Throughout the semester the group has covered the
United States and Mexico’s war on drugs. In two blog posts we explained the concept of
“war on drugs” and how the definition or reference to this phrase has altered
significantly since its first usage by President Nixon and explained the
capture of
“El Chapo” Guzman, a Drug Lord. Explaining both situations has
propelled the information about international relations and has questioned the
idea of territory, economic ambitions, the concept of violence and the idea of
terrorism.
To
explain the situations mentioned required the group to ask particular questions
that would help to find answers that answered the general idea of US and
Mexico’s War on Drugs. The first and foremost question the group needed to
answer was which topic to research. Choosing a topic caused the main obstacle
that caused difficult situations for researching, but once the group decided on
a topic, I utilized the news sources such as
Aljazeera,
BBC,
CNN World, and the
NY Times for my research. However, the information I gathered did not
necessarily reflect the whole group’s opinion on the matter. At times the group
encountered instances of disapproval with either the route we intended or the information
we gathered. Hence as a group and individually we had to understand the
information synthesized. Grasping the information on the media guided the
research based on certain topics we did not know or that we had curiosity to
learn or discuss. These topics helped as keywords when I looked through the
Gleeson Library databases, at the University of San Francisco. Scholarly
journals or Scholarly articles helped to put all the information together in
order to then write about each section or learn about what each member
mentioned. Yet, the media stories were always cited based on the context of
what any person would first rely on in order to learn about certain events in
the world and I referenced to each media outlet based on certain information
they mentioned and others did not. Overall as an individual my view would have
shown a lot of bias despite trying to write objectively but with a group the
different opinions and views helped to create a more objective perspective.
Participating
in the group definitely helped foster the principles of participation and
cooperation and also helped understand different perspectives while learning on
an individual level. I felt that the task of writing a blog was daunting
because of the effort required to work as a unit. However, the work simplified
with the cooperation and participation of each member of my group. They were
willing to accommodate and work to get the job done. I definitely learned a
different approach to research based on knowing how to ask the right questions
but I also learned how other people’s research, on the same topic, might find
different information that I would have never considered. All in all, the
ability to state a point and await some contention or in generally have the
privilege to discuss certain topics openly does draw an inspiring feeling but
also a desire to learn more about the world in the sphere of politics.
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