Phantom Projects

One of the most difficult things about being an anthropologist is battling phantom projects. Those always occur at the same crucial moment in time: I think about a topic, develop some ideas on it, read up on the literature, start to write drafts and outlines, sketch a structure and timetables, methodologies and possible outcomes, and when the time comes to finish it up, suddenly a completely different idea grabs my fancy, seems very alluring and for a few days I am leading myself to believe that this is a much more interesting and fascinating project. Of course it isn't, just something entirely different, and after a few days I realize this and abandon it. The phantom projects spring from a fear of closure, of having to stick with and being identified with the final project while being unsure about its outcome. It's an anxiety that is linked with the open nature of anthropological inquiry and the doubt about whether it will generate any kind of interesting data.