A new year of 2017 has started with active planning of our field work. Our team spent a week together in the Aleksanteri Institute on the 23-27 January to decide timetables for field trips and to organize other practical matters. Among these matters is this homepage, which we will be using actively to tell you about our progress. During February and March, Rustam Urinboyev will be working on the questionnaire for our theme interviews. Our first trip will take place in April-May in Moscow.

During our week, we discussed various aspects of conducting interviews and surveys among our future informants. Our team member Rustam Urinboyev´s  substantial experience in the field and his ability to teach the rest of our team about cultural differences has already proven valuable.  You know – almost anything can happen when you are conducting field studies!  You can face all sorts of unexpected situations, some slightly funny, others possible more serious. So, we have to really think about all details very carefully and be fully aware of doing everything right. This involves having proper documents and making sure that our position is that of a researcher. It also involves being sensitive to cultural differences and expectations from our informants. We cannot just walk into somebody´s life and use them for our own benefit.

During our joint week in Helsinki, we found out that Rustam had received a Marie Curie Fellowship!  His funding will start next year. This is great news, as it further strengthens the study of migration, shadow economy and legal culture.