Diez (10)

Diez / Sampu (in Tagalog) / Ten (in English)

In the last three weeks, I had to ask myself questions that up until now I still do not have answers. I probably also will not allow myself to settle at answers without growing through the whole process of this thing called PhD.

I love doing fieldwork. That’s just the kind of work and of science I am exposed to. I can’t imagine being a social scientist without having to do any fieldwork. For my PhD, I have to do my fieldwork in Perú, and I did a short scoping work for three weeks. I confronted many questions that I already anticipate, and also confronted ones I did not. I do not want to finish this PhD without being cognizant and aware of my positionality, my limitations, my lived experiences and how it shapes the way I will make sense of things. Eventually, how my being will shape the stories I tell about the people I meet and places I visit.

This first zine I call Diez is a collection of 10 poems (sampung tula / diez poemas) that deal with my unsettled questions about being and doing research as a Filipino (and now studying in Amsterdam, doing her fieldwork in Perú). Perhaps I should have just taken it easy, slept it away. But this is my being and doing.

Here is Diez.