Summer Field Research 2011: A Two-Week Course “The Combination of Theory and Practice Based on Community Studies”
Summer Field Research 2011: A Two-Week Course “The Combination of Theory and Practice Based on Community Studies”.
The laboratory went to the field expedition which was called “The Combination of Theory and Practice Based on Community Studies”. On July, 1 students and the staff traveled from Moscow toward the Dmitrov region, and when arrived, settled and immediately set to work. Check-in day was spent on organizational issues and discussion of preliminary plans for thematic surveys. On the very next day, all the members from the supervisors to freshmen went to the sociological fields.
Hard routine, getting up early in the morning, eventful working days, discussions of the day, and plans for the next day - this is a brief description of the daily routine of any member of the expedition. Usually seminars and field days alternated. In fact, on one day all participants went to different places and collected information on the topics the lab deals with this summer. And on the second day all people wrote diaries, re
ad articles and discussed the experience of foreign researchers of communities and neighborhoods.
Rural School. Familiar, already traditional topic for the laboratory, engaged in sociology of education and science. Schools are studied comprehensively. The most interesting moments are: mechanisms of cooperation of local communities around the schools, school as the invisible center of village life, community cohesion indicator. At the same time the very social organization of rural schools in the region is also curious, especially in comparison with the existing case: the Leningrad region. Thus we had the opportunity to collect data and to compare educational paths and status expectations of schoolchildren in the Moscow region.
Poverty in Local Dimension. As part of this project we gathered materials on social protection institutions that provide assistance to problem families.
Religious Organizations. Research of the internal structure of religious communities, in particular, the most widely represented in the region Orthodox communities. Interaction of the church and local community, connection of the church and other social structures are integrated in this project.
Migration Processes and Their Impact on Rural Communities. The main issues to researchers are the causes of migration, ways to adapt to new conditions and complex impact of migration on local communities. In addition, there are some more questions: how does the interaction between different ethnic groups goes on? Why does small business in rural areas often belong to ethnic minorities? What are the mechanisms of seasonal labor migration?
The Role of Rural Library in the Social Organization of the Village. Library has many functions, in addition to book delivery, often library is the educational and information center of rural life. Discovering these hidden mechanisms that affect the cohesion and success of the settlement, and describing them was the main task of students and researchers working in this topic.
On the basis of the chosen topics, students and researchers collected general information about the life of the district, which is analyzed through the prism of neighborhood and community studies. The aims of this expedition are both educational and scientific: on the one hand, students receive field experience, interviewing and observation skills. On the other hand, under the guidance of the supervisors all student surveys will form the basis of course papers, presentations at conferences and publications. In particular, the lab plans to organize a conference in autumn, which should complete the analytical phase of empirical work.
Of course, apart from reading texts, talking with various people from the region leaders to ordinary villagers, field summer was full of small, but pleasant events.
These were birthday party, culinary delights of the members of the expedition, visits to the amazing churches with its quiet life, ruined abandoned factories, the monastery Zoo, an endless series of stuffy shops and markets, exhibitions in Dmitrov, rural holidays, and, of course, open-hearted and kind people. Drivers helped us taking to some distant villages and showing where to eat cheap. Some participants of the expedition told sad stories about growing unemployment, people cut off by bad roads of big cities, etc. Others brought stories about amazing people, whose life is so unusual that it is hard to believe that you can meet such people just on the street.