From the Self to the Community

Abstract

Research Article| April 01 2023 From the Self to the Community: Experiences of a First-Generation Researcher in India Devina Sarwatay Devina Sarwatay Devina Sarwatay is senior research fellow (UGC-NET) and PhD candidate in the Department of Communication, University of Hyderabad, India. She researches young people and social media with Professor Usha Raman. She is also webinar series manager of the Media Education Lab, University of Rhode Island, USA, and research associate, FemLab and CDMC-MICA working on Digital Creativity and Global Kids Online-India. Her latest lead- and co-authored work is published in Information, Communication & Society (won the ICA CAM Best Published Article Award 2023), Media International Australia, Frontiers in Human Dynamics, Journal of Communication, as well as in Routledge and Wiley-Blackwell Handbooks. She regularly presents her work at conferences like ICA, IAMCR, and AoIR. You can reach her at Twitter: @DevinaSarwatay. email: devina.sarwatay@gmail.com Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar email: devina.sarwatay@gmail.com Journal of Autoethnography (2023) 4 (2): 298–304. https://doi.org/10.1525/joae.2023.4.2.298 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Devina Sarwatay; From the Self to the Community: Experiences of a First-Generation Researcher in India. Journal of Autoethnography 1 April 2023; 4 (2): 298–304. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/joae.2023.4.2.298 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentJournal of Autoethnography Search I believe I have been extremely fortunate in my research career so far: being at the right place at the right time and finding the right people to guide me into the right opportunities or helping me to create them. As far as I know, I am a first-generation researcher who happened to have the best time of my life during my master’s when I was introduced to research. My contributions in the first practical rural immersion research project and the final master’s dissertation were received well by expert examiners, giving me the confidence needed to go through the selection process for an MPhil. I imagined this second exclusively research-oriented master’s degree would act as a trial run before I signed up for a longer commitment of a PhD. In the meantime, I also cleared a competitive national examination1 that would fund my PhD. As I am writing this... You do not currently have access to this content.