“I talked to this jeepney driver who told me he had changed his mind about this administration. He was listening to this daily radio drama where one of the characters was a drug addict who got killed in a police operation. For him, it was a turning point.” This is how Assistant Professor Cleve Kevin Robert Arguelles retells a story of one of his interviewees for his research on populist publics which earned him the distinction of best thesis in his master’s program abroad.

First love: research

Like most Political Science majors, Cleve chose his undergraduate program as a stepping stone to Law. After several Political Science courses, he began to develop an interest in politics and its relatively “non-legal” aspects, such as political dynamics and political behavior. In his senior year, he became a research assistant to Professor Dr. Clarita Carlos of the UP Diliman Department of Political Science. Dr. Carlos mentored Arguelles in a wide array of research projects which he found fascinating. It was the demand to multitask that captured his interest: working with a different agency every day, from the Metro Manila Development Authority to the International Labor Organization….

Link:  https://www.up.edu.ph/index.php/the-researcher-as-storyteller/