By Feng Chen, 07/15/2018. In the first week of my field study in Delhi, my priority was to overcome my jetlag, arrange my life, and establish my social network. I realized that the challenge for researchers to conduct fieldwork abroad was not only about the theoretical framework or research design, but also about their physical and mental health. Namely, researchers need to find a comfortable spot to immerse themselves in the local community for observation.
The host that I found on Airbnb is a doctor who has a beautiful white house in Vasant Vihar, Southwest of Delhi. His roof top garden is full of tropical plants. Interestingly, he built three separate guest rooms with attached kitchen and toilet respectively and put them all on Airbnb. Since he managed everything so well, he won the title of “Super Host”. Later on, I found out that he has several people working for him, including a gardener, a cleaner, a guard, and a maid. Yet when I tried to communicate with those people, I found that they barely spoke English. Then I think of an Indian scholar who told me how English divides skilled and low skilled people in India.
The plan for me to conduct my field study in July is as follows. First, I will visit a few outstanding Indian scholars who are also working on the relevant research. It is important to ask for their advice on my research design. I have been struggling to narrow down my focus, since I have too many factors to look at. I have to curb the attempts to put all factors in my basket, since it wouldn’t make any sense to measure or compare any impact of one factor without controlling other factors. Besides, my research question also needs to polish again, with better connection to what I can find.
Second, I will arrange meetings with my potential informants, one to two hours for each. Some of them are Indian returnees who work in Delhi after their graduation in the United States, while some of them are students who have still been studying abroad but back for family visits. The common ground that my informants share is that they all have both education or even work experience in the United States and India, and they have made or are making the decision between migration and return.
Originally, I tend to ask what factors affect Indian immigrants’ decision making in staying in the United States, or returning to India. Yet, after a raft of literature review and advice seeking, I tend to concentrate on the impact of migration on the existing social structure. Specifically, whether migration a practical way for individuals to resist the existing social order? Does migration increase or reduce the social inequality? Does migration challenge or reinforce the existing social stratification?