Photo: Julian Schmischke
 

Julian Schmischke is enrolled in the a.r.t.e.s. Research Master program. This offer of the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities, funded through the Excellence Initiative, offers highly ambitious students the opportunity to prepare for an academic career early on. During his short research stay in India, Julian was able to draw on the international network of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. From 1 April to 15 July, he was at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi, a UoC partner university.

The a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School – Top Interdisciplinary Research

The a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne stands for outstanding academic training. With its broad interdisciplinary orientation, it promotes an understanding of the diversity of knowledge processes. As the graduate school of the entire Faculty of Arts and Humanities, a.r.t.e.s. provides support to graduates from the Master’s to the postdoc phase.
All Master’s degree students at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities can apply to the Research Master program. Each summer semester there is a call for applications.

Read about Julian’s experience in New Delhi:

In my Master’s thesis, I deal with international development cooperation. I am not so much interested in whether development cooperation works or not – whether it even has the potential to work. Instead, I want to understand the effects it produces and how it produces them. These effects do not arise spontaneously; they result from the interplay between strategies, the everyday practice of their implementation and their representation. I focus on experts and practitioners working in this field. Therefore I selected an organization for my case study in which I can observe them in their everyday activities – writing reports and project proposals, going to workshops, etc.

India is an exciting research setting because since the country’s independence, “the world’s largest democracy” has been strongly shaped by development projects. Besides large international donors, many Indian NGOs, private firms and of the course the government are active in this market. We can truly speak of a “development sector” in the county. Many graduates with degrees in the arts and humanities or social sciences find their first jobs here.

The JNU campus is a wonderful retreat in the south of this hectic megacity with its heavy traffic and air pollution. The area is spacious and borders on the Delhi Ridge, the foothills of a wooded mountain ridge. The campus is dominated more by trees than by buildings, which creates a pleasant climate – especially in the summer. Some students hardly ever leave campus during this time of year because outside it is simply too hot. To get from A to B, many people use bikes, motorcycles or the buses serving campus.

“One professor offered to regularly meet with me during my stay.”

The University of Cologne has continually expanded its cooperation with JNU over the past years – most recently through the granting of the Global South Studies Center’s DAAD Thematic Network proposal “Remapping the Global South (which also provides scholarships). At the moment I am only seldom on campus, for example to use the library or to meet friends. And one professor offered to regularly meet with me during my stay to help me sort out my impressions and to discuss my experiences. These supervisory meetings with a neutral person are really helpful.

I could have lived on campus in one of the student hostels (there is a hostel exclusively for international students), but I decided to live in a communal flat with some friends from northern India. I did not want to become too comfortable on campus and not get out into the city often enough. Again I was lucky because one of the flat’s residents just moved out because he got a job in Goa.

Communal student apartments are not very widespread here in Delhi, but among young professionals they are pretty common. The apartments I saw were a bit more comfortable than the hostel rooms. But the rent is also comparable to what a student room costs in Cologne. Many people post their offers in Facebook groups. Indian students also often have board and lodging with local families as “paying guests”. But some host parents insist that they are home early every night.

Since I live in northern Delhi, I need about an hour to commute to JNU, which is on the other side of town. The Delhi Metro is a good alternative to the congested roads. But you need to bring a scarf since the air conditioning is surprisingly good. JNU does not (yet) have its own Metro station, but you can take a rickshaw from the station Hauz Khas. Delhi’s rickshaw wallahs are pretty reluctant to use their taxi meters, so this is a good opportunity to practice your negotiation skills.

There are many distractions from field research in Delhi. I love slacklining, and on the website littleblackbookdelhi I found a group that meets every Sunday in the Hauz Khas District Park. It warmly welcomes new members. Eating out is also really enjoyable. It seems like every third person I meet is a “foodie”. Foodies have their own food blogs and know where to get the best momos, which new restaurant has just opened and when the next “foodwalk” around the old town will take place.

Sometimes you can visit two or three cafés or restaurants in one evening: first happy hour in one place because the beer is cheap, then a kebab roll on the one market, and then a proper dinner at a new south Indian restaurant. Often I also just meet for a chai at Connaught Place (CP) in the city center at the end of the day to let all new  impressions sink in.