The Forrestcast: Intercontinental Locational Instability

I've been putting together some plans, and people have started asking about them, so I thought it was time to publish them. As the title implies, I'm going to be moving around alot over the next 6-8 months. This is not really a change: I've already been moving around alot. What is a change is that it seems I will be less in rural India and more in the US.

Brief Summary: in India until 23rd March, in Bloomington from 24th-29th March, in Boston 29-30th, meditation retreat from 30th March-10th April, at parents' house in Amherst from 10th April-23rd April, in NYC on 23-24th, back to Bloomington on 24th night. In Bloomington for May and June (probably going to a conference in Madison in early June), back in India in July/August, back in Bloomington for 2011-12 academic year. Probable trip to California to attend a wedding at some point.

See below for the details:

Right now: I'm in Nagpur, at the office of Shodh, one of the main organizations that has been helping me with my research. One of the reasons I am here is I had stored a large number of books and files here, which had to be shipped back to the US. This was a rather entertaining experience, which you can read about here (this is a link to a website for Indian travellers and expats living in India - I thought my information would be useful to them).

On Monday night, the 14th of February, my research assistant and I are taking an overnight train to Khammam - a city in Andhra Pradesh. I will be studying a forest division in Khammam District as the 8th and final division in my dissertation. I expect to be in Khammam approximately 3 weeks, after which I will return to Hyderabad - on approximately March 7th. There is a chance of a short diversion to re-visit some friends I made while doing fieldwork in Adilabad, but no promises at this point.

In Hyderabad, I have a bunch of follow-up interviews to do with some senior policy-makers, and a few NGO type people I still need to meet. I also have more books that need to be shipped from there.

I leave Hyderabad on the night of the 17th of March - on an overnight train to Nagpur, where I will spend the Holi holiday with the friends I've made in my stay here.

On the night of March 20th, I take yet another overnight train to Delhi. I will be in Delhi for just 2 nights and 3 days. I have some final wrap-up kinds of work to do before I return to the US, and some friends to visit.

I'm flying out of Delhi on the night of the 23rd - my plane leaves after midnight so technically speaking, it is the 24th. I'm flying non-stop to Chicago, and then connecting to Indianapolis, where I arrive at 10 AM on the morning of Thursday the 24th of March. If anyone is interested, I would be really excited about getting a ride back from the airport, and will most likely need some help doing things like reconnecting the phone and internet in my house, getting some food (I no longer own a car), and readjusting to life in America.

Some people have been asking me if my return at the end of March means I've finished my fieldwork sooner than expected. I think when I left the US in May, I was telling people that I would be coming back between March and August, but I was never very sure how long fieldwork would take. Fieldwork has gone well, and I was able to meet with members of my research committee in January when they came to Hyderabad for a conference. At that time I explained to them what work I had accomplished, and what remains. There is always more work that *could* be done, but they advised me that the work I was planning to complete by the end of March would be sufficient.

There is more follow-up work I will have to do, but there are a few reasons why I think this work would be better accomplished on a follow up visit during July/August than by staying on in April and May. The primary reason is that April and May is summer in my study region, and summer in central India is notoriously hot - temperatures regularly top 120 F, and rarely drop below 90 F, even at night. My Indian friends tell me that it is impossible to work effectively in this heat. I'm from New England, and I think it is hot here in winter when everyone else is shivering and complaining of the cold. I'm not confident I'd make it when it is 120 degrees every day. I find the rainy season in central India - July and August - to be really quite pleasant - warm and wet, but not too hot, nor too wet. So I'll be much more capable of completing the necessary work in the rains than during the heat. A second reason is that I want to take the time to organize my notes, review what I've learned, and start some writing, and then come back and have an opportunity to present some preliminary results and ask questions about the missing pieces. A third reason is that my research visa expires on the 25th of March. While it appears that it isn't impossible to renew, it does sound like a big hassle, and thus, it seems to make more sense to go back to the US before the expiration, and get a new visa for my next trip.

I think that readjusting to life in the US will be difficult, but there are actually 2 adjustments. One, which I've done a couple times now, is the adjustment from India to the US - which are obviously extremely different cultures and societies. The second adjustment is from the life of a wandering field research to the life of a stationary writer. To be honest, I think I need to get away from the subject for a little while before I can sit down and start writing and organizing. For this reason, I've decided to take a break from research and go on a 10-day Vipassana Retreat, at the Vipassana Meditation Center in Shelburne Falls, MA. (For those who want to know more about why I do this, perhaps this excerpt of an essay by my father will help clarify). On the way there, I will be stopping in Boston to visit my college housemate David & his family on the 29th of March. David is a PhD student in Anthropology at Harvard, and lives somewhere in the Cambridge area, so if you are around there and want to try to meet up, let me know. The actual meditation course runs from the 30th March until the 10th of April.

After the meditation course I'm going to spend a couple weeks with my parents - probably mostly in Amherst, but maybe also in Guilford. My parents' house was affected by a major natural disaster last spring: some kind of a microburst knocked down every tree on their property. The beautiful old maple tree that shaded the south side of the house collapsed onto the garage (thankfully it didn't collapse on the house!), and the result is a landscaping nightmare... and damages estimated around $50,000. I think my parents could use some strong hands to help move some dirt around and plant some new trees, and I know I could use the discipline of some heavy physical labor. If you're around Western MA in mid April and want to hang out, I might try to rope you into helping out.

I plan to return to Bloomington on April 24th, stopping the night of the 23rd to visit another college friend, Jenny, in Manhattan. If you're in NYC and want to meet up, let me know.

The plan is to stay in Bloomington all of May and June, and write. There is also a garden to tend, of course, and I've volunteered to open my garden to visitors as an educational practice on Thursdays in May from 4-6 pm, in association with the Bloomington Free Skool's spring classes. I'm also planning to attend the International Symposium on Society and Resource Management in Madison, Wisc on June 4-8.

At some point in July and August I will be back in India. At a minimum, I will be presenting preliminary results to known audiences in Hyderabad, Nagpur, and Delhi. There are possibilities elsewhere, and I am likely to revisit friends I've made in a couple of my field sites. The duration of the trip is very much up in the air, as are the full countours - there has been talk, for example, of a trip up into the Himalayas, which I'm still open to, but I think I've decided it is not a priority. I'd like to go visit Sean who will be at Dhammagiri again (even though I know it is very wet there in the rainy season), and I might try to sit another 10-day course there or at the lovely center in Nagpur, or maybe even in Hyderabad or at Nagarjuna Sagar, if I can find the time.

Some of this depends on weddings. There are rumors of weddings being planned in California. It has been a long time... but there is at least one I've heard about that I really am going to try not to miss. If I can make it to the West Coast, there are many folks I'd like to visit. Timings, though, are yet to be announced.

I'm planning on being in Bloomington for the entire 2011-12 academic year. I've got 1 year of fellowship support remaining, and my aim is to complete my dissertation during this year. Since this is the last year that I've got a guaranteed fellowship (I had 5 years so I can't complain), I will also be looking for a new situation. If you've got any ideas, do keep me informed.

Summer & fall 2012, and beyond: Error: File 404 not found.