I am thrilled to report that I was finally able to continue my research in Indonesia. My previous fieldwork was pre-Covid (2018 to be exact). Over the past few months, I did fieldwork for 7 weeks in November/December 2023 and another 2.5 weeks in February/March 2024.
So happy to be back doing the second round of data collection for the ENDOW Project — a collaborative, longitudinal project looking at the effect of social networks on wealth inequality.
The project boasts fieldworkers collecting comparative data at over 40 sites around the world. The work was funded by NSF funds awarded to the ENDOW Project, and time and money provided by my home institution — the College of Arts and Social Sciences at The Australian National University.
Together with an amazing team of local collaborators and assistants, I collected the necessary data for this project, as well as data for two additional projects, including one that is a continuation of research I did as part of my PhD research. I wore my University of Washington (PhD 2006) hat to reflect my heritage.
The fieldwork was done in cooperation with the Department of Anthropology, Universitas Sumatera Utara (USU) in Medan, Indonesia. I was lucky enough to be invited to give a public lecture about my research in Indonesia — starting with my PhD research until now. I was absolutely thrilled with the level of engagement the students from USU showed. Can’t wait to go back again!
Dr Geoff Kushnick 