Reimagining Internship fieldwork

My internship was based in the valley region of Kangra, Himachal Pradesh. The area that is
highlighted in figure below is the Ward-3 of the Sakri village.

F IGURE 1: L OCATION OF S TUDY

The village is situated in the Beas valley with an elevation of about 900-1000 meters, surrounded by
mountain ranges on all sides. It is the third biggest ward that comes under the Sakri Khas panchayat
with an area of approximately 19.89 hectares. Due to the location of study being an unevenly
distributed terrain I then divided into two parts: Upper ward and lower ward where in between there
is a relatively big patch of deciduous forest which served as a demarcation for the ward apart from its
rugged landscape.
# How has your training about data type, and qualitative vs quantitative approach changed your ability
to conduct research studies?
During my pilot survey of the village ward I encountered different forms of data while talking with
the people of Sakri Khas and realized there was data embedded in the valuable insights I was getting
from their daily routines, traditions, and everyday social interactions that were unknown to me
before. It played a vital role for me to introduce and inculcate some of the characteristics of doing
ethnography as a researcher as a participant-observer that is deeply embedded within the culture
being studied while also having some handle of the binary of quantitative and qualitative data and
shortcomings in both of them I chose a mixed methods approach which aimed to incorporate the
nominal, ordinal and discrete data. I found that by bridging the gap between qualitative and
quantitative data I could better tackle the same questions by developing a more holistic approach
towards conducting research in communities regardless of the location I was put in.

# What kind of bias (accuracy vs precision) did your approach incorporate?

The study that I undertook had incorporated an accuracy bias with low variance, on the basis of the
results that I was able to translate from the data I collected, where the bias-variance tradeoff
indicated high accuracy but impreciseness of the data due to the nature of the study being more
qualitative in nature. The empirical data part of the study minimized variances in the data which was
collected through stratified random sampling where the sampling method selected the households
in the ward, by dividing them into two strata, i.e. based on location and caste. A structured
questionnaire was also prepared which included questions related to socioeconomic characteristics
of the respondents as well as other household members, land-use characteristics, livelihoods
practised and asset ownership. Qualitative data was collected based on participant observation in
the ward through focus group discussion (FGD) and in-depth interviews with household members
and village residents, that includes oral history from the village elders and testimonies on various
issues in the village. A wide range of respondents were chosen for interviews which included people
from different caste, age, gender and socio-economic background to reduce the biasness and
increase the accuracy and robustness of the study as the preciseness in data could not be reached.

# How will you improve the methods section of your Internship report, especially w.r.t. data type and
its collection?

The mixed methods aspect of the methodology was an appropriate choice and a robust technique
that incorporated empirical data and qualitative data to better triangulate the hypothesis of whether
there was livelihood diversification happening in the village. The study also could not incorporate
calculating the income of the households in the questionnaire indicating inadequate design to
address the multidimensional nature of income index in rural households as it is also a continuous
data type with different types of income strategies existing in a household sometimes even at the
level of an individual. Another aspect of the study that was not explored was the existence of
privately owned forest patches which in relation to the household income was unintentional natural
capital, and the assessing the subsequent impact of human-wildlife conflict that it creates.
Addressing this limitations can be done by quantifying the ecosystem services of these patches and
it’s role in community level processes through a robust questionnaire and better knowledge of
human non-human relations through empirical observations.

# What are better ways in which you would plan your study?

In conclusion, having a formal field experience and introduction to new concepts in statistics would
better help in designing a good field study wherein the future aim of the study would be to
reimagine the community as consisting of multiple populations as an interlinked systems with variety
of community actors- human and non-human, ranging from the level of ecosystem to individual and
plan my study around this concept. Another aspect that I would plan to include in my study would be
to back up more of my qualitative findings with unbiased and precise quantitative data to calculate
the income of the households and the ecosystem services used by the village community to draw out
more concrete conclusions that validates and adds on to the existing literature.