D. KHODORENKO AND E. KOCHKIN ABOUT FIELDWORK IN GOROHOVETS
Summer school for field sociological research lead by Ivan Pavlutkin took place from July 21st to August 4th 2011 in a small town Gorohovets in Vladimirsky region.
Summer school for field sociological research lead by Ivan Pavlutkin took place from July 21st to August 4th 2011 in a small town Gorohovets in Vladimirsky region. This school was organized by the Laboratory for Studies in Economic Sociology and the Sociological Club “The City”. It was very interesting for us to look at work by another research group, find out about our colleagues’ academic interests and to carry out joint fieldwork. This is important, because we have a chance to meet mainly at conferences, seminars and round tables. Everyone presents results of work already done. But it is pretty fascinating and useful to collect data together.
We knew about the Summer School in Vladimirsky region beforehand, because the planning and preparation of SESL’s school were carried out simultaneously with the preparation of the school in Gorohovets. We were invited to take part in the school organized by our colleagues from Moscow when Ivan Pavlyutkin and Alisa Maksimova visited us in the Dmitrovsky district of Moscow region. Colleagues spent the whole work day “in the field”. They shared their working plans in Gorohovets with and invited us to take part in the expedition. Both activities are supposed to result in a joint conference in October. The participants will share the outcomes of their work.
Researchers and students from Moscow came to Vladimirsky region to work on several different projects. Junior years’ students joined more experienced researchers. Such cooperation made it possible for students to learn how to take interviews while they participated in data collection for their tutors’ projects. Although the work was carried out in several small groups, collective discussions of projects also took place. Any participant could organize such meeting where the whole group discussed his or her project criticizing it and sharing different points of view. Besides, much attention was paid to the difficulties which students encounter in the field, to what was complicated about taking interviews. It was especially important for those participants who came to such fieldwork for the first time.
Participants’ research objectives differed a lot. For example, it was important for Andrey Korbut to study the professional practices at the library and how its work is organized. Petya Martynenko, Lana Rydkina and Nadya Mahanova were interested in the financial behavior of the Gorohovets residents. They interviewed ordinary people and bank employees about how and what for people borrow money on credit. One of the topics which might make one feel creepy is topic of Julia Koloshenko and Anya Zueva. Their work touched upon the sacred and profane in rituals connected with death. During data collection process they visited a lot of funeral services shops. Alisa Maksimova observed the interactions of sellers and customers at the local market. Varvara Kobyscha looked at practices of interaction with the urban space during city-tours. Nastya Mokrousova not only took interviews, but also asked her informants to draw a city plan in order to study how the Gorohovets dwellers percept the urban space. Ivan Pavlyutkin worked on a project devoted to perception of religiosity in a small town.
The town which was chosen for this expedition by our colleagues from Moscow is very small. There are about 13000 dwellers there, neat streets with private houses, blocks of flats with clean yards and children’s playgrounds, signs on the buildings’ walls “The streets are watching”. Gorohovets is a part of Small Golden Ring of Russia. Beautiful merchants’ houses, churches, ancient monasteries remained there. The town’s administration organizes town celebrations often and tries to attract as many tourists as possible.
Along with the positive atmosphere of the city’s appearance there are also problems. For example, lack of jobsites due to the closing of the town forming enterprise 15 years ago and another large enterprise in spring 2011. The dwellers told us almost in every interview how these changes affected their families’ and the town’s life. Local administration makes efforts in order to prevent increase of juvenile delinquency because of these changes. Conditions favorable for children to be permanently looked after and provided with organized leisure time are being created. At least 7-8 summer camps work in the town for children from preschool age during summer holidays. The dwellers don’t lose their optimism in the new circumstances and maintain social order in the town.
We went to speak with the local residents in order to get an idea about the town on the first day. In the evening of the same day our colleagues from Moscow joined us, and we decided to talk with the local youth about schools’ organization. It should be mentioned that there are hardly some places in Gorohovets where young people could spend time. Therefore, high school students sit on benches in the town center or behind the schools. We got a general idea about the way the town lives after the first day of fieldwork and outlined our further plans.
In general we managed to take several interviews with people who described their life in Gorohovets in details during the time we spent in the town. These interviews might be useful for projects carried out at SESL. We managed to talk to a college’s principal, the head of the town’s center for social security, the head of the Charity house and an orphanage, a school teacher. We also took some other important interviews. As a result, we completely joined in the fieldwork with our colleagues from Moscow.
The students and researchers obtained not only data which will be useful for research, but also numerous impressions during the summer school. An outstanding event for everybody was meeting a school Biology teacher Andrey Siseykin. He takes part in every event important for the town. He was ready to give an interview to sociologists even without being asked for that. Moreover, excellent city-tours were organized for us. They were carried out in the framework of one of the research projects on the cultural space of Gorohovets.
There were also rather pleasant everyday things, for example, invariable omelette for breakfast and “Pelmennaya”. There are no pelmeni served there anymore, but almost all the funeral feasts are held there. We won’t forget the Bald mountain, wonderful Klyaz’ma, evening talks with tea and a lot of different things. The most important are the interesting and clever people around us full of ideas and enthusiasm.
We would like to thank all the organizers of this expedition for the opportunity to take part in it and to emphasize the interesting joint work with our colleagues. We will meet at the conference next time for the discussion of results obtained in two expeditions. There is a lot of work ahead of us: we are supposed to analyze our data and prepare reports or articles. We wish everyone good luck with that!
By Darya Khodorenko and Eugeny Kochkin