Studying networks because of networks!
ZAKHIYA
Forced to guide oneself in work, career and personhood
With a lot of love from people who were not obliged to help..."
"
I work with networks, trying to understand the social structure of monkeys. Here I am representing how PhD is like the future you; sorted, confident and mature, guiding your current self; chaotic, lost, childlike and left off the hook. But I am also trying to convey that despite this being the dominant experience or feeling, it is still happening in the safety and support that one gets from one’s friends, family, class or caste, which are all basically some sort of privilege networks.
Not to demean the towering effort, transformations, and grit it demands off of an individual, I think it is important to acknowledge the privilege we are backed by which we might often lose sight of just by virtue of being human and myopic. And when it's not privilege, it's kindness from people who aren't obliged to be kind to you that keeps you floating. This is not what the larger academic structures that promote individualism and competition would have us believe, but it should be.
It should be something that we just know is the case.
Faith- through a PhD, our potentially successful, ideally confident future self, has to start existing today, and guide our uncertain, lost, current self, maybe this is what faith is, in its functionality.
Illustration by Zakhiya
About Zakhiya
Zakhiya P C is a PhD scholar at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore. For her PhD she looks at behavioural data of bonnet macaques trying to understand their social structure and individual personalities. She graduated in 2020 from IISER Pune with an integrated bachelors and masters degree in the natural sciences. Zakhiya is a laidback writer, and a situational artist. She is curious about the workings of people and the world around her, and hopes that her expressions are an honest documentation of these thought explorations. She like to express through words, lines, colours and photographs whenever expression becomes inevitable.
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PRABHLEEN
"Let me tell you my story if it helps you get a perspective about how a journey in research may go. Firstly, a disclaimer for you: Your journey will be shaped by your interests, personal experiences, motivation, determination, etc. What I mean is, it's not the same for all. I am here to just share my story."
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