My Research Topics
The top two topics that interests me most for potential research are, the history of women’s roles in jobs, positionings and their limits in America, also early settlements in Caribbean islands, such as Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Haiti, to gain more information on who resided in those islands before europeans conquered. What attracts me about the history of women’s roles in America, is the idea of women not being paid equally as men, but also learning more about how women work together, what are some issues that they have and what are some things they are really strong at. As to the early settlements in the caribbean islands, is a way to find out more information about the background of these islands and what they are composed of, what can the people from their relate to, is a way to bring people together and i would like to have valid data on the topic. I’m already familiar with the many protests and movements that women fought in order to gain rights such as voting, situation that came a long way and should be celebrated. One thing i know about natives in the caribbean is that both europeans and africans had stepped foot there, after conquering and enslaving communities. However what i would like to find out who was settled there before the conquering, and what happened to them and what was their culture and tradition like, kind of like the Inca Empire in Machu Picchu before the europeans. For female roles, i would like to find out what are women’s strengths and weaknesses in working together, also what are the situations that prevent women from being equal as men, all through there organismic differences. All in all i think my topics are specific enough, even though they are really broad ideas and arguments behind them, because i talk about specific people and places and specific ideas in which im looking for information on. In order to find my data, i would want to use text books and articles based on time periods with examples of perhaps laws that existed or still exist that refer towards men or women only. Also look at interviews and documentaries of people giving their experiences and opinions of women in the workplace in general and perhaps compare that to men. Also for my second topic, i would look for any primary pieces of evidence that could work towards finding out about the cultures in early settlements of these islands, and documentaires of the history about the before and after of the conquerors era. I would start looking at the library and also documentaries and maybe interviews.
Neliza, these are both interesting topics, and you’ll find a lot of scholarship out there! I would definitely recommend searching the libraries databases for scholarship that you can skim / read to find sources and narrow down your topic.
On the first topic, you may want to focus on a specific area of employment for women, or on specific laws and policies related to this topic. For example, you could look at the history of “equal pay” movements in America, and engage with the scholarship and policy reports on this topic.
For your second topic, it sounds like you are especially interested in learning more about indigenous communities in the pre-colonial Caribbean. History and Caribbean Studies journals will be of particular interest to you. I’m happy to recommend specific journals when we meet.