Do not give up being researchers
Luíza Alvim has a PhD in communication. She lectures and studies music and cinema at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. She received a travel grant to attend IAMCR 2014 in Hyderabad, where she presented the paper Between genres and styles in the films of Robert Bresson to the Visual Culture Working Group.
IAMCR 2014 was a great experience. I had never been in a conference with people from so many different countries all over the world and it was especially interesting to hear the presentations from India and other Southeast Asian countries. Being in India itself was a fantastic experience; being in an international conference in India was like having the sensation of Otherness multiplied.
The conference was a nice opportunity to diffuse my work beyond the boundaries of my own country and Portuguese-speaking people. Moreover the presentations in my Working Group (Visual Culture) were of very high level as well as the sessions from other groups and plenary sessions.
The travel grant was very important to me, as I still do not have a position at an university and, in this situation, it is almost impossible to get any help from Brazilian research agencies, especially for so far away. In order to continue my work in an academic environment and to be connected to a department at university, I have become again a PhD student (in a department of Music, as my work deals with “Music and Cinema”), as my PhD in communication has not helped me find a fixed job in my country.
I think it is a very important policy of IAMCR to help people from low and middle-income countries to go to the conferences, especially by recognizing that not all the researchers have a job or access to funds from agencies or universities to help them attend. It is like you were telling us: do not give up being researchers in communication.
Luíza Alvim
Brazil
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