As a student studying both Environmental Biology and Anthropology,
I have spent my undergraduate years literally navigating between the natural
and social sciences. I know the fastest route between the buildings is through
Trombley Square and takes 4.5 minutes. I know that taking the back route around
the library is a tad longer, but a safer bet for avoiding running into people I
know who might make me more late to class than I already am. I’ve walked door to door more times
than I can count. However, this summer, I have learned to navigate
interdisciplinary life in a less literal and more applied fashion, which
thankfully doesn’t have me running across campus all day. It’s left me knowing
that in research having a multidisciplinary lens leaves you with many doors to
open and charges you with the task of finding out which path between them all
is the approach you want to take to discover something new and invite people in.
As I’ve dived deeper and deeper into the study of
Anthropology, I’ve realized that I’ve developed a bit of a fear of numbers. It often
makes me nervous to see things summed up in one number, chart or graph. It
makes me cringe to think about the complexities and nuances that are lost in
such a moment. The stories that don’t get told. The isolation you feel when you
don’t fit into the number, like numerical representations of health, or the
confusion and alienation you might experience when you can’t quite make sense
of the information being presented, like federal budgets perhaps. I want to
know what’s behind the numbers and become frustrated when that is not presented
to me.
So, in an effort to reach outside my comfort zone and try to
tackle and better understand this slight aversion to numbers, I joined one of
the Economics teams on their research for a day. Ryleigh and Madison are
working on surveying tourists and locals in Chetek, a town farther up in the
watershed, to better understand the economic impacts of tourism in the town.
They are asking questions like how much do you spend on food and lodging during
your visit and receiving, of course, a lot of numerical responses. Once data collection
is done they will run some fancy economic analysis, using software that hurts
my head to think about, to see what kind of impact increases in tourism might
have on Chetek’s economy. They can then speculate how improvements or further
deterioration of water quality in the area might be reflected in the economy.
Now, as a disclaimer, I have to admit that I am someone who
likes to take a situation and try to understand all aspects of the issue. I am
often that friend that everyone gets annoyed with because I tend to be the one
who chimes in as devil’s advocate and says, “Well, have you thought about it
this way…?” I have a classic love/hate relationship with this personal trait of
mine. I believe it makes me a good interdisciplinary coworker, a more
empathetic person and an interesting conversationalist. I think it also causes
me to struggle from decision paralysis, the phenomenon of overthinking too much
to the point where I get bogged down with considering all the angles that I am
unable to make a decision, or at least unable to do so quickly, and unable to narrow down a focus on something. Upon thinking about their economic study
I immediately want to poise questions like how do you know it will go this way?
Or how do you know it’s not other factors that are not making more of an impact
on the economy? Did you ask why people spend or don’t spend this much? Then, I
realized that I am getting myself into decision paralysis. I am overthinking
and not letting any conclusions be drawn from the project at hand.
I stopped myself and tried to see what this information could
do that my research could not. Sometimes you need numbers. We can sit and share
stories or evoke emotions all day, but that doesn’t necessarily connect with
everyone. And, sometimes you do just need a clean, accurate chart or graph that
sums up a point clearly. Who does this information reach that social science
research does not? How does this analysis invite more people into the
conversation who aren’t yet at the table talking about this issue?
That is the beauty of interdisciplinary work that I am
learning to embrace. Their project is but one lens through which to approach
the issue. In collaboration, we can inform each other’s approaches and gain
insight from each other. My work can help understand what barriers might be
involved for people taking action on the issue and their information might be
able to serve as incentive for more people to become involved. My brain still
wants to shy away from numbers a little bit, but I am learning to challenge
myself to learn and know what options are out there for tackling such a big
issue.
You might think this just fuels my decision paralysis by
giving me new things to think about. However, surprisingly, it has given me a
bit of peace. No one project holds the solution. That is precisely why
interdisciplinary research is a must. Being involved in this approach has
allowed me to open some new doors and explore paths to progress through avenues
I might not have considered before, but it also allows me to lean on and trust the
researchers around me. We all bring something to the table and through
collaboration we inform and enhance each other’s work while not being tasked
with knowing all the answers ourselves. In turn, we each invite others to join
us at the table on this issue too. At the end of the day, whether it is a chart
on economic impact or a quote from a local community member that got you
involved, the goal is bringing more people to the table no matter what door
they came through. So let’s continue to find those doors.
Peace on the waterways.
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| One "doorway" I paddled through this weekend in the Apostle Islands |
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