Draft-Reed-Night in Chengdu
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Final Project Draft -Reed
For my final project, I’m going to continue exploring the nocturnal emotions and temporality of people living in urban Chinese cities, as I did in my Week 4’s interview practice. I pick my filed site in my hometown – Chengdu, a southwest in-land city. My final project would be my pilot study for my BA thesis. Actually, I’ve been thinking for a long time(from the time I decided my BA topic) the possibility to combine sound, photos, and mind-mapping with textual social science analysis for my BA academic paper. I appreciate this class offering an experiment chance and lectures about doing ethnography in this way, which confirms my envisagement and eases a lot of my worries for it not being seen as “real” , accepted, academic ethnographic work.
Photo and Sounds: I hope to capture people’s granular and unique nocturnal emotions, of sensory and also of fears. To achieve this, I will use photos, sound recordings of streets/scenes, mind-mapping, and interviews. Since I cannot go to Chengdu physically, I will cooperate with my partner Bin (also my informant in this project) to edit photos and sound recordings, and put them together. She is the person who collects photos and sounds, and the one who expresses. She will choose the medium she likes to record what she see, hear, and feel in Chengdu’s night. Two Ways: either Bin sends photos to me afterward or we make video calls when she’s out, depending on which one suits her. Plan: Our current discussion is that during this weekend and 1–2 weekdays, she will visit places as she does every day in the night: night-markets near her home where a lot of street vendors are, very lively and crowded in the night; parks where she goes to night-running with her mum etc. She just takes photos and records sounds that touch her. Though she is a fan of photography, enjoying taking photos when sth touches her, I still remind her that taking this (participate with my project)easily and as usual to ease her nervous and being not “natural”. I also tell Bin that this might be the first project we’ve done together, which I’m excited about.
Mind-maps: I’m thinking to ask Bin to drew mind-maps that tell the routes of where she’s going, what buildings/amenities are around and point out where are the places she takes photos and mentioned in the interview etc..Or she decides what she wants to draw, just using the map to describe her night-out experiences. I want to use this method to locate my readers in the geographic settings where Bin was in, also the location and relations between places mentioned frequently (night-markest, parks etc.)
Informal and formal Interview: I’m thinking to interview/chat with Bin every day after she coming back from her out. Take interview notes and write fieldnotes(if we do video calls). In the end, I will take a longer interview with Bin to dig deeper questions. I will select topics that emerge most frequently and concerns Bin most in all of her night out experiences (temporality, safety or ?). That’s the reason I didn’t have a concrete research question beforehand, but only a direction, since I hope it emerges and become more clear in the ethnography/interview process. But a dilemma here, I encounter is, usually a research proposal or IRB will ask research questions, which I only have a very vague thought( Like : I’m just interested in people’s Nightlife and what it’s unique comparing with the daytime?)
Newspaper and some history: As Bin collecting photos/sounds, I’m going to search for history recording on Chengdu’s nightlife, and local newspaper’s report. For the newspaper, I’m using a database called “Duxiu” where digital Chinese newspapers can be found. For history recordings, I’m going to look for academic papers on Chengdu’s nightlife, or novels. I’m not going to dive deep in this part for this project though, just getting some background information. Local culture and history on nightlife is important, since as I know, each chinies city have its unique culture/vibe/ ways of having fun in the night. Chengdu, especially, is verydifferent from Beijing, shanghai and Shengzhou, those sea-shore and very globalized cities.
Combination? : I’m thinking to use the platform Medium to combine all these multi-medias. But I’m not satisfied with it , since I don’t line put things on a single page, which looks very mechanical. I prefer to put things in more interactive and multi-pages places. I will figure it out.
Here are some photos of Chengdu’s night.
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Reed, this looks like a very interesting project. Particularly curious about the elicited mindmapping. Also struck by how much these night photos seem to highlight the light.. would be curious to see day/night photos side by side as contrast especially since the question is framed around their difference. Looking forward to seeing more on this project!
This looks like an incredible project! I think that the sort of collaboration that you’ll be having with Bin is extremely interesting. I’m very curious about the way in which receiving someone else’s impressions of nightlife digitally will shape your project. I also think that because your material is being “curated” by someone else you are being put in a really unique position. I think that it would be really cool if you could include a section where you discuss the way in which this unique data collection process impacts your understanding of what it means to do ethnography.
Reed, I think you have a really awesome project going here. I especially like that the multimedia is coming from your participant because it allows her to capture what has meaning for her. I also like the idea of having your informant draw mind maps of the locations that she visits. I think it could be very interesting to use a mind map which incorporates the different photos/videos/sounds your partner provides to showcase the different aspects of nightlife in Chengdu. I am really excited for your final product!
Reed, I really love the topic of your final project. Having spent many nights out during my time in China, I think there is so much richness and substance to pull from these city nighttime experiences. I think it is unique how you will interweave not only your own personal experiences, but also that of Bin. I’m looking forward to seeing your final project and especially how you use mind maps as a multi-modal element.
This project looks so cool, and I really love the collaborative aspect with Bin! I think this looks really cool, the pictures are beautiful, and I can’t wait to see what it looks like in the end
I really like the mind mapping component! I feel like asking informants to draw out the region how they see it in their minds tells a lot about how they perceive the space. I’m also intrigued by your subject of nightlife. In general, I think it makes for a fascinating topic. From the photos you included in this post, I can feel the liveliness! Super interested to read and experience your final version of this.
This sounds like a really great project! As others have said, the collaboration sounds really interesting, particularly the mindmapping. Looking forward to seeing it.