what's a tonal language, anyway?

It means that different tones in the oral expression of the language (or different accents in the written expression of the language) convey different meanings. For example:

bí (high tone) means "to deliver a baby"
bì (low tone) means "to throw up"; and
bi (mid tone) means "to ask"

... so if I want to ask my Yoruba subjects some questions without them thinking I'm about to give birth or get sick on them, I better get my accents and my tones right.

hello, future employers

a lot of you have asked about the names. or, as my mom said, "it's really kind of weird." here's the story: we'd like to keep our full names off of the blog. this allows us to be more open in our postings with you, without being quite so open with future potential employers. (to our future potential employers: we know you google potential employees. it's okay.) we don't plan to post anything salacious; i'd just like to be able to openly discuss science, energy, development, foreign policy, and still be able to get government funding, apply for science policy positions, and collaborate with government labs. (oh wait...) furthermore, a certain other contributor to this site might like a green card one day. (oh wait...) so there you have it: our quasi-anonymity explained.

since we will be involved with yoruba communities in west africa, we have taken it upon ourselves to learn a bit of yoruba. and, like any good students learning a new language (or two: j'apprends a parler francais), we wanted classroom names. so, yoruba 101:

titilayo = joy forever
ayodele = joy has come home

aw.....

The Onward Journey

Paul Theroux writes: "It is always a mistake to try to explain plans for the onward journey. Such plans sound meaningless because they are so presumptuous. Travel at its best is accidental, and you can't explain improvisation."

Fieldwork is precisely travel-with-a-plan. This doesn't necessarily mean you know exactly what you'll be doing "in the field", or even where you'll be going. But it does mean having enough of a dissertation "business plan" to explain to third parties - namely your advisors, your parents and your friends - why you absolutely have to spend 12 to 18 months in obscure countries like Niger and Benin. Hopefully, in the process, you also convince yourself that it's the right empirical strategy for your dissertation question.

We're seeking airfares, applying for visas, renewing our passports, reading Bradt travel guides, filling up on vaccinations and medications, all the logistics that clearly ensure we fully stress out about the onward journey two months before we actually take off. But this is the little stuff you can actually plan, so you hold onto it because it makes you feel prepared... or at least slightly more prepared.

The Onward Journey is a presumptuous one with the following plan:

We'll ease into West Africa late December with 3 to 4 months in Ghana (Image from Ghana Research, www.nsu.edu):









We'll then venture into Niger where, I've been told recently, nobody ever goes for fieldwork (Image from www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca):









We'll follow that up with a few months in Benin (Image from Peoples' Prayer Profiles, www.kcm.co.kr):







And depending on how the "data collection" goes, we may top off this journey with a stint in Nigeria.

Though, I have to admit, it's one decision I'm happy to put off for now.

It's unclear to me how many scholars leave for fieldwork with a clear vision of what needs to happen; my guess is that they're just as few as the number of scholars whose fieldwork travels go according to plan. I'm not quite sure how to best prepare for fieldwork. It sounds and seems as meaningless as Theroux claims plans for the onward journey to be. Let's just hope the accidents and improvisations we may end up surrendering ourselves to still lead to a reasonable dissertation.

...but it was springtime in africa

we're leaving behind one dissertation in search of another, exchanging dollars for cedis, carefully choosing singular items of clothing, and continually forgetting what we'd remembered we'd forgotten to do. yes, preparations for the dark continent are underway, and this little website is obviously the most important first step. we have no idea what we'll write in the next year, but we'll try to keep it from becoming another boring travel novel. stay tuned...