I finally got my Ph.D

The purpose of this blog was to post some thoughts on my research as I went to the Ph.D process and finally, that process has been concluded (thanks to Joan Pujol, Marsiela Montenegro, Jose Emma & Cristina Pallí)

In any case, I will continue to post (as a doctor).

Ph.D defense 10 Dec 2010 @ UAB

What I am really grateful about is that people from guifi.net found my research useful and are willing to keep on collaborating. Sometimes the bond within academia and particular emergences of Civl Society is not (by many reasons) satisfactory or relevant to the actors themselves. I am glad this has not been the case and, above all, I am glad it has been without the need to position myself as a “militant” or “compromised” researcher. IMHO, there is a slightly abuse of those labels such as to make some propaganda of the “militant”, “engaged” self (in despise of the phenomena under study). If you work is an engaged, compromised, fair or whatever work, it will tell so to your readers without the need to explicitly state so.

Anyway, there are some projects pending such as www.openwaves.ws that will merit our full attention.

RAX!

taken form phdcomics.com

First and main motto should be something like “may the force be with you”. But if we are to take the question a little (which literally means, a little) bit serious, then, let’s rewind to a couple of days before when we had a little discussion about ways of writing and presenting academic papers, slides, and so on.

As a result of this discussion, Katharina Schlierf has asked some of us to answer to these quick (not so quick really…) demand in order to help her providing her first year Ph.D students at the Universitat de Valencia with some ideas / advise.

Not that I consider myself into a position of giving advise to others, but, I think that some points might be worth considering. Kata asked for three points. Which is a great number for make nice groupings of information. Nevertheless, I prefer to present an extended version and let people choose (as the pressure to make a workable top three listing is not really on. Is it?

Off we go:

• There is no such thing as a divide between content and it’s presentation form. You can not present the same content in multiple formats. Whether you chose to make an oral presentation, a power point or write an article, the way you “formally” present things are THE content. So, do worry about content and DO worry about presentation.

• Try to clarify the following as to have a crystal-clear (whenever possible) answer to; “what is your thesis about?”

  • Your theme (say: decision making in urban planning)

  • Main objectives (say: analyze failure in assumed good urban plannings projects)

  • Research question( say: why excellent urban planning projects fail in reaching all or some of their goals)

  • Theoretical Background (say: Urban Studies and Anthropology of the City)

  • Relevance of your topic: (say: amongst the last decade, in the urban planning department of La Seu d’Urgell several external consultancies have been contracted to design and implement dozens of projects. More than a half of these projects have failed to achieve their proposals. Whereas the city-council and the literature in decision-making and urban planning are eager to publish data on failure, we think it might highlight what the weakness as well as opportunities for improving decision-making are…)

  • As time goes by, you should be able to be more specific and provide and enlarge details for all these questions at your will. But this is because as time goes by you are likely to be more into your field-work. And thus, gain concreteness. So it is normal to not have that much to say at the beginning of your thesis. Expect concreteness to reshape what your main objectives were and your research question was.

• Learn to write a lot (a blog might be a good starting point)

• Learn to delete and get rid of what you just wrote. A text is always an open text. Expect to go back and forth in your thesis. Deleting a complete chapter of your thesis might be painful, but from a readers perspective, could be grateful.

• Research tools (software based or not) are your friends (and worst enemies if you do not back up your data). Do not be afraid to use them or to ask someone for help. (here you can find a bunch of them; http://digitalresearchtools.pbwiki.com/; always look for Free/Libre software alternatives)

• No one said it was easy. But this does not mean you can not enjoy. If you are not enjoying it, try finding out why. And if you can do something about it, do it. If, instead of doing that by yourself, you can do with others, then the outcomes are likely to be more enjoyable. (stressful does not lead to successful; enjoyable neither, but at least, you enjoyed something)

Hope it helps. Morgan Meyer made an awesome presentation on writing tips as an answer. I will find out if I can attach it here too…

I have been invited (kind of obliged indeed) to present my ongoing research to first year Ph.D students at the Department of Social Psychology (Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona; UAB) where I belong. This seminar will take place at 16H on January, 21st @ seminario Martín-Baró, in UAB, Bellaterra, Sapin.

It is a joint seminar with colleagues from FIC research group. They will be presenting other research topics that are not dealing with wifi. being “carrying a research project” our common linkage. The overture is announced as follows;

guifi.net people on water deposit

16H – Yann Bona – Gestión Ciutadana de la Tecnología. Un estudio de la apropiación tecnológica de las redes WiFi a través de sus usos y prácticas en Barcelona.

16.45 – Jimena Carrasco – Transformaciones en la intervención social con personas con problemas de salud mental y enfermedades psiquiátricas en Chile: Procesos de re configuración de lo social y de la subjetividad en el marco del discurso neo liberal ??

17. 30 – Ana Cristina Aguirre – Los nuevos movimientos sociales transnacionales, el sujeto político civil, una alternativa a la institución. ??

* I will substitute the “??” for proper titles when I get more info. However, this kind of info uses to be last minute delivered.

So, 45 minutes to present something about Citizen Management of Technology | Gestió Ciutadana de la Tecnologia. As far as we have been told, the idea is to get the students to know how they can sort out some issues regarding their future Ph.D projects. We are expected to present our results as a way to show how we have overcome some problems, I guess. Well, good luck… LOL!

from phdcomics.com 16/6/2008

Ok, more seriously now…Let’s start here with a tentative list of things we could talk about:

- research question. This might get a little messy (but it should not).

- examples such as; fixmystreet (recent), free radios (aka radio Alice) (past)

- distinction between research project to be presented elsewhere and research being done. Look and feel issues.

- results form interviews.

- avoid extending beyond 45 minutes / allow 10 for questions and comments…

RAX!