The Diablito is in the Details (Mexico City, make_sense - Week 2)
Peter Tarson wrestles with cultural sensitivity and economic context as the struggle to build a rural financial education platform rages on. He finds allies in new places.
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Mexico City, make_sense - Week 1
In this heartfelt coming-of-age narrative, young Oxford student (Peter Tarson)'s mission to build supply-chain resources for rural women transforms into a thrilling quest to find food, friendship, and financial documentation.
Under the False Sandalwood (Mexico City, make_sense - Week 3)
Peter Tarson successfully builds a working chatbot (!!). He explores a few lovely museums. He fails miserably at planting a tree. Illness ravages his cohort. He watches the best movie of his life.
Reflection on Week 1
Peter Tarson, 1st year Laidlaw Scholar from Worcester College, Oxford University, discusses his experiences with research and team building during the first week of his program.
Recent Comments
Peter, this is an excellent reflection. You capture particularly well what leadership under uncertainty can involve: absorbing disappointing feedback, acknowledging the limits of an initial approach, reorganising as a team and maintaining momentum as the available time contracts. Your observation that fallibility has strengthened both your relationships and your confidence in your capacity to learn is especially thoughtful. It provides a convincing connection between drive and humility.
As the project develops, I would encourage you to reflect on whether the experience represents changing stakeholder expectations, an initial miscommunication, or a process through which the team is gradually discovering the actual needs and constraints of prospective users. What might you do differently at the beginning of a similar project?
The chatbot also raises some important questions about inclusive and responsible design: connectivity, data privacy, financial misinformation, accessibility, user testing and longer-term ownership. I would be interested to hear how local users, and Isabel and Victor in particular, can become co-designers of the intervention rather than only helping the team adapt a product after its design.
I was also delighted to read that you went dancing — and dominated the floor! Alongside the project learning, it sounds as though you are challenging yourself, developing strong friendships and becoming increasingly confident in an unfamiliar environment. Your reflection on using your position to help friends feel safer in public also shows a thoughtful awareness of how leadership and allyship can operate through small, situational actions.
The linguistic interlude was characteristically magnificent. I am mildly disappointed that we were denied the analysis of -hua. Maybe next time :)
Hi!! Thank you so much for reaching out. I think I'd put it in the category of an initial miscommunication due to the fairly inevitable and honestly justifiable wariness of stakeholders introducing outsiders to a vulnerable community. I honestly am not sure I would do anything differently, other than asking more clarifying questions and attempting to make a one-on-one, informal connection first (especially about academic literature on poverty and development) because I am strongest in that environment.
And yeah I'd love to talk about -hua. For clarity, it's pronounced -wa and all of the related suffixes in other Uto-Aztecan languages are spelled that way, Nahuatl is just written with a spelling system closely imitating 1500s colonial Mexican Spanish. We're stuck with it. Basically, the descendants of Proto-Uto-Aztecan **-wa: are found filling two functions throughout the family. First, they are markers of nouns possessed alienably (that is, the possessor could lose or sell them freely, unlike a body part or blood relative) by other nouns in a sentence.
Nahuatl example:
Cihua:-tl = wife
no-cihua:-uh (uh = reduced form of original hua) = my-wife
Eudeve (California) example:
no-chin-wa = my-cotton
(From: https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy-prd.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/stable/3519714?seq=1)
Additionally, they are regularly used to form "derived verbs of possession": when suffixed to a noun, they form verbs with the meaning "having Noun". Usually the descendant of the **-wa: suffix in a particular language that does this job is less likely to be shortened than the descendant used on nouns modified by their possessors.
That these suffixes are etymologically related seems to me pretty unquestionable. The question of whether the suffix originally indicated a possessed noun and then became used for verb formation, or visa versa, is a very intriguing one, because we can find examples of suffixes used in the derivation of nouns being repurposed to produce verbs meaning "have/make/do Noun" (rGyalrongic antipassive prefixes come to mind), and equally we can find examples of suffixes that transform nouns into "have Noun" type verbs becoming the dominant way to talk about nouns being possessed (Wichita, if I recall). I don't have enough evidence to say.
(From: https://www.academia.edu/35118474/Derived_Verbs_of_Possession_in_Uto_Aztecan_Reconstructions_and_Paths_of_Change)
Sounds like you’re doing amazing stuff! Loved the writing (especially the title) and the linguistics lesson along the way. Let’s go get ‘em.
p.s. Me and Ben are now eagle eyed auditors of ‘AI for good’ projects so watch it!!! (Or if you would like we can send some of the work by our think tank to help guide any AI for public good discussions)
Oh heck yeah, please share with us!!
I hope you're having a lovely day.
I absolutely adore this, Albee, thank you so much for the excellent storytelling!!
I love the circular causation between Aristotle and Corey Crossan...
Best,
Peter
Dear Albee,
Oh lovely we are both learning new programming systems for our organization!
I never knew Harry Frankfurt wrote an essay on that topic! Prompted me to look into him more. Do you agree with his vision of compatibilism and moral responsibility? I am quite skeptical of any attempt to tie moral responsibility to concepts of praise and blame.
Best,
Peter Tarson
I'm so happy for you!!! How are the amenities in your apartment for cooking?
Thank you for being an amazing teammate and going to the pyramids with us!
It's been lovely getting to know you! Welcome to Mexico!!