Assignment 307

Suggested themes for the group assignment
 Construction workers on campus: Visit a workers’ residential area, speak to a cross-section of

workers to find out where they come from, why they chose to do this work how did they come
here, what are their wages, do they get it on time, what are their living conditions, what are
their aspirations for their children and for themselves, do their requirements find an empathetic
addressal from their employers, how do they compare their working conditions in IIT with those
before. Be attentive to differences in expressions within them, find out why. Not only talk but
also observe and do a field diary of your observations.
 Contract workers (mess, housekeeping, security, office staff, administration) : Take any one of
these categories and speak to them in different settings (mess workers in different companies,
in private and institute run messes; housekeeping workers working for different companies etc.)
 Fee-hike student protestors: What are they protesting against, and on whose behalf; are they
challenging only this instance of fee hike or are they trying to safeguard ‘public’ education itself?
What were their strategies and what thinking went behind those strategies, what was the
composition of the protesting group, what consequences do they foresee, how do they see the
student population?
 Faculty offices as symbolic statements: campus culture, distinction-making, class, gender, caste,
religion; skills: observation, interview, evidence to claim-making, writing
 Personal history: Each of you write a short note on your own life asking yourself how your ‘social
location’ may have a bearing on the choices you made, how changes in society perhaps shaped
the decisions you made etc. Once you have completed writing this note, get together as a group,
read each of your notes and then begin compile an essay on the relationship between biography
and social history.
 Understanding social location: gender, class, caste, place of childhood, religions, all these
present to each of us differential structures of opportunities. This exercise is to interview
diversely located individuals to appreciate and analyse the effect of social locations.
 Learning to appreciate difference—cultural, legal, moral—from/of one another : Sociology helps
us both appreciate and critique ‘doxa’, our inability to see the world from another culture’s
perspective. This exercise is to interview individuals from different backgrounds focusing on
certain practices and attitudes, and the analyse the results.
 Doing gender in a departmental store—cloth, footwear, grooming, toys : This exercise is to
describe and analyse a store like say Westside or Marks & Spencer participate and reproduce
genderedness. Why and how a piece of cloth or toy or greeting card or perfume gender
differentiated? Read the description on products, speak to the sales executives and managers
and customers.
 Norm, obedience, deviance: Observe, interview and then analyse the diverse food places on the
campus—say compare your hostel mess with gulmohur with the kresit /hostel/dept canteens.
And observe what are the unstated but effective social norms; why do individuals behave
accordingly; what happens if someone deviates? What does that tell us about food and its
rootedness in the social norms.
 Housework and division of labour: interview your mother, father, grand parents and siblings.
How and why is housework organised in the way it is, ask if it has changed over generations.
These are only suggestions. You could choose from any of these or let me know if you have some other
theme in mind. You will have to make a group of five. I need to know a) the composition of the groups,
b) the theme chosen and a 100-word write-up on why it is interesting and what the plan is by next
Friday (30.09.2022). Once I get to know the themes, I will send you detailed guidelines.
***
General guidelines:
a) No matter which theme you choose, it requires some basic fieldwork. Even if you have chosen
‘personal history’, you must consider your groupmates as your field.
b) We have familiarised ourselves with many definitions/descriptions of what sociologists do
—‘critique of commonsense’, ‘double vision’, ‘debunking’, ‘connecting private troubles with
public issues’, ‘intersection of biography, history and sociality’. We know that to do sociology is
to ask the three questions that we discussed. We also looked at Weber’s work on the
Protestant ethic as an illustration of doing sociology. The most significant criterion to evaluate
your final report is whether any of those considerations and insights is/are used in your
understanding and analysis. Mind you, this does not mean that you simply repeat those
discussions but weave them, use them in the way think about the data that you have generated.
c) About generating data. As I have said time and again, sociology is a systematic mode of
thinking. Which means that it has methods to collect data. While sociological methods is an
aspect that I have not taught you all in this course, you will have to follow general guidelines in
mind:
i. Your final report must have a section that describes how you went about collecting the
data: how did you choose your respondents and why, the questions you asked them
(provide the questionnaire you used at the end of the report; the questions you ask
must be the same for all the respondents), and the other sources you have used (for
example, if you have chosen the ‘food’ theme, did you analyse the menu card?; have
you observed the respondents and the field situation: so, not only what they said but
where, how, in the presence of whom etc).
ii. Even when the respondent is yourself (in the ‘personal history’), you must follow the
same methodological principle—of defamiliarising the familiar, as Peter Berger would
say. Remember writing an autobiography is not the same as writing a sociological
description of one self. One must be able to look at oneself through the sociological
lens.
d) Steps:
i) A brainstorm with all the members that decides one, what exactly the research
question here; two, how to collect relevant data (who to interview, how many
to interview, why the ones selected are the most appropriate); three, finalise
the research tools (interview questionnaire, observation guide, and what other
sources of information to look for in the field); four, prepare a timeline for this
work. Remember, getting interviewees is not an easy task.
ii) Divide up work equally. I want this exercise to be done collectively, be
respectful of others’ ideas, persuade everyone to get involved.
iii) The fieldwork needs to be done in one go. Spreading it out diffuses your
attention and energy. I would think complete fieldwork in less than two weeks.
iv) Analyse the data collectively; make a list of important themes that have
emerged through the fieldwork. These themes are important because they will
allow you describe the field and analyse it coherently.
v) Write the report. The report must contain Introduction (start by explaining the
problem under study, and why it is significant; then, detail briefly how the
report is organised; finally, describe briefly the main findings of the study; 400-
500 words); a note on the field and method (this must contain what I have
written in (C-i) above; 300-400 words); describe and analyse the fieldwork data
(for this the previous point (that is, (D-iv) is essential but also think in terms of
the connections between the themes; 1800-2000 words); conclusion and
looking ahead (write this in relation to the Introduction (what were the
questions you began with and what are the answers to those questions?;
‘looking ahead’ means a reflective account of what this study has helped us
with, what new questions it has brought up; 200-400 words).
As you can see, this framework closely follows the four-step scientific research
that I had outlined at the end of Module One.
e) Treat your respondents with respect and care. Remember they are not here to help you!
Respect their time, be forthright about what you are looking for. Assure them that their
identities will not be revealed and this data is used for exclusively academic purposes and will
not be shared with anyone else. These assurances are to be given even if the respondent is your
own mother/sister/family member. As a general policy, do not do more than 10 interviews but
ensure that your respondent groups accommodates the best possible diversity.
These are only general but important guidelines. I am of course available for discussions with you
on specific concerns. Deadline for the submission of the final report: 7 November, 2022.

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Suggested themes for the group assignment

 Construction workers on campus: Visit a workers’ residential area, speak to a cross-section of

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