PhD

Sukham and Dukham

So here I am, packing again, and reflecting on what makes this time feel so tough. The weather is grey and humid, the forecast not great, and I’ve just sent off my husband and cat to one field, as I prepare for life in another. Timings are tricky. The British summer is short, and with …

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Is God still a DJ?

“This is my churchThis is where I heal my hurtsFor tonightGodIs a DJ” ~ Faithless One problem with my area of research is that it doesn’t fit traditional ideas of ‘religion’, or even ‘religious practice’. For many of us, the word ‘religion’ is loaded with expectation, control and conformity. It is a word that has …

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Sneaky previews

It’s been another very busy couple of weeks here, and a lot still to do. I spent a good few days hanging out with Matthew Remski whilst he’s over in the UK and loved every minute, although one highlight is definitely discussing the nature of truth in yogic transmission sitting with the dead people inside …

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First person

Here’s an extract from a piece I’m writing to further my thesis – an ethnographic account of one of my favourite yoga camps. I’m using this to refine my area of research and start to consider possible field work methodologies. All photos are from the Santosa website, and used for illustrative, commentary purposes. In the …

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People I follow

I’m very busy here doing two things – working on the first official draft of my Literature Review, and creating a whole new website with Phil. The new website is designed to give a more representative idea of who I am and what I do now, and it’ll have more space for online content. There …

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Reviewing the Field

In theory, (if not always in practice,) academic research is a conversation. Everything published refers back to other academic publications, and is reviewed by academic peers and cited in its turn. In an ideal sense, this is a pure and democratic process, where the accepted truth or truths of a thing depend on the considered …

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Sailing on Exciting Seas

(In which our heroine begins A PhD, nearly drowns in journals, fights the dread DataLoss monster and discovers many new allies…) I’m just one month into my doctoral research project, and things are going well so far. It is a whole other level of academic work, even compared to a masters’ dissertation, but my supervisors …

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