Week One ✔

I have, to the day, 8 weeks in Argentina. 1/8th of that time is now complete.

I would probably feel better about that if I thought that I was 1/8th done with my work here – I'm not. But, everyone tells me that things pick up pace after the first week or so.

And hey, today I hit a milestone: I ordered business cards for myself. "Brianna K. Beswick, Investigadora, Harvard University," along with my cellphone number and email address. Very exciting.

I also finally dove in to creating some sort of workable interview guide. It's hard, because I don't feel like I quite understand the intricacies of the laws I am asking about yet, and I know that my questions won't be perfectly worded and eloquent in Spanish, and I'm sure that I will forget to ask about important things, and ask about some things in the wrong way or from the wrong angle. Thoughts like that keep me from actually just DOING it. Without a list of ask-able questions, I can't possibly go out and start finding people to talk to, and so I can't make the mistakes I know I am going to make. But, as one of my graduated Social Studies friends told me, "You will never feel all the way prepared. And you can't write a perfect thesis." With that in mind, my goal is to just get started doing SOMETHING. I can always alter my questions as I go along, or even re-interview people if necessary (well, I tell myself that – the likelihood that I would actually re-interview someone is probably pretty low).

So, I am spending the rest of my week here before I head to Chile this weekend making interview guides that will be enough to get started with first thing next week. Starting next Monday, I am making appointments with people, going to offices, standing in front of schools at lunchtime and talking to the domestic workers there to pick up their employer's kids, handing out my business cards, and hoping for calls.

Not that this past week has been a waste. I've done some good reading on domestic labor in Argentina, gotten to know the neighborhood, practiced my Argentine Spanish*, and had informal conversations with people about domestic work and the laws surrounding it to gauge general knowledge. But I also haven't gotten any data from all that. So, wish me luck! I begin the real stuff soon...

Brianna

*My current preoccupation: should I use Argentine-specific Spanish when doing my interviews, when my interviewees will all be from Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru? I've come to the conclusion that I shouldn't worry too much about it, because if the way I speak now is any indication, it'll probably end up being a mixture of both no matter what my intentions.