Placement Report
Annette Adema, s2741776
MA IRIO: International Security
Supervisor: dr. S. Tanaka
Coordinator: S. Mascarell Ordovas
Introduction
The document in front of you is a report about my research placement from August 2020 until January 2021. My name is Annette Adema and I follow the MA in International Relations at the University of Groningen, specialising in International Security. I started with the programme in September 2019 and was planning to follow the mandatory courses in the first semester, write my thesis in the second, and take a ‘third semester’ for the placement. In May 2020 I was accepted into an internship at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. However, a month later I was made aware that unfortunately, the whole Ministry had to put a halt on bringing in new interns due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
I thus had to find a plan B. Many students were in the same boat, therefore the University offered research placements. Led by lecturers of the Faculty of Arts, the tasks mainly include assisting in his or her research project. This offers students the opportunity to participate in a real research project and put their obtained academic skills into practice. Moreover, it is doable from home and therefore ‘corona proof’. I browsed through the long list of options and mister Tanaka’s vacancy caught my interest. I sent a motivation letter to mister Tanaka and after a video call, I had the placement.
The placement was in co-operation with the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (Nederlands Studiecentrum Criminaliteit en Rechtshandhaving: NSCR). The research examines how pandemics change people’s attitudes towards out-groups. These attitudes are measured in a natural setting using CCTV footage, using distance between in- and out-groups as a proxy of attitudes, and compare the measures before and after the outbreak of the virus as an exogenous shock. Natives are said to have a psychological tendency to categorise and differentiate social groups, perceive their own group as superior and the out-group as a threat. In a disease setting these exclusionary attitudes tend to be higher especially to unfamiliar out-groups. In the case of the current pandemic, China is seen as the starting point of the disease. By using heuristics, individuals are more likely to perceive Asians as carriers of the virus and are thus perceived as threats to their health. In the Netherlands the Muslim and Arabic population used to be the most avoided out-group, while Asians were more avoided after the COVID-19 outbreak.
This report will continue with a description of the Institution, as well as my tasks, and how those are related to the MA programme. Then I will turn to an evaluation of my personal learning objectives.
The Placement
The Organisation
Firstly, a description of the organisation will be provided. The Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (Nederlands Studiecentrum Criminaliteit en Rechtshandhaving: NSCR) is a research institute related to the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. It conducts fundamental, interdisciplinary research that is innovative, methodologically state-of-the-art, contributing to the solution of societal issues in the field of security and justice. Said research is carried out independently as well as in collaboration with other institutions and universities. Furthermore, it is also a training centre for young researchers and it develops an international network of academics. Themes that the NSCR works with are for instance cybercrime, victimology, extremism/terrorism, and empirical legal studies1.
My Tasks
My task, initially, was to visit the NSCR and assist in video analysis. I had not done systematic video analysis before, so this would be a unique learning opportunity. However, due to the pandemic, the NSCR was closed for ‘non-essential’ visitors. We were hoping that I was at least allowed to visit the NSCR a small number of times, but the second lockdown spoilt the party. My main task was to write a literature review of around three pages. Mister Tanaka provided me with the three strands I had to describe, with specific authors to use as starting points, as well as a list of relevant journals to pay attention to. The three strands were psychological distance between in-group and outgroup, spatial distance between in-group and out-group, and the effect of the pandemic or other emergency situations. These three strands were very helpful, as it offered me guidance in finding relevant sources and keep on-track with the topic. I handed in a first draft mid-November and a second in early December, receiving feedback to work towards a final version mid-January.
As mister Tanaka and his colleagues are not native Dutch speakers, I corrected their survey as well, looking for any spelling or stylistic flaws. This was already done in the summer of 2020, so at the beginning of the placement. At the end of the placement, I proofread a short paper and checked for any inconsistencies with the initial survey.
In addition to the literature review, I followed an online course called “Systematic Video Observation and Analysis of Human Conflict” provided by Marie Rosenkrantz Lindegaard, who also works at the NSCR and is mister Tanaka’s research colleague. The course consisted
of seven online lectures explaining the different steps in systematic video observation, as well as preparatory reading. The course was set up as a joint venture between the scholars that have been involved in the development of systematic video observation, who also took on the role as presenters in ‘class’. Initially I had to follow this course in order to come prepared to the NSCR. Unfortunately I will not be putting this method in practice, at least not anytime soon within the scope of this research. Still, I learned a lot from it, more about that in the Evaluation.
Relation to the MA Programme
The last aspect I want to discuss in this section is the relation with the MA International Relations: International Security. Security usually evokes associations with warfare and the military. However, security is a large concept and I wanted to frame this placement in the realm of Human Security. This is a less traditional IR concept and focusses on the security of individuals, protecting them from warfare, poverty, fear, etcetera. But also from disease; COVID-19 is seen as a threatening and individuals want to their health to be protected. Taking it a step further, the current pandemic has been framed as a ‘war’, when the French President called himself the commanding General in the fight against the virus2. This research project includes a sociological/psychological approach with the discussion on attitudes and distance towards perceived out-groups.
2 Momtaz, R. (9 April 2020). Inside Macron’s coronavirus war. Politico. Retrieved via https://www.politico.eu/interactive/inside-emmanuel-macron-coronavirus-war/
Evaluation
Now that my tasks have been discussed, it is time to evaluate my personal learning objectives as stated in the placement plan.
Academic Skills
The first objective was to “put my obtained research skills into practice through the writing of the literature review and the visits to the Institute”. The visits could not happen, but I did put my writing skills into practice. This is in line with my second objective: “improve my writing skills and the ability to find relevant literature and structuring a variety of existing work in a systematic way”. For the first draft, I wrote the literature review in the same way as I would write for a paper. However, I was told to include a lot more authors and group them based on their views. For this I used Google Scholar, while I usually stick to Smartcat, the University’s search engine. I used to look at the bibliographies of my central sources, but that leads to older sources that could be outdated. Mister Tanaka provided me with three sources to get me started, he suggested to type them in on Google Scholar and click on the “Cited by x” to get the ball rolling. This was a very helpful way to find a lot of relevant sources. I did have to make sure that the works were published in a scholarly journal, so I had to filter out quite a lot. So through this placement, I learned how Google Scholar can be of good use in finding literature.
As mentioned mister Tanaka provided me with three sources to use as starting points, corresponding to three strands of literature I had to include. When writing papers the most difficult thing is to find a good research question and overall, a plan on how to tackle it. For this placement, this was already set. I had no trouble getting started with writing, as I already knew exactly what to do. In the end, I am pretty content with the literature review I wrote. However, it seems like I valued quantity of quality, in a sense. I tried to incorporate many authors, but I did not go much into detail on all the works, let alone critically engage with them. It is more of a showcase on the existing work. I also received feedback on my writing style, as the tone is overall rather passive. Instead of “this book will be used”, I could have written “I used this book”. This reads more pleasantly, too.
The next objective was “experience how research is carried out in practice, outside the classroom” and specifically, “learn how to use systematic video observation as a research methodology”. Unfortunately I did not actually do any video analysis, but through the course I did learn a lot about it. When writing the literature review, I felt more pressure to be precise,
reference correctly, and leave nothing out. Sometimes when writing for a course, I run out of time or simply are lazy, and become sloppy in my source usage and referencing. I made sure that this happened for the literature review, as it could result in a plagiarism case for mister Tanaka.
Co-operation and Communication
Furthermore, I set “learning how to communicate and co-operate effectively online” as a goal too. The literature review was mainly a solo project, but I did email a lot back and forth with mister Tanaka. He replies very quickly, so I did not lose time waiting on responses. Having quick communication makes the process a lot more efficient, you can for instance receive an answer to your question and immediately continue with the work. For short questions, email works fine. But when you have to discuss multiple things, video calling is more useful. Mister Tanaka had put a comment in the document, but I did not understand what he meant, so asking for clarification verbally is easier. All in all, the online communication went well, but sometimes I could have checked my emails more regularly and not wait a few days to reply. It does not take much to reply straight away.
The last objectives were “discover what my strengths and weaknesses are regarding working in a small group” and “experience how I, as a student, can be of use in a circle of academics”. Most of the activities I carried out by myself so I did not gather much experience working in a small group. Through the course I was in a circle of academics, but I found myself more in an observer role. Other participants shared their experiences or engaged in discussions, which were interesting to listen to. This also made it feel like a friendly group of colleagues instead of a university class with a teacher-student difference. A few times we were split up in small breakout rooms and then I always turned on my camera and actively participated in the discussion. Even when I said I was ‘only’ a student, my input was valued. One thing I could have done differently, is staying focussed during the course. It was scheduled on Friday from 15:00 until 17:00, a time at which my energy level are rather low. I often got distracted by the things around me or simply drifted off, losing track of the discussion. Had I tried harder to pay attention, I could definitely have picked up more information.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this research placement was a unique experience. Unfortunately I did not gain any practical experience as the Institute was closed for visitors, which was my initial motivation to apply for this placement. However, this is outside of anyone’s control. I still learned many valuable things from it. Through the course, I was offered the chance to be in a circle of academics. I saw the value of Google Scholar when finding literature, and learned how to structure those logically. It is not my ambition to continue in the academic field in the future. I knew this before I started the placement, but I saw it as a chance to apply my obtained skills in a real research project and learn more about the topic.
Moreover, I experienced the value of checking your email regularly and replying as soon as possible. In combination with the feedback on my English writing skills, these are all things I can take with me in my future endeavours. The short course taught me how to look at videos more critically. Through the literature review I learned more about the psychological and spatial distance between in- and out-groups and how any emergency situation can influence natives’ perception towards ethnic minorities. This is knowledge that makes one more aware of spatial distance can lead to prejudice towards out-groups, or the other way around, and how ethnic minorities are treated differently by natives in general.
