Join a Research Project at TISS on Ethnic and Religious Diversity

From an HT Article -

TISS invites citizens to be part of research project... Pooja Domadia

Those who are interested in conducting research, but do not have the  necessary
training will now have a platform to study the changing trends  in the ethnic
and religious diversity of the city. The Tata Institute  of Social Science
(TISS), Partners for Urban Knowledge Action and  Research (PUKAR) and Max Planck
Society have come together to form an  urban observatory at TISS where research
data will be collected.


The project, titled Urban Aspirations, will focus on the changing trends  in
ethnic and religious diversity. Citizens can be a part of this  project without
any formal qualification. The only decisive factor will  be the level of
commitment shown by them.


"We don't have any limitation for participation and anyone who has a  keen
interest and knowledge about their community can join us," said  TISS director,
S Parasuraman.

Researchers will also use existing data collected by TISS to provide a  complete
picture.  This data includes the history, recent trends and  community
representation in the city. The collected research will be  converted into
official research papers, which will be available for  public use.


"We will digitise the knowledge and research on our website for public use,"
said Parasuraman.

Financial assistance in the initial period will be provided by  Germany-based
Max Planck Society, which conducts research on humanity  and social sciences
around the world. Funds from other external sources  will be collected later on.


PUKAR has been conducting a community-based participatory research for the last
six years.


They have involved people from the lower strata of society and taught  them
research methodologies that would be handy in this project.


"We want to change the mentality that only scholars and academicians can
conduct research. We have bare foot researchers who specialise in the  knowledge
of their own community, and they may or may not be  educationally very
qualified," said Anita Patil Deshmukh, executive  director, PUKAR.