By Ari Phanlouvong, 2nd year MDP student
India has been amazing so far. I have been extremely
fortunate to have been in good health and have adapted so easily and quickly.
Since arriving Friday, May 18, Cassandra and I hit the ground running,
immediately immersing ourselves in the chaos of Mumbai which was a whirlwind,
to say the least. For someone who has never travelled to India, Ahmedabad may
have been a better place to begin our journey as it is much quieter than
Mumbai, however, we decided to spend our first weekend visiting the big city
before flying north to the state of Gujarat which would mark the official
beginning of our field placement.
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| The end of a productive day at GNLU |
The research on which we are working consists of examining both the social and
environmental impacts of court decisions regarding specific development
projects located in the states of Goa and Karnataka. Through this analysis we
hope to increase positive impacts to local communities.
My specific case is
located in Goa. During our time in Ahmedabad at the Gujurat National Law
University (GNLU), each member of the team did in-depth research on our
respective projects by analyzing court documents as well as using the
University’s available resources and contacts to guide us through our next
steps in the research.
We then headed south to Honnavar in the state of
Karnataka where we met our community liaison who has been helping us connect
with the communities in each of our cases. Our contact in Honnavar has played a
crucial role by allowing us to approach communities in such a short amount of
time. As we all know, building relationships and a rapport with community
members is a crucial process in research and normally takes longer than a few
short weeks.
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| Our Honnavar office |
After spending a few weeks in Honnavar building our
interview tools and skills, as well as courage to undertake the next steps of
field work independently, the team separated. We are now in our respective
project areas. I took a 6-hour bus journey to the city of Panjim (Panaji) in
Goa, where I have organized meetings between nearby cities and towns. My next
stop is Vasco da Gama where I will base myself for the remainder of my time on
the field.
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| The beautiful beach behind our Honnavar office |
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