Honestly, administration takes up so much time!
Of course I knew it: administration takes time. Time to plan, time to chase people, time to redo things that were almost right. Every subproject comes with its own timeline, and managing them all? That’s a full-time job on top of the research itself. If you don’t plan for it, time runs out, fast.
A million steps
This was no armchair project—it was not just a matter of sitting in a library and pulling together sources. We were working with real people, often in vulnerable situations: people with irregular administrative status, those who had just lost a loved one, or who had experienced violence.
That means your research must go through an ethics and data commission. And that means filling out DMPs (data management plans), DPIAs (Data Protection Impact Assessments), submitting informed consent forms—in three languages!—plus questionnaires, also in three languages. And on top of that, getting permission to carry out fieldwork in Morocco.
This process depends on many people. Some respond quickly, some not at all. You find yourself writing reminders, making phone calls (yes, people still do that—de beller is sneller), and keeping track of everyone you rely on just to move one step further in your research.
And that’s just the professional admin…
On the personal side, you need to find accommodation in Morocco, sometimes give up your place back home, and if you want your expenses reimbursed, you need to keep every receipt. That’s doable in the Netherlands—but in Morocco? Not always easy. Up to you to find a way. And I haven’t even gotten to the three times I moved my entire family for a year each— first to England, then to Egypt (a move that ultimately didn’t work out), and finally to Morocco. This time, I spared myself the headache and opted for shorter visits to Morocco instead. Honestly, I just couldn’t face starting that whole process all over again.
Then the real fieldwork begins
And all of that? That was just the pre-fieldwork stage.
Because we worked remotely at first, we hired fieldwork coordinators. That meant drafting labor agreements ourselves and getting them through the system—again, in different languages. And then ensuring those coordinators also track their spending and collect receipts. Again… not always easy.
Securing your data safely
Once you start collecting data, a whole new layer of admin gets added. Working with vulnerable populations and sensitive data means securely storing everything. Veracrypt worked well—for a while. But when your audiovisual files get large, the containers can't always handle them. And in Morocco, the program didn’t always run smoothly. Sending big files to the server in Leiden? Also a challenge. Again, up to you to find a way.
The end?
I’ve already filled a page just on admin, and I’m not even close to being done. But there’s one thing I keep reminding myself: We weren’t required to apply for visas, and even if we had been, there was no real concern that they’d be refused—in contrast to some, though certainly not all, of our respondents. Curious to learn more? The Results has plenty of blogs on the topic.