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Protecting your time as an early career academic

Anybody who knows me is well aware that I’m extremely protective of my time. It’s not that I am participating in the “Busy Olympics“, as my good friend Janni Aragon calls them. I’m not “perpetually busy” as most academics, because if you look at my rather regimented (and sometimes rigid) schedule, you will see that I schedule self-care every single day. The thing is, I have a really hard time making time for anything else other than my priorities. For me, my priorities are: my parents’ well being, my own, my friends, my research, my teaching, my students, my service to the university and my contribution to the academic world and my discipline. The last thing I want is be extinguishing “last minute fires”.

Door stopperI’ve decided to implement a number of strategies to protect myself and my writing and research, given my perennial lack of available time. First, I unpacked and posted my “door stopper” sign (thank you Oxford University Press Canada for giving it to me). This sign tells people if I am willing to interrupt my time for anything that needs to be done. It may sound snobbish to some people, but actually I have found that most folks are extremely respectful of the sign. If I actually need to focus, I just signal that I am busy and that I can’t take phone calls or uninvited guests.

Second, I stick to my schedule and make it public in conversations. Most people know that I write from 4:00am to 6:00 am, and thus are very mindful of the fact that by 12 noon, I’ve already packed most of a full day of work. Most people also know that I drive back to Leon on Friday afternoons so I can see my parents for the weekend. Therefore, when scheduling meetings, I always make sure they are held when I am low on energy to focus on writing, but I can still provide intellectual input and useful feedback. Meetings for me need to be held after 1pm, so that I know that the mornings (when I am most productive and I write best) are being productive.

Third, I am learning to say NO to most things that I would love to say YES to, but that I know will not bring me forward in my research or teaching. I get invitations to give talks, deliver lectures, teach seminars, all over the world on a regular basis. But given that I promised myself last year that this year I’d be pretty much 100% focused on my research, I am saying NO to most of the things that I know are not advancing my research further. I am still developing strategies to go on the field, developing questionnaires and interview protocols, and setting up a randomized controlled trial for another project. There is no way I’m going to be able to give a guest lecture in Europe if I need four to five days to recover from the trip. These days can be used for a project I’m doing or to write protocols, or to create code for randomization, etc.

Finally, I make it clear to people that I value my time and theirs, so I try really hard to stick to deadlines, timelines and schedules. By staying on course with friends and colleagues, it creates a virtuous circle where most folks will feel appreciated. I am trying really hard NOT to read my research email (not very successfully, often!) while I am out with my friends or family. But if I promise a student or a friend that I will be spending time with them, I do so within the strict time constraints I face.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – May 10, 2014

Remunicipalization: Bringing back “the public” in public service delivery

In my current study of water privatization in Mexico, I’ve been immersing myself in the literature on remunicipalization of public services delivery. This is not a random occurrence, and as I mentioned on Twitter, it makes sense as I delve more into the research. I’ve been a scholar of sanitation for over a decade. I’ve studied urban water governance. It makes sense that I have found the linkages between sanitation, waste, public services and public service delivery. Remunicipalization is one model of public service delivery where the local government takes back provision by ending private concession contracts. In the words of Wollman and Bakker (both of whom have used the “swinging pendulum” metaphor), we’re moving from public to private to public again.

Waste water treatment basin

Photo credit: Global Water Partnership on Flickr

My work using neoinstitutionalism in understanding institutional arrangements for resource governance very much follows the earlier work of Elinor Ostrom and Vincent Ostrom on co-production of public services. When I teach State and Local Government, I devote one class to co-production. Yet, it wasn’t until recently that I realized how all these pieces were interconnected with each other. Sanitation is linked to solid waste management, both of which are public services that require infrastructure and organizational arrangements. There are a broad variety of governance models for public service delivery, and one of these (highly criticized) is privatization. Thus, remunicipalization is seen as a way of “bringing back the public” in “public service delivery”.

I’ve found some really interesting and relevant websites on remunicipalization, water justice and models of alternative service delivery.
– The Municipal Services Project (Queen’s University)
– The work of Emanuele Lobina and David Hall at Public Services International Research Unit (University of Greenwich)
– The Our Water Commons network.
– The Water Remunicipalization Tracker (a tool to track all instances/case studies of remunicipalization).
– The work of the Transnational Institute on reclaiming public water, and the public/private divide in service delivery.

I still have much work to do, but understanding how these pieces of research all connect with each other has really become a breakthrough in how I think about the governance of urban water and the spatial and political dimensions of public service infrastructure.

Posted in academia, water governance, water policy.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – May 4, 2014

Five strategies to get your academic writing “unstuck”

When I blog about academic writing, I do so from the vantage point of someone who does it on a daily basis. Someone who recognizes his own time limitations (because I’m pretty busy), and his challenges (because I write academic prose both in English and Spanish, each with their own challenges). Even though I have an incredibly well-organized schedule, sometimes life happens and my schedule gets somewhat derailed. This doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. Moreover, sometimes, I also get stuck. I want to write, but my brain doesn’t want to push words out through my fingers.

The more I work with myself and think about how I approach my research, the more I can see how I can improve my writing. In particular, lately, I’ve found five strategies to get myself “unstuck”. If I feel that the words aren’t flowing, I use one of these strategies (or all combined).

1. Write an outline.

This is pretty basic advice, but one that has helped me think through my research. When I feel that I am stuck, I write an outline, either of the paper I am already writing, or of a new paper. By liberating my busy mind from the worry of not having anything to write and plotting a new idea or conceptual map, I allow my thinking to flow freely.

2. Set a few sentences or a paragraph as your target.

When I set myself a hard target (e.g. 2 consecutive hours of writing), I often see it as a challenge. However, if my goal is to just write a paragraph in a paper, I often find myself that the writing flows more and more. Also, there are very few things that are more fulfilling than seeing the blank spaces being substituted by words, sentences and paragraphs. That feeling of completing an explanation or outlining an idea is just amazing.

3. Answer questions related to your research/paper.

This is related to the first strategy, and I found it helps me quite a lot. I am currently writing on water privatization in Mexico, and I found that the easiest way to write about it was to answer questions. When somebody is reading my paper, what kind of questions do they have, and how can I help them answer them? I find that when I answer a question, that response usually forms one or two paragraphs, and more often than not, a full section.

My research process (when writing grants)

4. Read a paper and summarize it (in writing)

This is another strategy I’ve been using lately. Instead of getting frustrated about why my writing isn’t flowing, I simply grab an article that I already have read, and I type my notes. I usually type those notes (which are often handwritten) to then transform them into a “memorandum” or a “memo”. I took the idea of writing memos from when I took a course in qualitative methods during my PhD. These “memos” are simply messages to yourself, crafted in such a way that you can generously lift text from them to add them to your paper.

Academic writing (working from home)

5. Go for a short walk, armed with a pen and paper pad.

I have a small travel handbook (Moleskine is your best friend) similar to the one that I always carry on the field, when conducting interviews, doing participant observation while on fieldwork. So when I feel stuck, I take my “ideas” notebook and go for a short walk. I usually listen to classical music while I write, so I grab my iPod and play some classical music while on my walk. This usually puts me in a thinking mood and therefore I am able to more quickly jot down ideas that I then come back to my office and type.

As I have told other people, I write about what works for ME. Hopefully these strategies will work for YOU too.

Posted in environmental policy.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – May 2, 2014

The Impact of Elinor Ostrom’s Scholarship on Commons Governance in Mexico

My latest journal article has been published in a special issue of Policy Matters (The CEESP Journal) in memory of Elinor Ostrom. Because of my personal connection with Lin and Vincent Ostrom, this particular piece has a very strong emotional component. I am, by and large, a better scholar, human being and professor thanks to what I learned from Lin and Vincent. My piece intends to be an intellectual history of Lin’s work and how it has impacted and continues to impact commons governance in Mexico. You can download it by clicking on the hyperlink below.

Raul Pacheco-Vega (2014) “The impact of Elinor Ostrom’s research on Mexican commons governance: An overview” In: “Remembering Elinor Ostrom. Her Work and Its Contributions to the Theory and Practice of Conservation and Sustainable Natural Resource Management“. Special Issue Edited by James P. Robson, Iain J. Davidson-Hunt, Alyne Delaney, Gabriela Lichtenstein, Lapolonga Magole, Aroha Te Pareake MEad. Policy Matters. Issue 19. CEESP and IUCN, Gland, Switzerland. Pp. 23-34.

Professor Elinor Ostrom’s work was extremely influential worldwide, and this includes important contributions to Mexican commons governance. From water governance to forest stewardship to small-scale fisheries’ management, Ostrom’s institutional approach to analyzing commons problems and uncovering opportunities for self-organization where solutions to complex resource management issues were not straightforward, has been successfully applied to case studies across the country. This paper summarizes lessons learned from such cases, which cover a broad range of resource areas and issues, and offers insight into the level of impact that Ostrom’s work has had and continues to have on Mexico’s extensive natural resource commons.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – May 1, 2014

Studying rules in an unruly country

While I’m someone who is open to all theoretical frameworks and methodological styles (quantitative, qualitative, spatial), much of my research uses neoinstitutionalism and institutional theories. I’m considered a neoinstitutionalist, by all measures. I study rules and norms. I strongly believe that analyzing rule formation, maturation and erosion can help us understand how resources can be better (and more cooperatively) governed. This conceptual framework, much of which is derived from the late Elinor Ostrom’s work on commons governance, worked pretty well when I lived in Canada (for almost half of my life).

Moving to Mexico gave me a very serious cultural shock, both as an individual and as a scholar. While I’ve studied Mexican environmental policy for most of my academic life, much of this work I did while studying (as a PhD student) and working (as a faculty member) at a Canadian university. My perception of Canada has always been that it is a country with strong rule of law and Canadians as individuals with a very strong sense of compliance with laws and rules. My perception of Mexico has been (for most of my life) that it’s a country with very weak rule of law, with Mexicans (generally speaking) as individuals who routinely give themselves permission to violate rules and laws. This is, of course, a VERY broad generalization. Of course there’s millions of Mexicans who comply with the law and with generalized rules and norms of behavior. But I don’t think my perception is all that far off. Anecdotes and jokes about Mexicans abroad say that they will litter on the street in Mexico, but will pick up their trash in Canada and elsewhere. I myself have been witness to this behavior, many, many times. After all, I lived in Canada for decades. The Canadian Superior Court Judges Association, in fact, makes this point on Canadians and rule of law quite strongly, and I quote:

Our laws embody the basic moral values of our society. They impose limits on the conduct of individuals in order to promote the greater good and to make our communities safe places to live. It is against the law to steal, to injure another person, to drive recklessly or to pollute the environment, to name just a few of the countless ways the law is designed to protect us. We are said to be ruled by law, not by those who enforce the law or wield government power. No one in Canada is above the law. Everyone, no matter how wealthy or how powerful they are, must obey the law or face the consequences.

I don’t really follow the literature on rule of law as much because I don’t study corruption or quality of democracy (although I have colleagues at CIDE who do study corruption and impunity in the public sector, like my colleagues Dr. David Arellano Gault and Dr. Mauricio Merino Huerta). Yet, non-compliance with rules, particularly non-compliance with environmental regulation IS part of what I study. My earlier research looked at compliance with environmental regulations in the leather and footwear industries. I have been a fan of voluntary (suasive) environmental policy instruments, whereas Mexico uses primarily command-and-control, regulatory instruments. So, while the analysis of rule of law is not my direct field, it does touche upon what I investigate, and thus I have had to delve into this body of literature.

554T1525-51

Photo credit: Cliff on Flickr

The biggest problem my research on Mexican environmental law and policy has found is the Mexican industries’ lack of compliance with standards and regulations set forth by SEMARNAT, the Mexican environmental ministry, and by the state and local authorities. PROFEPA, the Mexican federal attorney for environmental protection, has historically faced a chronic lack of institutional and organizational capacity (too few inspectors to ensure that regulations are enforced). In this scenario, it is frustrating to try and understand how resource-governing rules emerge, become institutionalized and ultimately, become eroded or face institutional instability.

This frustration has led me to reflect on whether it is a smart idea to study rules in an unruly country. I’m not the only one concerned with rule of law in Mexico. A quick search on Twitter yielded plenty of results, concerns and commentary on rule of law (or lack thereof) in Mexico. Multiple analysts consider rule of law as one of the biggest challenges facing Mexico. Even Arturo Sarukhan (former Ambassador of Mexico to the United States) has written on how rule of law in Mexico is weak and impunity is rampant.

Thus, I believe it’s understandable why I find it so frustrating to study rules in an unruly country. While I certainly don’t believe Mexico is on the brink of collapse, it was even more frustrating to find out that The World Justice Project‘s index for impunity by high-ranking government officials positions Mexico as one of the countries where corrupt officials would get away with their actions. I quote:

In Mexico, for example, where 80 percent of people said the officer would go free, only 1 in 1,800 persons reported for corruption in 2010 was held accountable.

I suppose that as a neoinstitutionalist I could continue to observe how formal and informal rules of water and solid waste governance emerge in a system with low rule of law, but the more I think about this, the more I believe my work in environmental regulation would need to focus on strengthening the rule of law in Mexico. To do this we need better enforcement and actual sanctions. This will be an interesting challenge for my future research agenda.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – April 27, 2014

Local economic development: Is purchasing street vendors’ candy the right strategy?

My curse as an academic is that I am always thinking about stuff that is outside of my research area. I’m a specialist in comparative public policy who uses water, wastewater and solid waste as case studies for the study of cooperative behavior. I do, however, have a minor in economic geography, and an MBA, so as a result, I often think about (and in the fall, will teach about) local economic development. In fact, my course is titled “Regional Development” but I’ll have to touch on local economic development anyways.

I know enough location theory and foot traffic analysis to understand the basis of local economic development when it comes to established enterprises. But I’m a lot less informed about informal trade. For example, the (often indigenous and impoverished) women who sell candy at busy intersections. Or simply on the streets. I’ll confess that I ALWAYS buy them candy. My thinking (however misguided) is that at least, these women (and a few men) are working and they’re doing their best to bring money to their household and put food on the table.

Selling Candy

Photo credit: Mark Mitchell on Flickr

I’ve never studied the informal trading/selling sector. I study the informal waste recycling sector, but street vendors are not my speciality and therefore I’m pondering if buying marzipan and chocolates from these street vendors does actually help them in any way, shape or form. I wonder if it is actually a smart strategy to alleviate poverty. But given what Chris Blattman and Paul Niehaus recently published in Foreign Affairs, I’m tempted to say that buying candy from street vendors may also be a smart local economic development (and poverty alleviation) strategy.

Blattman and Niehaus write this powerful phrase that resonated with me:

It’s well past time, then, for donors to stop thinking of unconditional cash payments as an oddball policy and start seeing them for what they are: one of the most sensible tools of poverty alleviation.

I don’t know, and probably will not know until I do more in-depth research, whether supporting street vendors does any good as a poverty alleviation strategy, but if we consider it as a cash transfer (however individual the effect), perhaps it is. I’m open to hearing thoughts, though.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – April 25, 2014

Understanding cross-national and cross-regional variations in informal waste picking practices

While the vast majority of my research is in water governance, and more specifically on wastewater and sanitation, I have always had an interest in solid waste. In fact, at the beginning of my PhD, I was more interested (and did more research) on hazardous waste and municipal garbage than I did on wastewater. In the past 18 months, I have been lucky to come back to the field of Discard Studies because (a) I have become interested in the cross-national and cross-regional variation in informal waste recycling practices that exists amongst regions and nations, and (b) I am doing a collaborative project on electronic waste governance across the US-Mexico border with Dr. Kate O’Neill at University of California Berkeley (thank you UC-MEXUS CONACyT for seed funding!)

Garbage pickers

Photo credit: OneSecBeforeTheDub on Flickr

Last year, I did fieldwork on informal waste picking in Uruguay, Argentina, Japan, Mexico, the United States and Canada. I was interested in understanding whether there was any variation in organizational and operational practices of recyclers. Admittedly, my findings are necessarily preliminary as there are many scholars who have studied each country’s informal waste pickers in more depth than I could possibly have. Mainly, I was interested in undertaking in some observation during my field research and examining those practices and comparing them across countries and regions.

I’m extremely interested in the informal recycling sector for various reasons. For one, I’ve always been keen to understand their work practices and routines and how their working conditions could have potentially negative and detrimental effects on their health. But at the same time, I recognize that waste pickers play a role in the garbage management field. Given that waste picking involves separation and recycling thereby reducing waste, by all accounts waste pickers are in fact agents of environmental improvement.Therefore, one of the questions I seek to answer is whether we can provide better working conditions and maintain reasonable health standards for these “dumpster divers”.

Garbage Picker

Photo credit: Sean Tubridy

Amongst the many differences (and divergences) I found in how waste pickers behave in different countries is the location of waste recycling. In many cities in Mexico, I observed that scavengers open trash bags located outside individual households and separate the recyclables from general trash. In Uruguay, Canada, Argentina and Japan, I saw these “dumpster divers” separating the recyclables at specific containers (dumpsters). The more I delved into the field research, I found fewer and fewer waste pickers at the landfill.

Comparatively speaking, this is NOT the case in African and Asian countries, from the published research I have read. Generally, in Africa and Asia, most of the picking occurs at the landfill site. Location of picking choice thus accounts for enormous variation in degree of exposure to physical attacks, exposure to pollutants and volume of waste picked and separated. I am fascinated by (and currently investigating) the factors that drive choice of picking location.

While commenting on my experiences on the field on Twitter, I had a lovely conversation with other scholars, who while not specialists in my field, offered interesting insights that I plan to pursue as my research progresses. Below our conversation, for my record and your reading pleasure.

Below is the Storify of whatever I could salvage from our conversation.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – April 20, 2014

Redefining “success” in academia

By some people’s standards I could consider myself a very successful academic. I have a job I love at a prestigious, internationally-recognized institution, I have a low teaching load, have successfully raised extramural grant money to execute projects, I have brilliant students, both undergraduate and graduate. I absolutely love my research and have fantastic collaborators worldwide and wonderful colleagues at my institution’s campuses.

Yet, I can’t help but remind myself that definitions of success vary. I’m not a fan of “publish-or-perish”, and sometimes I defy the old canon by refusing to engage in it. Yet other times, I just can’t stop myself from writing about a research topic because it really ignites a fire inside me and I’m passionate about it (ask me about my recent work on water privatization, for example, or my career-long scholarship on wastewater governance).

However, I should also admit that this time a decade ago, I was just happy to be alive, and I considered that a success. I had just broken up with my fiance, and my world was crumbling underneath my feet. The pressure of completing a PhD, plus my own personal goals shattered by the loss of the person I thought I was going to marry, were overwhelming. Yet I survived, thrived, completed my PhD, managed to publish a few things and now have a fantastic position, and a research trajectory that fascinates me.

Success in sight....

Photo credit: SimplyCVR on Flickr

In the current environment of higher education, with funding cuts, loss of tenure-track positions, increasing pressure on graduates to find jobs, and grave mental health problems in academia, we cant’ afford to measure success the same way for everyone. For many academics who face disability challenges, just reading one page or writing 100 words per day should be considered a success. Heck, being alive is success.

For many academics, success should include being able to balance their personal life with their professional one. Or having time to spend with their children. OR having time for themselves. Success is such a personal component of life that I find associating it with the professional side ends up hurting us more than helping us. For me, because I was so ill at ISA 2014, success meant having the physical energy to participate in my own panel and comment another one.

Let’s redefine success in academia not only based on books, book articles, chapters, but on what is really relevant to us. My research is policy-relevant. I’m doing what I love and getting paid for it. And I am spending time with my parents, my friends and my loved ones.

To me, that’s success.

Posted in academia.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – April 20, 2014

“I have found…”: Disseminating research findings to a broader audience

Meeting “civilians” (aka non-academics) is incredibly fun because they always ask me challenging questions that sometimes I struggle to answer. These past two weeks I had meetings with Mexican bureaucrats who work for the Secretariat of Environment in Mexico (SEMARNAT), civil society representatives and many academics at a social studies of water conference. These folks usually know more or less the jargon and ask me interesting questions about my work, but lately, I have been finding that people are interested in the elevator pitch: “tell me in 2 minutes or less what you research“.

As someone who prides himself in doing public intellectualism despite its associated and unique challenges, I found myself dumbfounded when I got asked those questions. “I mean, I study the global politics of sanitation. Isn’t that enough information for you?” Well, apparently not. So I’ve been working on an every day basis to jot down thoughts on what I have been finding with my research and whether those insights are accessible to the general public. So here is an attempt to summarize some of my recent research in one of those “less-than-30-seconds” elevator pitches.

Rocky Mountaineer Vancouver-Whistler

In my most recent research project on water privatization in Mexico I have found numerous instances of private water supply at the municipal level towards the end of the 1800s and the beginning of the twentieth century. This is the case, for example, in the city where I live, Aguascalientes, where privatization of water supply occurred towards 1905, but a few years later was then remunicipalized. In 1993, Aguascalientes got into a draconian concession contract that has it locked in a situation of poor water supply. The lack of institutional memory is overwhelming. Have municipalities NOT learned that privatization can have negative consecuences? These insights have helped me counterargue the notion that most water privatization processes are the result of neoliberal policies driven by international Brookings-type institutions and the like. Admittedly, these institutions have pushed for privatization of water supply. But the privatization phenomenon is NOT new, and most definitely, it already had happened even before the emergence of international institutions and neoliberal policies.

Now, every time I reflect on what I have studied so far, I use the “I have found” or “my research proves X idea wrong” or “counter to generally-held beliefs, Y is the actual explanatory variable“. This is something I did on a regular basis while writing my doctoral dissertation, but now as a professor I find it is even more important to keep in mind what I actually find in my work. And to be able to articulate these insights for wider, public consumption.

I’d love to hear from my readers (if you do research) the “elevator pitch” of what you have found. Feel free to chime in on the comments section.

Posted in academia, bridging academia and practice, writing.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – April 12, 2014

On doing research that pushes your own boundaries

Last year I had a conversation with a senior scholar, colleague and good friend of mine at CIDE (Dr. Mauricio Merino Huerta, one of Mexico’s foremost scholars of transparency and corruption). In that conversation, he mentioned how he was examining a research question that was pushing his own intellectual boundaries. When someone who is a senior scholar, experienced, seasoned and very well-published tells you that a research question is pushing his boundaries, you can’t help but admire that academic’s honesty, and question whether you yourself are doing research that pushes your own intellectual boundaries to the maximum.

Preparing lectures

I will fully admit that doing research on sanitation doesn’t feel like it’s pushing my boundaries too much. I know the literature well, I know where my contribution to the scientific knowledge of wastewater governance resides, and I have a very-well traced research trajectory. It feels relatively easy and natural to study the global politics of sanitation because I know the field so well.

AcWri

That said, studying water privatization IS in fact pushing my own intellectual boundaries. Doing collaborative research on the water and energy nexus IS pushing my boundaries. I feel like I’m being pushed to the limit intellectually and conceptually because I don’t feel the same degree of comfort. Same with the project I’m doing on climate policy evaluation. I’m very good at policy evaluation and at environmental policy instruments’ theories, but I know that the added complexity of mitigation and adaptation and the cross-scalar dynamics of climate interactions all are pushing me to work longer, think harder and learn.

I’m learning like crazy these days. And that’s because I am cautious about the work I undertake, but I’m daring to push myself beyond my comfort zone. I think there is great value in doing research that pushes your own boundaries. I am also glad that my work is embedded within collaborative relationships with other great scholars. That way, we learn together and move forward our work together.

These past three years have probably been the best of my scholarly life. I look forward to the next stage in my research.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – April 8, 2014