Hi all,

I'm an exchange student here in Kunming and received some funding to conduct an anthropological fieldwork here in Yunnan - but am finding that I am bumping into a lot of dead ends. Does anyone have any experience with conducting research here + have some suggestions on how to go about making connections, getting permission to conduct studies, going about interviews, etc.? This is my first time conducting independent fieldwork and I would really appreciate any sort of help I can get! Thanks so much in advance :)

Some suggestions.

Because sociology touched politics you will need a gatekeeper, just to get started.
Leaning towards anthropology, and dressing your study as such, may meet less resistance. And make it clear that you will avoid politics.

As an exchange student I assume you are connected to a Chinese university. If so use your prof. as gatekeeper and bow to their superior knowledge and connections. They may suggest topics that you are not that interested in, but at least they will not be dead ends.

The dead ends you have hit may well be closed doors, but no one will ever tell you this. This is usually politics. When discussing work listen for words like 'difficult' and 'impossible'. 'Difficult' means there is a reason why you cannot do this, but the other person is not at liberty to discuss the reasons with you. 'Impossible' means that they do not have the resources or knowledge to do it, but in theory there is no reason why you cannot.

There is a Naxi museum and cultural centre just outside Lijiang. They are trying to keep the culture alive in the face of the move from agriculture to tourism. Working with such minority groups and focussing on the anthropological may be workable. Just avoid politics.

There are other ethnic groups in Yunnan you could look at. It might be better to avoid those with a beef against the govt.

Just some suggestions to help you avoid more dead ends.

Sounds like you need to focus a bit before you start. What area of culture are you interested in? What hypotheses do you want to test? I say get very specific with a couple of questions you'd like answered, choose a cultural group in the area that's of greatest interest to you, find a translator, and head to a village. Because you're doing your first bit of field work and its for, I'm guessing, an undergraduate project, you won't raise too many hackles by walking around and acting like a tourist for a week if you're clever about data collection. If you seem too official and start asking the wrong folks a bunch of inappropriate questions, you'll find trouble. Being an anthropologist is learning to be savvy about what you can't and can get away with when dropping out of the sky and setting up camp with an obvious research paradigm tattooed on your forehead. Sorry if that sounded pejorative. Good luck!

Thank you so, so much for your detailed suggestions! I do have a topic - it is broadly speaking infertility and the rise of the treatment centers in Kunming... in certain areas of town it seems like you can barely walk 10 minutes without seeing ads. I wanted to look at it in the context of the controlled births policy and how it has opened up, but seeing as it is already a sensitive enough topic avoiding the political sounds like a good suggestion.

I also really like the idea of focusing in on an ethnic group - it is an idea I've been playing around with for a while, especially as a hospital based ethnography looks more and more unlikely and anthropologists here seem to favor village-based ethnographies. Unfortunately I can't be too casual about data collection - my college's IRB requires consent forms and institutional permission and such, though I am talking to them to see if they will at least let me take oral consent instead of written consent - there seems to be an aversion to signing unknown forms!

Thanks so much again - and the bit about being an anthropologist didn't sound pejorative at all - that does seem to be a big part of the game :)

Some thoughts about fertility clinics.

There would seem to be no immediate connection with the one child policy, except if there was a resultant multiple pregnancy.

There is huge social pressure for a married couple to produce a child. There is a lot of soul searching and stigma attached to infertility. This is a social as well as a medical issue. However, finding anyone willing to talk about infertility would be difficult in a culture where people will be unwilling to talk about a perceived failure (to reproduce).

You might be able to find statistics on fertility in China. You could then look at access to facility services. Available treatments. You might even be able to get anecdotal evidence on attitudes to infertility, I am sure that everyone 'knows' someone with a fertility issue. I think that in the UK it is one in seven couples who have a problem. I would assume similar levels in most populations around the world.

From a purely anthropological view, you could look at attitudes to fertility and infertility between different ethnic groups. There will also be different attitudes to different kinds of treatment including some old wives cures/helpers for fertility.

If you stay away from the one child policy, and gender issues (which may lead to discussion on infanticide or gender selection) you will avoid two areas that would likely get you into trouble.

Very interesting! I would love to see the results of this study. Especially if there is significant work done on both rural areas as well as cities. Since you will not find fertility clinics in the small towns and villages it will be difficult for you to discern between city folk going to a fertility clinic and villagers going to a big city fertility clinic.

As most villagers can not afford going to a fertility clinic, I am sure your work will be one sided and mostly contain samples from the larger cities.

Infertility is a problem of the rich, not the poor. Poor people can't do anything about this problem other then live with the stigma of being infertile and probably divorce caused by this problem.

Since most of the samples will probably come from cities rather than villages, then you should focus on diet and source of the food, as diet is one of the biggest factors contributing to infertility. Especially in Big cities were women eat more GMO foods.

Another area to look at is the age of the woman and vaccines. There is an increase in infertility in young women because they received vaccines when they were young.

There is also a huge increase in children with Autism. As vaccines increase there is an equal rise of children with Autism. Just look at how many autism schools and hospitals are popping up around town.

Hi!

To piggy-back off of this question - is there any way to assist in anthropological research as a non-fluent speaker?

I will be moving to Kunming next year and would love to supplement my Chinese language courses with some anthropology research, focusing on issues surrounding national and personal identity among the ethnic minorities. As of now, I don't think I have the funding nor the structure in place to conduct my own primary research, but wanted to see if anyone knew of any grad students or small organizations conducting anthropology research in the area.

Thanks!

@YJJZ88
If you are doing this at undergraduate level, there is no problem with using secondary data sources. You can then add some of your own observations from being 'on the ground' so to speak.
If you are at YNU you will be able to access data not available outside China. This will be in Chinese, but I am sure you can find an English speaking assistant who want to practice his/her English.