I met Professor Lauren Carruth in her office on the 3rd of December at 10 am for 20 minutes. During this meeting, Professor Carruth and I discussed the development of my research project since the beginning of the semester and discussed potential steps forward.
My puzzle and research question have completely changed since the beginning of the semester. Despite original intentions to look into the provision of care for victims of wartime sexual assault, I am now researching female political participation in Pakistan, both as candidates and voters, and am attempting to understand why, despite receiving political enfranchisement in 1956, Pakistani women continue to have lower turnouts year after year. I am considering using a small-n case study methodology as I believe it is the best way for me to understand both the general impact of suffrage on political participation and further look at if Pakistan deviates from the general model.
As I am not dealing with human subjects, I do not believe that I have any advance planning other than strengthening my model and research question. In order to keep myself engaged, I want to continue reading about political suffrage and its impact, as well as read more sources, not only in English, but in Urdu as well. This will allow me to access a broader range of sources and information, which will aid my research significantly.
The questions that I have moving forward, for SISU-306, are:
- i) I am still conflicted about whether I want to carry out small-n; what if I get to 306 and change my mind?
- ii) Would it be of value for me to reach out to people who have conducted research on this topic before and speak to them in order to better understanding of how they collect their data?
Paroma — it sounds like you had a good meeting with Dr. Carruth to round out the semester. In response to your questions I think that it is fine to reach out to those who have conducted similar research, but before you do so make sure that you have read the publications that these individuals have written. More often than not the research methodology (including specific methods for data collection) are detailed in these publications. In short, the answer to both of your questions is that reading about the methodology and about previous research in the topic area can go a long way in helping you make your own research decisions!