Lancaster University’s Department of Languages and Cultures provied me with a great opportunity to work as a research assistant of Dr Cornelia Gräbner in cooperation with Centro Académico de la Memoria de Nuestra América (CAMeNA). Dr Gräbner supervised my weekly research so we could produce teaching material based on the collection J: War Correspondents in Central America from 1962-2009; more specifically, about the war correspondence during the civil war in Salvador 1979 – 1992.

I began my work by researching background information: the history of war correspondence, women’s journalism, war reporting, and the history of the civil war in El Salvador. I wanted to immerse myself into the topic of journalism and the politico-historical context of the Salvadorian war so that I could understand more easily the CAMeNA archival sources I was about to use. The role of women in journalism and especially war reporting was extremely important since Collection J was donated by journalists Blanche Petrich and María Cortina. Journalism was and still is, to some extent, an unfavourable environment for women. Their writing is often perceived as more emotional than men’s, whilst mothers are strongly stigmatized for leaving children at home and travelling for work purposes, especially to war zones. Moreover, I realized how closely journalism can be tied to political power. Even though I was aware of everyday media bias and the media’s allegiance to powerful politicians, I had no idea how journalism sometimes ‘makes’ political figures, e.g. Winston Churchill was a war correspondent during the Boer War before entering the political scene.

The most exciting part of my placement was researching different sub-collections of CAMeNA’s Collection J. Researching the historical background of El Salvador’s civil war, I understood the complexity of the conflict and also the problems that arise while researching it. Most of the publicly available documents and publications are written from the US perspective, without consideration for the tensions within El Salvador and its internal problems. American involvement in this civil war and its substantial help for the government forces is often understated, but rhetoric created by President Regan is optimistically accepted as the “true version” of events. For these reasons, I wanted to present the different perspectives in reporting the El Salvador civil war, the ones that would also acknowledge the complexity of the guerrilla forces. I have researched documents from the two sub-collections: journalism and the armed forces. Collection J stores thousands of newspaper scans, reports, and documents from the time of the civil war. I chose reports from three different sources: newspaper articles from Blanche Petrich who reported on the Salvadoran war for the Mexican newspaper La Jornada; publications from an international solidarity project, the U.S. based Salvador Education Project; and statements produced by Radio Venceremos, the underground voice of the guerrilla group Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front. The abundance of material available via CAMeNA made it extremely difficult to choose only three documents since even the shortest piece of writing seems to be an essential part of war correspondence during that time.

Finally, Dr Gräbner and I put researched material together to create concise teaching material. Outlining skills and aims that would underpin the analysis of sources was one of the most difficult tasks. It made me realize how academic work not only provides theoretical knowledge but also creates the space for students to acquire skills that are necessary for them to consciously participate in society, and also their future employment. When it comes to teaching material, I have prepared a presentation that would introduce participants to the history of El Salvador and the civil war specifically. I have also chosen supportive material that provides more detailed background reading. Since the number of new names and terms could be quite overwhelming and confusing, I decided to produce a short glossary of terms that would support the reading and source analysis. The handout with questions for the analysis for the journalist reports was based on the "Origin, Purpose, Content, Value, Limitations" technique of analysing sources. Each of the sources was supposed to be analysed separately to be later brought together in the comparative analysis of all three of them.

The highlight of my placement came about rather unexpectedly. I was asked to lead a teach-out at Gregson Community Centre in Lancaster with Dr Gräbner. The session, titled “Nurturing the Capacity to Resist: Learning from the Academic Centre for the Memory of Our America in Mexico, Case Study: Reporting on Salvador’s Civil War”, was a great opportunity to test the teaching material we prepared together. Presenting researched material and leading a discussion gave me an idea of both the struggles and joys of being a teacher.

I am extremely happy I was able to be a research assistant. It assured me that I would want and enjoy being a researcher while working at a university, and it helped me to develop my skills and experience, becoming a first step towards a future job in academia.