A Talk with Melissa: Informal Interview Method

Since my last field study, I think I have always known that informal interviewing is the method I enjoy the most-or the kind of interviewing that does not look or feel like an interview.  Especially if I am going to be collecting stories while I am in India, there is no better way to kill the details than to try and direct the questions in a way they do not go naturally.  For my methods practice, I decided to talk to Melissa, who was the facilitator last spring/summer to McLeod Ganj, India, and based on her insights I think there a few things I am going to have to rethink.  Here are just a few to help me organize my thoughts.

 Population Range- I think that when I walk talking about my project and formed my previous project question, I wanted to collect stories within McLeod Ganj.  Melissa told me that the Indians and other peoples who inhabit Dharamsala are kept separate from the Tibetans in order to preserve their culture identity.  If that is the case, I want to modify my project to look at Dharamsala instead of McLeod.                 

Mid-semester Retreat- Most groups have gone to the Golden Temple for their trip, which sounds fantastic to me.  I wish I could remember the names of a few of the other cities mentioned... but I was relived that a few of my group members really wanting to see the Taj Mahal will be able to get both, because the city with the Taj is located right outside Dehli.

Expectations- I need to recognize once and for all that this is not going to be anything like my experiences in Ghana.  Here TV's are blaring everywhere I go, tourism really is the industry of the place, and this is a city, not a village.  I will not be dressed in any old thrift store clothes, and I might even be packing my makeup this time around.  I think it is going to be another great adventure, but I need to remember that it will not be Ghana.

Why am I going here?  Melissa asked me why I wanted to go to India to begin with (probably because she was surprised that I do not like TVs).  I told her that I always have been fascinated with India and eastern religion in general.  It is unlike anything we seem to have here, and it is a whole new realm for me.  I think I was more interested in Hinduism at the start, but after taking my Peoples of India Class I am convinced that Hinduism is so complex that a 3 month field study probably will not even scratch the surface.  Buddhism on the other hand, has also been fascinating to me.  I used to have a Buddhist temple near my house when I was a kid, and it always had that lure to it.  In my World Religions survey class I took last year I was also fascinated with how Tibetan Buddhism has been able to sustain itself despite the threat of dying out completely, and it would be cool to see that in action.  However, I think more than anything though, my decision to go to North India was that it felt right.  Living in the ridges of the Himalayas amongst these people just sounds so amazing, and I am excited to learn from them.

Melissa also shared her interpretation of the "Middle Path" with me.  After reading various eastern texts, the whole concept of not being attached to people did not make a lot of sense to me.  Based on her experience, she said that it is not about being a hermit, and far from it, but not letting your happiness depend on others.  I like that...

General Recommendations?  Melissa says to befriend a nun, take a Hindi class (to make a friend, not because the teaching is supreme), and say a quick prayer before I have to pick where different members of my group live for the next three months with only a few sentences of background on each family. 

So yes, informal interviewing means that there is minimal control over the direction of the conversation on the interviewers side, but there are things I want to know that I do not know I want to know.  For this reason, even though it has down sides, it is the most appropriate for the project I will be conducting.

Wow.  I am living in three months!

January 26, 2011: Learning Journal 2

It really has been quite the week in developing my creative writing project in Dharamsala, India for this spring and summer field study.  In many ways I feel like I am experienced in what field work looks like, but at the same time this new project I am constructing is so different from what I was studying last summer in Ghana (looking at attitudes towards literature).

What I am most excited for is that unlike my experience in Ghana, McLeod Ganj will be less structured.  Before I was waking up everyday to go to school where sometimes my time was spent well, and other times it did not do much.  Because looking at the different stories that make up the community will be so much more broad, I will have the freedom to spend my time hunting down the stories that will be most meaningful to me.  Do not get me wrong, I think that structure is good in a variety of cases, but for me, this time I think that going with the snowball sampling is really going to be most beneficial.  At the same time, without that structure getting access to the community and finding my audience could be a lot trickier than it was in Ghana.

So here is where I am at.  After reading Emily Bell's project proposal and final project after doing a creative writing project in the same location I will be going to, I am confidant that this is what I want to be studying.  The most heartening thing I got from her papers was that the Dalai Lama has encouraged newcomers to the community to share their stories with the world.  In Emily's experience, Tibetans were more than willing to share their personal stories.  This is good news for me, but there are also others people dwelling in Dharamsala that I want to include in this portrait I am doing of the location.  I do not know how willing they will be to share their stories, and of course, ethics are going to be something I have to keep in mind the entire time.

Also, as far as my avatar method (different lenses and mediums I experiment with to show the nature of narrative), I will have a different experience this time around.  In Ghana, I had five that were looking at different aspects of my own personality.  The first three worked out really well.  They were a photographer, a romantic anthropologist, and a postmodern writer.  However, my native avatar and "experiencer" avatar were not quite so successful.  I think that my "experiencer" has some potential, I am just not sure what to do about it yet.  Here is a basic sketch of what avatars I think I will bring with me to McLeod Ganj, India.  I won't take them all, I just have to get my ideas out there.

The Photographer (though may need to do some modifications based on type of photography)
The Romantic Anthropologist (because someone needs to tackle the student portion of the project)
The Tourist (could be very effective, especially with being in a tourist community and being a foreigner myself)
The Postmodern Writer (someone with my own voice who will tell stories creatively)
The Poet (a new one! but I think it could be very viable)
The Experiencer (can I work it to make it worthwhile?)

Any other ideas out there?  I am so excited to get started!  Maybe a methods practice will be beneficial for me....

Questions of Narrative Identity: A Personal Narrative in Dharamsala, India by Emily Bell

 Looking again at Emily Bell's experience, I found her project proposal in the online database of field study papers and once again found a lot of great information to help me in my preparation for a creative writing project in Dharamsala, India.  At the same time, I was able to see more clearly where our projects are going to be different.

In this project proposal, narrative theory is defined as "the study of story, whether or not the story is written
down. It explores how and why humans tell stories to themselves and each other. Because storytelling is one of the oldest and most universal forms of communication, narrative theory argues that individuals often view their world through a lens of perceived narrative and make decisions within a narrative framework (Thomas)."  The source for that definition is found at the end of this review.

Emily states off the get go that telling stories is a "long standing tradition in humanity."  She goes on to explain why Dharamsala is a good location for her to write her creative project.  She says that the location is diverse enough that she could see if narrative was really universal, that there are plenty of places to volunteer at (which was what she planned to do on a daily basis), and that the had the interest necessary to do it.  When thinking about my project, my motivations are slightly different.  I have not taken the time to polish them, but I think my motivations come from desire (in that we are the same), the diversity, but in a different sense, because I want to look at the different people and do a portrait of them, and also to help raise awareness for the Tibetan cause by writing about these stories that the Dalai Lama himself has encouraged people to tell.

One thing that I really liked in reviewing Emily's project proposal was what she says about ethics, and her concern to be ethical.  I think especially when I am going for a creative project, it is important that I emphasize that this is not going to technically be research like so many of my other field study students.  I wonder if it will be more tricky for me though.  Emily looked at her own personal experience and wrote an account based on that, but I will be looking at the stories of others.  I will be careful in crafting my IRB proposal, but it is definitely something I need to be aware of when establishing the differences between our projects.

She identifies two differences in narrative theory that were helpful for establishing appropriate background on the subject.  You can either look at it in terms of the great works of our times (ie. the Iliad, Odyssey, etc), or on the day to day scale, which has been the emphasis lately.

A question I have for Emily is how her final project turned out.  I reviewed the final she included in the field study database, but in this proposal she said that her final would be a novella, around 100-200 pages in length.  This will be something I ask her when I get a chance to interview her about her experience.  

One of the most important things Emily included in her proposal that will help me is her own sources.  I have included these here for my own personal reference to do more research on my subject:

Structure and Identity: A Personal Examination of Universal Narrative by Emily Bell

Emily Bell was a field study student who went to Dharamsala, India to study narrative theory in the spring/summer of 2010.  We were friends in the prep class required for our program, and it was nice to have a fellow English major to try to relate to in the sea of all these research projects.  After reading this final paper, I am really grateful that it is available on the field study database because there is a lot of useful information here not only in terms of location, but also my new project idea.  Here is what I gathered from it.

First, I've just got to say that I relate completely when Emily states that people would look at her strange when she would say she was doing a "creative writing project."  This was my experience in Ghana, and it looks like I will have the same experience in India.  Whenever she wanted to sound extra smart, she would say she was studying "narrative theory."  Mine?  "I am studying the authenticity of experience in travel writing."  How is that to swallow?

There were several quotes I pulled from this reading that really related to my project.  Emily says that "everyone has a story" and that the people there are especially good at telling it."  She goes on to say that she was surprised at how "readily Tibetans will talk about their lives here."  Some of it she says is from a sense of responsibility since the "Dalai Lama himself has encouraged all newcomers to share their experiences with the world" (3).  This statement is golden!  I have got to find the original source for that.  It gives me hope that this is a feasible project and that I might be helping with their goals if I am able to write their stories.  If anything, telling me their story is not as invasive as it could have potentially been seen.

Emily goes on to say that "stories have power.  Life does not happen in stories, but we think in stories" (4).  This is where we get to some of her sources she mentions and the narrative theory she was looking at.  She cites two other works I have copied here:

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2004. Print.

This source talks about the universal narrative and could be something to look further into.  She also defines something called an "Elixir," or the process of the hero taking home her or her new found knowledge from being abroad that is essential to stories.

Fisher, Walter R. Human Communication as Narration: Toward a Philosophy of Reason, Value, and Action. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina, 1987. Print.

This source she mentions goes into how we are constantly recreating our lives through stories and how we tell stories to ourselves about ourselves.

Both of these external sources I think would be great to look into, but more than anything I was just grateful to look through this final paper and look at her experience as an English major writing a story in McLeod Ganj.  After reading this paper I definitely want to get together and have a discussion on her findings.  This has been one of the best sources I have encountered so far, and it got me excited for my project!

January 26, 2011: Time Log

60 min- exploring the new field study database with student papers

30 min- browsing through the Tibetan book of the dead and seeing what could interest me in the future

30 min- brain storming what exactly I will be doing day by day in the field.  Wondering if I should like up with another organization like Emily did, or if stories will be easy to find?

60 min- looking through other field study blogs and making comments

 60 min- reading Emily Bell's papers in the database and writing a lit review on them

 30 min- writing learning journal

50 min- in class on Jan 19, 2011

Total: 350 min

January 19, 2011: Learning Journal 1

Wow, our workshop in the facilitator prep class yesterday was really useful for me.  Each of us looked at the different aspects of our project to make sure all of the pieces fit together, and surprise surprise, I have some work to do.  I now have a better idea of how to be grounded and to trim my project accordingly.  Let me just show you what my initial question was, and then what it turned into...

First, I'll like to say that before I went to class my question was even more different.  My beginning project idea was to look at how both Indians and Tibetans retain their religious identity in a tourist community.  I still like that idea, but I guess it just did not spark.

Initial Question for Class: What role do stories play in preserving cultural identity in Dharamsala, India?

By the end of class I came up with this new project question: "What populations and stories make up the current identity of McLeod Ganj, India?"

It needs some work, but it is more where I want to be.  I will be continuing the method that I used in Ghana using different avatars to explore the nature of experience and the authenticity of our narratives abroad.  How does this method fit my  new topic?  Well, I think that while I am gathering stories and putting together a creative writing project that gives this sort of conglomerate portrait of this unique location, I need to show the selection process that goes along with that.  Yes, stories are incredibly important, but I still believe, especially since my work in Ghana, that we need to raise skepticism about how they are produced, and recognize them for what they really are.  Limited, subjective interpretations of our fragile memories and experiences.

So that brings us to today!  I guess my apprehensions at this point come from not knowing what I will be doing day to day, or what collecting stories looks like.  Ashley said that I lose my focus and grounding when I start exploring the literature culture in the location, and I totally agree, but I was reassured this does not mean I cannot attend a poetry reading.  Haha, still.  After all this reading of different populations in India with their oral traditions I have a peeked curiosity. 

January 19, 2011: Time Log

Let's say... since our first field facilitator class meeting...

30 min- Exploring different library sources looking for keywords containing India, Tibet, and Storytelling.  So far oral tradition brings up more options, but there is still a weeding process that I need to do more of to get more sources.

400 min- Starting and finishing the book Nine Lives by William Dalrymple.  It gave me a great introduction to India, to Dharamsala, and the style inspired me to take my project in a bit of a different direction.

120 min- Tibetan language class, going over the alphabet and learning how to create words from there

50 min- Attending field facilitator class January 12th, 2011

50 min- Attending the prep class January 14th, 2011

120 min- Attending yoga and meditation class at the Hare Krishna temple (sorry Ashley, I know how you feel about that, but it was a cool experience all the same!)

30 min- Finding more sources in the library

30 min- Creating this blog

30 min- Writing posts on my project development and on my beginning lit review

50 min- Attending Paul Adam's lecture about improving photography while abroad

Total: 910 minutes!

Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India by William Dalrymple

Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India by William Dalrymple

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This was a great text, especially for a must needed introduction to India. There is so much to cover that I think it is almost impossible to really cover, but Dalrymple's style gives individual flavor that helped it seem more real and personal instead of a giant conglomerate, "India."

There were a lot of things that I had a difficult time coming to terms with. The life of the Jain nun for instance, and especially the chapter about devadasi's (religious prostitutes from my interpretation). I am not quite sure how to deal with these stories, especially coming from an anthropological point of view and trying to be culturally sensitive, but how can someone like me even begin to grasp the sense in, say, the sallekhana (choosing to end your life as a final offering of this illusion we call our lives)?

I noticed that a common theme in these tales were the intoxication of living a simple life on the road. It makes me wonder if the desire to be on the move is a part of all of us no matter where we were born. I wonder if I was born into that paradigm if I would give up my life to it. I remember learning about what it was like in the middle ages in England and I would have honestly rather have done a pilgrimage than have been married during that time. I'm not sure that this is so different.

I do wonder a little bit about the authenticity of some of these tales, or what the selection process was for the author, which brings me back to my research.  I think it is important to recognize that even by trying to remove himself from the stories they are all still his interpretation of the narratives.

The thing I enjoyed the most about this book, however, was the chapter about the monk from Dharamsala. I plan on spending this summer there, and hearing a personal account of the Chinese invasion really made this so much more real to me. As part of my research, I am now considering looking at some of the stories shared about their exile and do maybe a creative writing portrait of this location- sort of like a portrait if you will.  Based on a lot of the tales in this book I think I could also cover some ground with the literature culture.  I owe a lot to this book for helping me develop my project. I recommend that anyone wanting to get better acquainted with India read this book.

Dalrymple, William.  Nine Lives In Search of the Sacred in Modern India.  New York:  Borzoi Book, 2009.  Print.


View all my reviews

Extra Source

Since the first week of class we were not clear if we were doing 1 or 2 sources each week, I did an additional source to make up for only having one source the first week.

It can be found here.

Here We Go Again!

I should have started this blog awhile ago.  It is a continuation of the research I began in Ghana, Africa with the field studies program at BYU experimenting with different mediums and methods in travel writing while exploring the authenticity of experience.  My time in Ghana was amazing, and that project can be found here.  This time, however, I am continuing my research in a very different part of the world.
McLeod Ganj, a suburb of Dharamsala, India.

This is a town nestled between the ridges of the majestic Himalayas.  It is the home of His Holiness the Dalai Lama along with the Tibetan government living in exile, still trying to win their homeland back from China.

After completing my first field study I recognize just how much I do not know about this community.  Going as a field facilitator also makes that experience a little more interesting.  I am, however, anxious to learn more and to have yet another great experience abroad while exploring my topic of interest.

Here is where I am at so far... just to document the exploration phase of my project.  I am going to stick to my avatar approach where I looked at how different mediums and viewpoints altered the my experience as a single traveler.  My framework will essentially be the same (except I will polish it up based on my conclusions from Ghana), but this time I am exploring a different topic while in the field.

At first I wanted to look at how both Tibetans and Hindu's maintain their religious identity while in a tourist community.  After reading the book Nine Lives In the Search of the Sacred in Modern India by William Dalrymple, however, I am looking at two other topics that could be of interest.  First, what is the literacy culture like.  So many of the stories found in this book looked at poetry, ancient texts, and story telling, and I am curious how those play a role in raising awareness for the Tibetan cause.  Another idea, based on the format Dalrymple wrote this book in, would be to have a creative writing project as my final product in addition to my blog.  What I think would be interesting would be to get a kind of portrait of Dharamsala-just talk to different people and hear their stories and get a sense for this community.  It was only after reading the chapter on Dharamsala in this book that I was really able to stop objectifying the Chinese invasion of Tibet.  It made it more personal, more real, and it ignited something in me that I would like to take a part in.

So that is where I am at the moment.  Stay tuned, because like field work, the project always tend to evolve the more you dissect it and put it back together again.