So, my fieldwork is kind of over, I have five interviews and one possibility to interview someone online. It was more complicated than I expected, but the material, I think, is great, and the last interview was extremely critical and helped me put together my research approaches. Also, the Tibet issue proved to be not an obstacle but rather a catalyst for my research, since most of these people were asked to comment on the issue and sometimes even expressed their opinions on it without me asking. I got some encouragements from them for the research too.
Anyway, a year ago I wanted to move away from political science, and still in autumn, when my classmates were continuing with European integration studies and the like, I was happy not to have this anymore. But this part of social sciences ran to catch me back in Brussels, and, who would have thought, here I am, doing some sort of institutional/network anthropology.
I went to a big contemporary art exhibition today, and guess what, one of the exhibits was a pair of shoes attached to the wall with a word on each shoe: “Free Tibet”