My PhD committee members probably feel like I have fallen off the face of the Earth.
Seemingly decades ago, my hope was to have my thesis proposal submitted for approval by December 2015. Now, I am getting close to the point where I think the draft will be worth circulating to committee members and potential supervisors.
While there are literally hundreds of tasks which I have listed for myself in completing the proposal, including reading many books and articles, there are three that I think I should push through before sending a preliminary version to my committee members, if only to show them that I am alive and working. I need to incorporate ideas from a qualitative methods course I completed, specifically concerning ethical approval. Then, I need to incorporate two sets of comments from my friends Nathan and Nada.
This project will involve a lot of challenges. Two that loom over me are getting it through ethical approval, given the way the communities opposing these pipelines are often vulnerable and specifically targeted by state security services, and actually finding people who were involved in fighting these pipelines who are willing to be interviewed.
One step at a time, I suppose.
