Investigating Youth Identities in Asian American Communities

A PER Innovation Fund project

17 April 2023

In this blog, MPhil student Izzy Sturt reflects on how taking part in the PER Innovation Fund project has encouraged her to tackle new challenges in her studies. Find out more about the PER Innovation Fund here.

My PER project focuses on creating a podcast series about the actual doing of academic fieldwork and the processes around making my immersion period (a term spent away from Oxford that is built into my degree programme) happen. Over the course of eight episodes, the podcast series  tracks the process of applying to visiting researcher programmes, to going through the visa process, to making friends in a new country. My hope is that the series will help to demystify the parts of academia that can feel foreign.. I want to debunk the myth that academic processes and this type of work are not accessible.

 

My PER project has changed a lot since I began, and at the time of writing, it is far from finished. It has evolved alongside my thesis and in response to the challenges I met in the field. I shifted from interviewing teenagers to looking at college students instead, and toward doing more archival work and observation than I initially anticipated. I had never conducted interviews, worked in physical archives or done any kind of ethnographic observation before I got on a flight to California and spent three months at UC Berkeley. It was a crash course in figuring out how everything worked, and in winging it a little. I recorded nearly forty voice notes whilst doing fieldwork that are hugely helpful to both my thesis and PER project, serving as a digital fieldwork diary. The voice notes are informal minute-long babbles of me talking about my day and how certain things made me feel, but they are hugely helpful in proving to myself that I could do it, and that I did do it. I hope this is what my audience will take from the podcast as well. I hope it sparks a curiosity to learn something about the topic, take a chance, a solo trip or even venture into podcasting.

sturt

 

sturt

 

I am far from being finished with this project. On the sunny Sunday afternoon I am spending writing this I am also recording two episodes, almost three months after I have come back from California. I am figuring out the recording and production processes as I go and will have to figure out distribution when it comes to that point. In a way, this post is a call for collaboration for advice on what is the best way to distribute the series. I took to BeReal to ask what a good podcast name would be and came back with Izzy Come, Izzy Go, which I love.

 

This project, this thesis and my degree has forced a lot of self-reflection, something that I think is hugely important in academic processes. From spending my immersion in California, to recording this series to even sitting down to write this reflection, I have learnt so much more about myself and what I want to achieve. The PER project has pushed me to consider the type of career I want, the skills I want to develop and the people I want to learn from and work with.

 

I would really encourage everyone to apply for the PER Fund. The Fund and Fellows were a large part of my experience at Reuben. Cat and Janet were very welcoming and gave me the confidence to believe in my project and helped me build it around my thesis. Taking part in the programme will get out of your comfort zone and encourage you to do new things. Life in Oxford can feel like it is moving at a million miles a minute, so applying for things can feel really overwhelming. It is important to remember that these funds, schemes and projects exist because they want people like you to get involved in them. So, give it a go, because you never know what will come of it. Go forth and engage! I cannot wait to see what you come up with.