My Research Question
My research question experienced a long evolutionary process in the past month: from the focus on the young workers to graduates of arts and humanities, and to cities’ arts and humanities projects. Finally, I submitted my draft with the question as below:
How can small manufacture-based cities explore their opportunities in the development of arts and humanities projects? — a case study of Wenzhou city in China
After finalizing the question on last Tuesday, I presented it twice in two different places and got the feedback a bit differently.
The first was in the language class during which I shared my draft proposal to the language tutor and the classmate. Since they have already got my basic ideas before and looked at the content in the written form, it seemed to be more understandable for them in terms of my research question.
However, within the new tutorial on this Monday, when I orally presented my research question to the new tutorial group, it seemed not clear enough to be understood and I got the suggestion of changing the way of expression from the new tutor.
It should be a good point to reflect on. The evolutionary process has probably led to my fixed mindset in choices of the words influenced by the previously generated question. However, the exposure to the new audience helped me jump out of my existing logic and consider how to express my current focuses in a more appropriate way.
Currently, the latest version of my question:
How can small manufacture-based cities explore their own cultural significance? — a case study of Wenzhou city in China
My Methodology
The previous tutor found our unclarity in describing the part for “how” and provided a useful tool called Research Onion Model to help identify our methodologies.
Here are some links:
Based on the model, I attempted to figure out my choices and preferences in terms of the six layers.
Layer1 – Research Philosophy: Pragmatism
Layer2 – Research Approach: Both Inductive and deductive (I should refer to the successful practices in cultural construction of cities as well as generate something new) / Qualitative research preferred (but I am not sure whether my intervention should be defined as qualitative, quantitative, or both)
Layer3 – Research Strategy: Action research
Layer4 – Choices of Method: Maybe mixed method (1 qualitative + 1 quantitative)
Layer5 – Time Horizon: Hopefully longitudinal research, but it might be limited by the time (since we only have 5 months left) and energy (longitudinal research is usually applied by teams, so it is better to look for my co-workers if I want to be longitudinal)
Layer6 – Techniques & Procedures: I intended to create an online community which might be defined as a mass archive to invite citizens to participate in the construction of cultural database of Wenzhou city as well as devise the ways to promote the community
Such a model is quite helpful in revealing my missing points as well as checking the feasibility of my methodology.
My Positionality
On Tuesday’s class, the discussion on our positionality as a researcher made me generate some questions towards myself:
What’s my background and position? Am I an insider or outsider?
Wenzhou is my hometown. I moved from Wenzhou to Shanghai with the family when I was 12. After that, I generally visit my hometown once or twice a year with no more than one week at a time. With the vanity of living in the big city and my social network which was built mostly in Shanghai in the past 15 years, I tended to view myself as a new Shanghainese.
However, partly influenced by my parents, I gradually sensed my nostalgia toward Wenzhou as I grew up, and I even found recently that my comfort food is actually flavored in Wenzhou style…
Based on that, I viewed myself as both insider and outsider.
What is my relationship with my stakeholders?
They are residents of the city I concern about.
They share with me the pride and affection toward the city.
They are intelligent people who might provide constructive ideas.
They might be beneficiaries of growing cultural market and economy.
How will my positionality affect the process of community building？
Being both an insider and an outsider, I might pay more attention in guiding participants to focus on the distinctiveness of cultural assets in Wenzhou.
There is an another experience about myself which drives my extra attention to uniqueness. I used to work as a visual merchandiser for several years, which allowed me to travel between many small cities in China. Conducting a short city walk, visiting regional museums, flea markets or vintage shops and tasting local street food gradually became my routines during the very limited leisure time apart from the work, from which I could get a glimpse of the most interesting parts of those cities.
How wonderful if these parts could be discussed more often by the public!
