Belarusian Identity
On the 10th of February I have launched my research project on Belarusian Identity. The project aims at crystallizing the verbal content of understanding oneself as a Belarusian in a small sample of Belarusian students living in Berlin.
The study aims to define specific personality features of young people, who identify themselves as Belarusians. Their self-reflections will be directed on their social behavior, motivation and personal meanings they assign to different events in their lives both in Belarus and in Germany. The key question of the study is “What makes you Belarusian?” and must provoke a reflection on personal history in the perspective of identification with the ethnic group.
The study is conducted with Grounded Theory methodology, with data gathering through semi-structured interviews. The basic questionnaire includes questions on background, personal meaning assigned to being a Belarusian and on action among representatives of other ethnic groups. The starting sample (minimum 10 respondents) consists of people in age between 20 and 30, who live in Berlin and Brandenburg (Germany) since one year or more. Eventually the sample will be extended on other regions of Germany. At this moment I expect to complete the project by the end of April 2007.
The key expectation is to understand, how young Belarusians (re)construct their ethnic identity (and eventually also civil identity) in contact with other cultures, as experience of their life in Germany must have induced them to think on issues they didn’t consider before, while seeing the differences and similarities between various cultures in daily life.
This study is a student research project and thus has a very “local” scientific ambition. In case the results of the study will appear valuable to the public interested in the issue, it will be continued on a bigger sample with a wider methodological approach.
With this entry I would also like to open a discussion of the issue to the people, who occupy themselves with the topic (or are just interested in it) and who in some spontaneous way (beside digg.com or my friend-list) found themselves in this blog.
Disclaimer for the Russian-speaking users:
The message of this post may appear interesting not only to Russian-speaking users. Or may not. My primary motivation was to exercise my skills in writing on a scientific topic and eventually find English- and German-speaking users, who are interested in the subject of Belarusian studies and qualitative research. Hence this one and the following entries in the tag will be written in English. I ask you to forgive me any stylistic or lexical inaccuracies :)
The study aims to define specific personality features of young people, who identify themselves as Belarusians. Their self-reflections will be directed on their social behavior, motivation and personal meanings they assign to different events in their lives both in Belarus and in Germany. The key question of the study is “What makes you Belarusian?” and must provoke a reflection on personal history in the perspective of identification with the ethnic group.
The study is conducted with Grounded Theory methodology, with data gathering through semi-structured interviews. The basic questionnaire includes questions on background, personal meaning assigned to being a Belarusian and on action among representatives of other ethnic groups. The starting sample (minimum 10 respondents) consists of people in age between 20 and 30, who live in Berlin and Brandenburg (Germany) since one year or more. Eventually the sample will be extended on other regions of Germany. At this moment I expect to complete the project by the end of April 2007.
The key expectation is to understand, how young Belarusians (re)construct their ethnic identity (and eventually also civil identity) in contact with other cultures, as experience of their life in Germany must have induced them to think on issues they didn’t consider before, while seeing the differences and similarities between various cultures in daily life.
This study is a student research project and thus has a very “local” scientific ambition. In case the results of the study will appear valuable to the public interested in the issue, it will be continued on a bigger sample with a wider methodological approach.
With this entry I would also like to open a discussion of the issue to the people, who occupy themselves with the topic (or are just interested in it) and who in some spontaneous way (beside digg.com or my friend-list) found themselves in this blog.
Disclaimer for the Russian-speaking users:
The message of this post may appear interesting not only to Russian-speaking users. Or may not. My primary motivation was to exercise my skills in writing on a scientific topic and eventually find English- and German-speaking users, who are interested in the subject of Belarusian studies and qualitative research. Hence this one and the following entries in the tag will be written in English. I ask you to forgive me any stylistic or lexical inaccuracies :)