This summer, I worked on the project 鈥淭ransforming the Teamsters: A Case Study on the Challenges of Union Revitalization鈥� supervised by Prof. Barry Eidlin in the Department of Sociology. My main task involved conducting 30-minute structured monthly interviews with a handful of rank-and-file union organizers in the International Brotherhood of the Teamsters (IBT), asking about their organizing activities and feelings about the union. I was also responsible for transcribing these interviews and synthesizing data into reflection memos that could be used to draw more critical conclusions in Prof. Eidlin鈥檚 broader research project.
I was interested in pursuing an ARIA project to develop my skills in research, as well as to learn more about an area of interest to me. With this project, at a broad level, I was interested in learning about how organizational change occurs. I am interested in social movements and social change, and wanted to interrogate the mechanisms by which activist organizers in the Teamsters push forward union reform. At a more technical level, I also wanted to refine my skills in qualitative methods, including conducting in-depth interviews, producing analytical memos, and content analysis, and develop familiarity with literature surrounding union revitalization, social movement mobilization, and the sociology of organizations. I believe that I met these learning objectives. I have gotten more comfortable conducting interviews and asking questions that lead to interesting responses, I have improved my ability to pull critical analysis from data and explain it in reflection memos, and I have gotten more familiar with how real world data fits with the literature on union reform and social movements.
Some highlights included getting to speak to Teamsters organizers about their organizing activity. Very militant organizing is happening around the US in their workplaces and it was very interesting to hear their perspectives on the challenges and opportunities they are facing, and some of the different actions they are organizing.
The challenges I faced were largely methodological. Over the course of the internship, I collected a lot of very rich interview data, from organizers who had very different perspectives. It was difficult to synthesize the data into a coherent argument that was interesting and insightful rather than obvious. To overcome this challenge, I did a lot more reading into the literature to ground my argument within existing theoretical debates, and I also read some of the reflection memos produced by other researchers on Prof. Eidlin鈥檚 team so that I could build new insights on top of their ideas. This framework of theoretical literature and foundation of existing research allowed me to focus on a very specific question I was interested in and develop my ideas into a more insightful argument.
The experience I gained in the ARIA internship has been very helpful in directing what I see myself doing after I graduate. It has opened the door to doing more original research 鈥� for example, I will be continuing on in Prof. Eidlin鈥檚 lab for the rest of the academic year and taking on more responsibilities. The data I have collected during my internship and that I will collect during the year will also go towards my Honours thesis. Through ARIA, I have gained skills in qualitative research methods, developed a stronger sense of my research interests, and have the possibility of working towards a publishable product, all of which will be helpful for future research and education at the graduate level.
I also strongly appreciate the financial support that ARIA provided me. Having a $5000 award allowed me to conduct research in Montreal over the summer while covering some of my living expenses. It also allowed me to work with Prof. Eidlin in the first place and to be fairly compensated for my work.
In all, my ARIA experience was highly rewarding and has made me both interested in and more equipped to pursue more research in the future.
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