip under a bright orange sunset, this summer has also had its fill of beautifully disarming and equal opportunity embarrassing moments that have helped equalize the status a little bit between the et als and the matoke bunch.
So when these scholars start talking about using fMRI to figure out whether social identity is emotionally fixed or instrumentally constructed, I have no problem agreeing with Jim Fearon that the project seems like little more than "reading tea leaves."
We are now the Matoke Bunch and the Et Als in their most complete state. A real system, a new ethnic group all to ourselves. We believe in micro-foundations of political processes and we're not afraid to pretend like we're doing real science. We are four professors, six students. Two apartments. Six rooms. One operational kitchen. Four bathrooms. Five bottles of Coke. Two bottles of Diet Pepsi. One exhausted collection of Cape Verdean, Senegalese, Brazilian and American music. Two news channels. Five Bollywood channels. Eight cell phones. No mailbox. Four sets of keys. Eight computers. One modem connection. Four memory sticks. One stabilizer. 300 subjects. Ten thousand envelopes. 20 local staff members. One coffee maker.
And one rejected application for a visa extension. But that, my friends, is for another post.
posted by cla at 11:37 AM
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