Research questions and general busy-ness

It's only the third day of the pre-departure program and my group's research questions have begun to take form. So far we've had several lectures on the Historical Development of Qinghai and Gansu Provinces(we will be conducting our research in Qinghai and we might be able to go to Gansu just for fun), the History of Tibet, Social Order and Community Structures in Rural China, Water Resource Management: Integrated Resource Planning & Adaptive Management, General Economic Reforms, Objectives, Methods & Results in China, Chinese Etiquette & Culture, and finally Methods of Grazing Rotation in North America. My small group has also found around 15 articles on cultures, water, grazing rotations, and environmental policies of Northwest China to supplement our education on the area.
Through this intensive research our research questions have roughly formed into this list:
- What are the differences and similarities between the adaptive strategies used by the people of Xunhua County and the people of Gangcha County in reaction to environmental changes and policies in farming and herding?
- Are the statuses of families based off of crops grown? Are these crops cultural crops or economic crops?
- Are water and grazing areas culturally contested commodities?
- Does education effect level or efficiency of influence on resource use?
- Are the lack of water and grazing areas disturbing traditional & cultural practices in herding?

Ideally, our group wants to research the first question; however, we are instructed to write up a list of multiple topics in order to have something to fall back on if the local officials do not allow us to use the surveys we write.

Overall, I'm really excited to start researching not only because I'm curious about our results but for the fact that research in Qinghai province is extremely limited and nothing has been written about the area in the past five years following up past research. Basically, it's our group's chance to come out with data that has never been collected before and to visit two minority villages that have been untouched by research in their entire history. I think meeting, interviewing, and surveying the Salars and nomadic Tibetans will be a chance of a lifetime.

Currently we're learning to write research proposals for grants and so far we've started to put together a literary review and written up the theory behind our research. It's a lot to get done in a few days when usually these projects take months or even years to get started. Tomorrow we start drafting possible survey questions before we get there because we have to get every question reviewed by a board of ethics before we depart for China.

More later.