Rosalie's+Research+Log

9/6 2 hours I spent a couple hours flipping through the Design With Nature book, as well as the Feminist Technology book I have. I noticed in the Design With Nature book the author refers to humans as "man" all the time. He also starts the boook with "The world is a glorious bounty" There is more food than can be eaten if we would limit our numbers to those who can be cherished, //there are more beautiful girls than can be dreamed of,// more children than we can love, more laughter than can be endured, more wisdom than can be absorbed... How can we reap this bounty?" (1). The book was originally published in 1969, when perhaps such things were more appropriate, but it still did not give me a promising feeling while I'm looking for the connection of women and permaculture.

9/7 3 hours http://www.womensearthalliance.org/ http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/ecofeminism.htm http://www.chemheritage.org/discover/online-resources/chemistry-in-history/themes/public-and-environmental-health/public-health-and-safety/richards-e.aspx

Ellen Swallow - chemist/environmentalist/woman/homemaker

I am having trouble finding literature that connect all three of my topics. There are many that relate women to ecology - especially about eco-feminism, but few directly having to do with women and //permaculture//.

"While people often equate permaculture with [|urban agriculture], natural buildings, and restored native landscapes, it is not exclusively a set of tools for landscape design, but a broader approach focused on supporting and building relationships between elements, including integrating human society back into the fabric of living [|ecosystems] ." (Hanson, L. (2013). Permaculture. Salem Press Encyclopedia,)

I've noticed it's hard for me to narrow in on the topic because each new article or book I read brings in new ideas and new topics that I find interesting and want to pursue.

9/8 5 hours I went to the library and took out some books. I also read a bunch of articles which made me want to learn all about the different topics I have been looking into. I am finding it difficult to narrow it down.

9/15 //Possible Interview Subjects// Christina's Mom My mother Nate's Aunt and Uncle - connections to Tilth and their friend the beer brewer Chris Flash from the Shadow (?)

9/27 I have been forgetting to update this! I spent two hours on the IRB thing. I am behind on this, and it's taking longer than I thought it would.

9/28 I spent an hour updating my proposal. It still needs a little more work. I am going to re-peruse some of the literatures to see if I can expand my conceptual framework, since I think it needs a little more work.

10/5 I spent a couple hours updating my proposal and reading new literatures. I put most of my notes in Zotero connected to the articles. I tried to do the Memos, but I am very confused on what topic they are supposed to be, and how they relate to my research topic. For instance, what timeline am I looking for? The timeline of permaculture? The timeline of herbal medicine? The timeline of women?

After researching a bit more about different types of alternative medicine, I would like to specifically write about holistic medicine - the study of healing the whole person: physically, mentally, emotionally. This seems to have the most parallels to permaculture. I also think that making connections between herbal medicine and agriculture will be natural, because herbal medicines are plant based. These two types of alternative medicine may be the focus of the health side of my thesis.

The books I took out from the library are //Ellen Swallow//: //The Woman Who Founded Ecology// by Robert Clarke, and //The Naturalist's Path: Beginning the Study of Nature// by Cathy Johnson. I also downloaded a PDF version of Bill Mollison's //Introduction to Permaculture.// Bill Mollison is basically the founding father of permaculture, according to most literatures I've read.

I also tried to figure out what the annotations are supposed to be, but couldn't find a description. Maybe I looked in the wrong places, I will look again tomorrow.

10/6 I spent 3 hours trying to understand the meanings of the memos and where to find the information for them. I read a bit in the book about Ellen Swallow that I mentioned yesterday. It's a biography, so it tells like a story, but it's the only literature I've found thus far that connects all three topics together. I haven't gotten to a point in the book where anything relating to my thesis is mentioned, so I think I'll have to skip ahead.

I don't really understand anything I'm supposed to be doing, and that gives me a lot of anxiety. I'm trying to at least type something for the memos. I don't feel like the literatures I've found answer the questions that the memos ask, and I guess I don't know where to look to find this information.

10/9 I'm having trouble connecting the gender part into my thesis and considering dropping it out, but I'm concerned that it will be too large of a topic without it. Also worried that it's a little late to drop part of the topic out and still have a thesis, but I was thinking about what Gareth said about how my topic is about alternative cultures, and thought I could add in some things about alternative religion choices and how all three are related. It can be a descriptive research thesis. Often, while reading about permaculture, it is mentioned that it is not a religion - just a way of life (although it seems like it may be difficult to separate a way of life from religion, I'm not sure). However, I've been doing some reading about druidism and other pagan religions, and they have all mentioned how important nature is to the religion, and the Druid book actually mentioned permaculture by name. Of course these religions also make use of herbal medicines in rituals.

10/13 I spent 3 hours doing the first of the short annotations. And then I spent 4 hours ish doing the long annotations. I don't know why it takes me so long to do this!

10/14 Today I spent about 4 hours working on the historicizing memo and the shifts in signs memo. I think they helped me because they served as places to get my thoughts out. Although as usual, I feel like I learned a lot of things that I got interested in which kind of widens the gap instead of narrowing it.

10/15 Every now and then I feel like I understand what I'm doing, but most of the time I feel very lost. My sentence is:

This is a literature review based thesis which will seek to understand the shift from ___ to alternative practices through a feminist lens.

I am not sure mainstream is the right word to place in the blank because the topics I've been looking at weren't necessarily mainstream. Mainstream: " the ideas, attitudes, or activities that are regarded as normal or conventional; the dominant trend in opinion, fashion, or the arts" (Google). It has a connotation of trendiness, or fads, whereas I think that the correct connotation would be more like common or not marginalized? I'm not sure if they were ever the mainstream, but they weren't alternatives to anything because there wasn't necessarily a mainstream. There wasn't globalization or connections between people all over the world, so there couldn't be a mainstream.

I think I need to write this sentence (once I finish it) somewhere on my desk so I am reminded not to keep following tangents.

This is a historical review based thesis which will seek to understand the shift of small common cultures (specifically permaculture, holistic medicine, and earth-based religions) to alternative practices through a feminist lens.

Within a time period (this can be a way to cheat

Factors that lead to growing alternative things Effects

Just permaculture as the object religion as a conceptual framework (?) conceptions of gender

10/18 I need to redo my proposal after this week, now that I've realized I need to go in a slightly different direction. The underlying reasons for permaculture and pagan, earth-based religions are similar. A big difference between the two has to do with gender. The pagan religions often stress the feminine aspect of the Earth, trying to balance for the mainstream, male based religions (specifically in Christianity, where God is typically considered to be male.). These pagan religions often mention using permaculture and the ethics of it as part of the lifestyle of a wiccan or druid, while the permie literature often stresses that it IS NOT a religion, but simply a process, a way to interact with the earth... Are these really different?

I spent ~4 hours working on my late memos today. I ordered the book //Alternative Pathways in Science and Industry: Activism, Innovation, and the Environment in an Era of Globalization// because it sounds like it could relate very well to my new thesis topic. Tomorrow I will have to redo my proposal before I can work on all the new memos.

10/19 As I was looking through my old proposal, I realized I changed my topic a lot more than I realized in class on Wednesday. However, I feel a lot better about this topic. I've already found much more literature on the topics, and it seems more natural to write about. I don't feel like I am forcing the subject to exist.

10/23 I received the book //Alternate Pathways in Science and Industry.// It is a bit difficult for me to read, it uses a different type of language than I am used to reading.

11/3 Whoops! It seems I have fallen behind on this again. I am struggling. I do not know if anything that I am doing is along the right lines or not. I have been spending a lot of time on the literature review, but it is still not done. I am getting there. I have noticed I am the type to put something off if I do not know how to do it, instead of plunge in and do it wrong. I spent hours reading different literatures last week, and now I am figuring out how to relate them to my thesis. I am still struggling with adding the feminist lens. I think I need to do a little research about what that really means.

11/4 I spent a couple more hours on this, and uploaded my draft onto the Wiki. I'd rather have something done than nothing, even if the something isn't perfect!

11/5 Notes from class: Introduction - what they thought about before, during, and after the journey Chapter 1: Background Chapter - history of the


 * weave literature review in with Thesis
 * Social Movements: Page 15
 * This person defines this as this, while this person defines this as this <- lit review
 * establishes who you're citing, analyzes the different options from different authors, clarifies what you are writing about
 * Literature Review - show whose side you are on, explains why your analysis exists
 * types: definition, timeline,
 * Anytime you weave citations into your own literature
 * Write a: this is what I'm not including, and why as part of the lit review. How can we put boundaries on the data? How do we choose to look at something? How can we put boundaries on everything?
 * Discourse analysis - analysis of words or language: how are these words being used, and how are they in different ways by different people? How do they affect other things?
 * Theory makes the research results important - make the project manageable - pick parts that are important
 * Grounded Theory - what is "sticking out" or what is obvious, is what you may end up picking as the most important theory
 * Pick a theory to write about. Methodology. Pick a methodology. Where does one find a methodology?
 * What is a feminist method?

11/11 Feminist Lens: - How does gender matter and function? - How are women portrayed? - Where are women? - Where are the men, and how are they portrayed?

11/19 Class: Notes in iPad Need to work on conceptual framework more (2 hours)

11/25 Downloaded some new literatures on ecofeminism - notes in Zotero (4 hours)

11/26 - 4 hours 11/27 - 4 hours 11/28 - Now : All my free time!