Make choices and be surprised by the beauty of the unexpected
WORLD IN RESEARCH
Worlding: to change the world and be changed by it.
Research is a journey through the paths of thought. This blog shows that we transform ourselves with every choice we make. We all need a light for our dark corners. Maybe through my choices you can clear your paths.
ABOUT WORLD IN RESEARCH
A PhD Journey
Every beginning has a why nestled in its feet. So let's start with the appropriate introductions. My name is Stefanea. I am a Brazilian with my heart in Minas Gerais and my feet traveling the world.
I am a doctor, but life, or rather my choices, put me on the path to management in the healthcare sector. Walking through management, I discovered an academic mind, and the enthusiasm of research. I walked a strangely straight path through MBA, Masters and now PhD.
My supervisor wisely proposed that I keep a research journal to record all my choices. But surprisingly, in doing so, I found myself welcomed by the words. Research is about sharing, both findings and the process of finding them. So, I decided to share the processes of my mind during this magnificent stage of my life.
I hope my choices can help everyone who experiences the same crossroads of the mind. Come with me on this trip. Best regards.
PUBLICATIONS
Everything I want to say and more
Here you can find knowledge, tips, lists, books, pictures, and my soul
THEORY
A Theory to call your own
Every researcher is curious in essence. We always seek to know more, understand more, explain more, prove more, live more. But it is only when we start our doctorate that we are welcomed into a world that speaks only one language: theoretical contribution. And we find ourselves facing a dilemma: choosing a theory to call your own for a long, long time.
A constant misunderstanding is that science has to be devoid of passion, becoming the temple of the rational. Nothing more misleading. The word I heard the most during that first year of my PhD was passion. Almost an order, the choice of theory goes through all the complexity of passion. But keeping rationality. As you can see, a paradox is formed here, and we, mere doctoral students, are expected to have the maturity to solve it.
I say paradox, because everyone who has ever been immersed in passion, knows that it has everything but rationality. Our senses fall asleep in a single focus, the world takes on more vivid colors, and an intense aroma permeates all our decisions. How to reconcile science with the numbness and torpor of the senses? And still think that this has to be perennial?
I thought about this a lot while searching for my theories. Yes, in the doctorate it is common to have a mix between two theories or two literatures, so that one supports the other during the research. And this choice derives a lot from two factors: ou initial questions and our worldview.
Well, when doing this exercise to understand my worldview, I discovered that I am naturally a person of passions. Life’s challenges enchant me, and for me the world Is already a place of curiosity and full of colors. Never a savannah, but an ocean illuminated by all possible choices.
And that was the way to conciliate science and passion required to spend years studying the same theory. Seeing science as a path that allows me to wander between various choices is my passion.
With this in mind, I found my theories. They are similar in some aspects: both deal with challenges and tensions, both are like me, ambidextrous, and both cause a great impact on the organizations’ strategy and life. My passions for this PhD can be summed up in: learning and believing. Believing, I learn, and when I learn, I transform my beliefs to learn again.
At the end of this reflection, what matters is the size of your capacity to fall in love with learning, and thereby transform humanity’s beliefs. Having a theory inside your mind, understanding it and marking it with my name, makes my heart beat in speed. And isn’t that passion?
CHOICES
Choices are interesting. I never imagined that in my first year of PhD, most of my time and energy would be devoted to making choices. After all, all we want is to research, to leave our contribution as a gift to the future. Having to choose even the obvious was somewhat unexpected and frustrating.
Choose the topic of interest, formulate a decent research question, and from that choice delve into the strange and fascinating world of methodology. She wasn't prepared to make so many decisions in such a short amount of time, and worse, knowing that each option would be dissected like an anatomy class. That's why we call it a thesis defense. We have to justify and defend every choice we make.
In the midst of this brain storm, I began to realize that choosing is inherent to being human, that we do it without realizing it. But when we are faced with the responsibility to choose, we create an unnatural, unspontaneous situation.
Like a fish trying to fly, I felt suffocated at times, as if in search of a time and space that gracefully hides itself in a banal appearance, but whose mysteries are only revealed with the right key.
The only possible solution was to stop debating between the whirlwind of options, and let myself be carried away by the only way to glide and breathe in this environment beyond my control. Finding my sea among the clouds in the sky and breathing in the dust of the stars became an obsession.
It was little by little, subtly, in a corner of my eyes, that I rescued a conversation I had long forgotten: a dialogue with my curiosity. This adventure companion that watches over us during childhood. With the weight of books, courses and opinions established and consolidated by society, it collapses, and shudders, leaving only a light drumming in our ears. Yes, curiosity lives in our ears, free from the rush of the heart and the density of our thoughts, free and ethereal as it has to be.
With my aerial journey, this companion found a way to communicate with me and with my aspirations as a researcher. From the moment we held hands again, she took the lead, leading me in this environment she knows so well.
My curiosity took good care of me. When I felt her trembling, I was guided between the different options, and little by little, what was a longing, was discovered in the clothes of this friend of mine, and her secrets were revealed. I discovered that the question itself chooses how it wants to be analyzed, how it wants to be loved, because a doctorate is an experience of passion, as intense as the greatest novels in literature. In this new adventure, choices emerged naturally, steps of a love story for humanity, for science.
Today my curiosity is aroused, stretching through the gardens, looking for new stories to share. Sometimes prose, sometimes poetry, and often science. Today happened to be a mixture of everything, but only because she wants to extend an invitation. It invites us to new adventures. Shall we?
PRACTICE
One of the most feared actions for any researcher is, as we colloquially say, getting down to business. For those who think that designing a research project is laborious, practice challenges our limits, especially in qualitative research.
Fieldwork is likened to a walk in a dense forest. If we don’t know the route at all, we will get completely lost. But in addition to the knowledge of the path, we have to master skills that are not necessarily natural for those who are used to diving into books. We need to develop an environmental sensitivity that is rare these days, where we are all short-sighted and clinging to technology.
Building theories through practice is exposing yourself. Tearing our minds apart in search of hidden meanings in the words and emotions of others is tiring, but it transforms us in the process. We become theorists of ourselves, and our reasoning is expanded to serve others.
My research is qualitative, which means that instead of looking for evidence through numbers and equations, I look for a depth that is buried in human processes and decisions. Through the words of others, I seek a common voice to explain society’s choices, and, like an artisan, draw a path of possibilities for understanding.
Armed with a tape recorder a notepad, my mind and ears tuned to speak with theories, I begin an adventure that will define my routine for the next year.
The person who entered the forest will not be the same person who returns, nor will the path be the same. Wish me luck, and let there be light.
Feel free to comment, any constructive criticism is welcome.
Morning Rush
Into the Blue
Beach Patrol
Towering Heights
Stick with Me
The Standoff
A Long Wait
Swish
CONTACT
If you want more information, suggestions or even a good conversation, I always like coffee and good chats.
Brazil, Portugal and where else my feet take me...