Researcher of the Week: Sarah Miller

Mon, 29 Jan 2018 10:40:07 -0500

Sarah is an Interdisciplinary Studies (INDS) major specializing in visual anthropology (December '17). She was a Lineman Artist Scholar and the recipient of TWO Undergraduate Research Awards (URA).

Title of your research project: Dona de Casa: Women of Rio’s Affordable Housing Movements

For this project, I was researching the roles that women play in affordable housing movements, specifically those in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. My research focused on the ways in which women’s participation in the public and political sphere appear to subvert traditional Brazilian gender roles while actually crystallizing those roles in many ways. I also explored the use of collaborative photography methods to give more agency to my subject in regards to their representation.

Who is your mentor(s) for your project? My mentor was Dr. Sarah Chard of the Anthropology Department. I took a number of anthropology courses taught by Dr. Chard and absolutely loved them, even though they were really difficult! She is someone whose work and opinion I greatly respect so I knew she would offer great guidance on this project.

How did you become interested in this project? I had studied in Brazil the year before on my first URA award, while researching a project on global perspectives in documentary photography, where I used photography to document the Rio Doce mining disaster. About halfway through the year I knew I wanted to stay in Brazil for the coming summer to get some field research experience and practice my Portuguese. I ended up sending out emails to anthropology professors around the U.S. whose work is focused in Brazil. I got a few responses, one of which was from Dr. John Burdick from Syracuse University, the head of the larger, NSF-funded, project that I ended up completing my research under. I was able to get a URA that summer to spend a month in Rio, getting acquainted with Dr. Burdick’s research team and beginning to understand the housing movements there. I decided to apply for more funding the following year to spend two months there to complete my research project.

How has being a URA scholar helped you to carry out this project? The URA scholars program was instrumental in my ability to complete this project. The first URA I received gave me the necessary financial support to set the foundation for my research and the second URA allowed me to follow-through in order to complete more in-depth research there. Aside from the purely financial benefits, the URA program gave me experience in grant writing and research presentation that has proven to be invaluable.

What has been the hardest part about your research/what was the most unexpected thing about being a researcher? The research process was a fantastic learning experience but certainly was not without its difficulties. I’d say most challenging was navigating the research environment; Rio is not the safest place and can be stressful to get around, especially with valuable camera equipment. The fact that I was working with such a limited time in the field was also frustrating at times, because it’s harder to adapt to unplanned and unavoidable schedule changes when you have little time to reschedule things.

What has been the most rewarding part? Meeting so many new people and learning so much was easily the most rewarding part. I know that is really broad but this whole project has been such a learning experience and not only have I learned a tremendous amount about gender relations, the politics of representation, and housing rights in Brazil, but I learned about myself and what I am looking to do work-wise post-grad. I was working with a research team and felt challenged at times as the youngest and most inexperienced team member but my team was incredibly supportive and I learned so much from my fellow researchers. Furthermore, I established friendships with the women that participated in my research and sent them any of the photos I took of them. It gave me a great sense of gratification to see photos I had taken of them being used as their profile pictures as it signaled to me that they were truly happy with them.

How will you disseminate your research? I shared my research in my INDS capstone presentation this past December and have plans to exhibit photos in Brazil and hopefully elsewhere in the coming year. I will also be posting images and text on my website, sarahwmiller.com. Finally, I made a book to incorporate my analysis and photographs and have sent some copies to Brazil to share with my project participants there.

What is your advice to other students about getting involved in research? From my experience, it pays to be bold when reaching out to people you are interested in working with. Sometimes the traditional routes to getting research experience don’t offer you the experience you want so don’t be afraid to find other avenues to get where you want to be. Also do something you’re really interested in, it makes the whole process (from grant applications to field work to analysis) that much easier.

What are your career goals? Currently, I’m taking some time to travel and work on some photo projects that I have been wanting to do for awhile. I’ll be applying for a Fulbright grant this coming year and am looking at other grant and residency programs to fund my photo work. On the side I’ve been working with the National YoungArts Foundation as well which keeps me connected to the artistic community. I’ve thought about going to graduate school but I’m going to wait a couple years before I look at that more seriously!

See the video of Sarah's INDS capstone presentation on her work here: https://my.umbc.edu/groups/inds/posts/73304

Be like Sarah! Apply for a URA award and get up to $1500 to support your research. Go to: ur.umbc.edu/ura. Deadline: Feb. 16, 2018.