Future Generations Prepares to Launch Applied Research Webinar Series in September
In response to requests from Future Generations alumni for a forum to interact and gain additional skills and perspectives in applied research design, methods, analysis, and publication options, the Graduate School is excited to host a monthly series of webinars on research-related topics driven by alumni and student interests! This series will be a platform and discussion space for alumni, faculty, and current students. There are also plans to include guest speakers as well to bring relevant experience and expertise to the discussions.
At Future Generations, many of our students, alumni, and faculty are actively engaged in applied community-based research and contributing to the exploration and advancement of the methods and rigor of the field. The School’s research foci include home-centered health, people-based conservation, peacebuilding using positive deviants, effectiveness of SEED-SCALE as a theory of social change, and the pedagogy of learning through engagement with life and the world around us.
The first session, to be held on Tuesday, September 13, 2016 at 8:00am EST, will serve as an orientation and listening session. Faculty will review the purpose of this webinar series, have brief introductions from participants about their current work and interests, and review several different structures and content options for the rest of the webinars in order to decide what will be the most valuable use of this forum. Subsequent webinars will be held on the second Tuesday of each month until May 2017. A full schedule of webinar dates and topics will be finalized after the first session.
Each month’s session will be recorded and will be available to Graduate School affiliates—including our alumni—via YouTube links.
If you are interested in joining any of the seminars in this series, please contact Meike Schleiff, Director of Research, at mschleiff@future.edu for more information.
Dusty Dreams in the Desolate Wilderness
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| Chao Erh-Feng State Library of NSW, Australia |
In 1909, Manchu General Chao Erh-Feng and his army swept through Tibet vowing not to leave a person or a dog alive. He came disturbingly close to reaching his goal. According to Wade Davis’ Into the Silence, Erh-Feng ravaged monasteries, devastated villages, looted cities and temples, burned sacred texts, raped women and children, and killed tens of thousands of Tibetans – including over a thousand monks. His occupation of Tibet was so brutal that he gained the nickname “Butcher Chao.”
Nearly one hundred years later, a staff member at Future Generations passed away before she could complete the translation of a journal kept by a captain in Butcher Chao’s army. “While an aggressive, get-ahead army captain, (the captain and author) was also sympathetic to the Tibetans, and while in Tibet married a Tibetan girl, so he puts a sympathetic human face to the Chinese invasion of Tibet,” according to Dan Jantzen, another former Future Generations staff member who is now working to complete the translation of the journal, titled Dusty Dreams in the Desolate Wilderness. Dusty Dreams was originally published in Chinese, for a Chinese audience familiar with background information and place names that most westerners are not. In addition to translating the work into English, Jantzen is working to compile detailed footnotes and a map in order to give context to the document.
Butcher Chao came to Tibet only after both the British and the Russians formally acknowledged Chinese sovereignty over the region in the early 1900s. Fortunately for the Tibetans, Manchu power was broken in 1911 when a revolution overthrew the Ch’ing Dynasty and established the government that became a forerunner to today’s People’s Republic of China. Tibetan monks led an uprising that resulted in the capture and execution of Butcher Chao. With Chao and the Ch’ing Dynasty gone, the Dalai Lama returned to Tibet and Britain once again considered Tibet a free and independent state.
“Davis takes a particularly negative view of Chao, and some commentators are a bit kinder to him, but he was pretty ruthless,” notes Jantzen. In another account, historian Alastair Lamb refers to Chao as “one of the last great soldier-bureaucrats of the Manchu era.”
Future Generations is proud to be part of this project to bring forth a new primary document about this controversial figure and an important period in Chinese/Tibetan history. In addition to Jantzen, a number of Future Generations faculty, staff, and alumni are working to complete the manuscript and get it published.
Voices of Future Generations: Fishing with Dad
The third track from Voices of Future Generations is perfectly appropriate for Independence Day. A boy talks about fishing with his dad for Native Brook Trout in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, USA. Brook Trout live in the cool mountain streams of West Virginia, where they are also the state fish. It’s hard to imagine a more American imagine than a little kid trotting down a dirt road with his rod in hand and dad by his side. We hope you too have been able to get out and do the things you enjoy this holiday weekend. Happy 4th!
Research Methods Training in Kabul, Afghanistan
Future Generations Empowerment (FGE) conducted its first certificate program earlier this month in Kabul, Afghanistan. The training, organized by Future Generations Afghanistan’s Executive Director, Ajmal Shirzai, was designed for government officials at the Research and Policy Department of Afghanistan’s Deputy Ministry of Youth Affairs (DMoYA). Trainers, all either alumni or current students of Future Generations Graduate School, focused on four types of research: Applied, Description, Evaluation, and Quantitative .
The applied research section was led by Besmillah Sakhizada (Class of 2013). Sakhizada presented his “Family Health Action Group” research that he has been working on since 2006 in Afghanistan’s Bamyan Province. Applied research, he argued, is conducted in response to a specific problem that requires a solution.
Descriptive research, on the other hand, is designed to define the objectives, facts, and characteristics to be investigated. This section was led by Amanullah Hotak (Class of 2013). Hotak discussed how he is using descriptive research to improve local governance in Central Afghanistan through his own NGO, OLSFG (Organization for Local Services and Future Generations).
Evaluation research is the process of determining the value or worth of something. It is oriented toward formal and objective measurement of the extent to which a given action, activity, or program has achieved its original objective. Tahir Khalil (Class of 2014), discussed the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) program that he has been leading in six provinces of Afghanistan. The program was recently evaluated by an independent evaluator. Khalil spoke about the evaluator’s planning and execution processes, their key findings, and how they could be implemented.
Lastly, the section on quantitative research was facilitated by Ajmal Shirzai. Quantitative research generates and analyzes numerical data and usually seeks to establish causal relationships between two or more variables, using statistical methods to test the strength and significance of the relationships. Shirzai explained his research project, “Identification of Positive Deviance Communities in Eastern Afghanistan.” This research was comprised of three phases, each phase having three steps. The first phase was the collection and analysis of quantitative data using composite variables for security and development. This session helped the participants to learn how the quantitative data can be converted into qualitative information.
The training was funded through an Alumni Learning & Action Collaboration grant that FGE received in 2015. Future Generations Empowerment is an Afghanistan-based NGO that was formed in 2015 by Future Generations alumni in order to apply their skills and knowledge to community development, good governance, peacebuilding, and environmental conservation for the empowerment of local communities (mainly youths). The group is already planning a similar training for youth groups throughout Afghanistan.
Voices of Future Generations: Baby Sister
In the second episode of Voices of Future Generations, a young girl in Moscow named Alina talks about meeting her baby sister for the first time and teaching her how to speak Russian. Enjoy!