It’s time fot the big finale: the writing of the master’s thesis!
Last year I tried to get a scholarship for data collection abroad. Unfortunately I didn’t, mainly because I study political science and not STEM (albeit, if I may say so myself, I study STS – science and technology studies).
Many attempts were made to contact organizations and academics in Canada. After a while I managed to receive replies from people whom I could interview about mining, Indigenous peoples, land rights and critical minerals. After a video meeting with one person, I decided to pay for the journey to Canada myself.
Why travel from Sweden to Canada just to interview a few people on these topics? I’ve been wanting to do it for several years. Besides, I didn’t want to read and write. I wanted more than that.
The same week our course officially started, I traveled to Canada. Thus I could spend time there and get acquainted with the literature necessary for the literary review.
Partly it felt weird and almost unjustified. I did get much information indeed, about the situation in Canada (and Sweden, since two of them had visited Sweden and written about Fennoscandia), but only during the last interview did we touch on a feasible topics I could write about: resistance to mines in previous mining-friendly municipalities.