has happened. the nightmare of every PhD student.
I have found a PhD thesis online that was submitted a couple of months ago that is almost exactly on my topic. It misses a couple of key concepts that my thesis uses (only by not naming them though, the author talks about the processes, just not the label that we have in UK IR academia) and isn't as strong a post-modern analysis but... it is too close for comfort. The empirical work is just down the road from mine and targets the same issues, same subset of people and talks about the same processes. But it is MUCH better than mine (the author is from India so...). The wording is more chatty than mine will be, but also hits its target quicker than mine does at the mo.
I am crying and crying! Can you IMAGINE?! Shit tits bugger. I shall send it to my sup later when I have read the intro good and proper and then try and work out how they are different. if they really, really aren't then I shall have to send it to my sup and arrange some kind of emergency meeting.
I think there is enough scope for them to be different, but along the same lines. Which is good - if there is a swelling of dissension and critique like mine then hurray. But selfishly of course, I want my PhD to be new! And having another thesis out there written better than mine as well.
Am off to lick my wounds and try and cheer myself up in time for lunch with my friend. I am just going to bawl. And we are going to sit outside in the sun and it is a festival at my hometown. jeeez.
x J
I have found a PhD thesis online that was submitted a couple of months ago that is almost exactly on my topic. It misses a couple of key concepts that my thesis uses (only by not naming them though, the author talks about the processes, just not the label that we have in UK IR academia) and isn't as strong a post-modern analysis but... it is too close for comfort. The empirical work is just down the road from mine and targets the same issues, same subset of people and talks about the same processes. But it is MUCH better than mine (the author is from India so...). The wording is more chatty than mine will be, but also hits its target quicker than mine does at the mo.
I am crying and crying! Can you IMAGINE?! Shit tits bugger. I shall send it to my sup later when I have read the intro good and proper and then try and work out how they are different. if they really, really aren't then I shall have to send it to my sup and arrange some kind of emergency meeting.
I think there is enough scope for them to be different, but along the same lines. Which is good - if there is a swelling of dissension and critique like mine then hurray. But selfishly of course, I want my PhD to be new! And having another thesis out there written better than mine as well.
Am off to lick my wounds and try and cheer myself up in time for lunch with my friend. I am just going to bawl. And we are going to sit outside in the sun and it is a festival at my hometown. jeeez.
x J
2 comments:
Hi Jayney, don't panic about this thesis. I would be amazed if they are so close that it will cause you a huge problem. Use it to your advantage - tease out what they are saying and try to find a way of engaging with it that shows that you are doing something different / better. As long as you acknowledge that you have read it - sigh - you will find a way forward. I am sure your supervisor will put your mind at rest or find someone in your department who has had experience of something similar happening. The real positive is that your area of work is that current that someone else is working on it too - take care, jenny
Jenny, thank you!
You are right. It *is* the same as my topic - same fieldwork, same running thesis - but his is more anthropological than political, therefore has a different slant on it... I spent the afternoon doing exactly what you said - using it to my advantage and getting lots of references! I will acknowledge it in my own work, if only to show how it is useful and then dismiss it and clearly state why mine is different. I didn't think about how it was good that mine was topical, thank you for that ;0)
Thanks again, really kind of you to post.
x J
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