Workshop in Eurasian studies, Wisconsin-Madison
Olga Basmanova and Marina Nikitina shared their experience of participating in the SSRC workshop
In the beginning of August LCSR research assistants Olga Basmanova and Marina Nikitina took part in a summer workshop in Madison, WI, USA. This workshop was organized by Social Science Research Council and devoted to quantitative research methods in Eurasian studies.
We were the only researchers from Russia, while the rest of participants were representatives of different American universities. It was our first trip to the USA, so we were full of emotions and impressions! One of the most pleasant surprises was the interest of our foreign colleagues from different fields of social science (form economists to geographers) to Russia and the CIS countries. Most of them not only conducted studies in our country and former Soviet states, but also visited Russia many times and even speak Russian a bit! Moreover, they advised us a good Indian restaurant in Moscow, of which we hadn’t even heard!
Being the capital of Wisconsin, Madison is small and quiet town, but during the academic year its population grows by several thousand people, as students go back to their studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Our workshop took place in one of the University campuses, Social Science Building.
We had lectures devoted to many different topics every day in the morning. Most of them were focused on methodological issues (data collection, survey conduction, ethics of social research, research and sample designs, etc). Lecturers tried to make their speech as informative as they could, because all topics require much more time to cover.
During afternoon sessions participants presented their projects. Our projects were devoted respectively to factors of informal employment (Marina’s project) and relation between suicides and well-being in Russia (Olga’s project). After presentations all participants asked clarification questions actively and made suggestions how to improve our papers. Discussions were very substantive, and we received many useful pieces of advice for our future work.
Despite widespread stereotype about American individualism and ostentatious interest in other people, workshop participants were very kind and friendly people who empathized with our long trip from Russia and tried to help us to get used to new surroundings. It was a great pleasure to communicate with such nice and interesting people!
By Olga Basmanova and Marina Nikitina