Fieldwork

With a safe landing at the Central Japan International Airport on September 27, 2015, 25 participants and faculty members complished the OFW2015 fieldwork in Coron, Palawan Province, the Philippines and came back to Nagoya.

The OFW2015 fieldwork was conducted in Coron from September 13 to September 25, with collaboration from College of Public Affairs and Development, University of the Philippines, Los Banos. During the fieldwork, participants were divided into four groups and conducted their group works on specific topics, including economic development and tourism, governance and tourism, environmental education and tourism and the coexistence of culture and tourism.

As the first fieldwork in a foreign country, our participants were a little bit nervous at the beginning. But soon they got used to the flow and did finish their fieldwork with big success. By spending hours and hours for discussion about reserach plans and interview questions by groups before and during the fieldwork, our participants worked quite hard and reached their objectives and goals in the end of the fieldwork. As part of education program at GSID, we believe this experience will definitely benefit their understanding of the developing world and globle issues, future study and master thesis writing.

The accomplishment of OFW2015 fieldwork is due to a large numebr of generous people. Our speical gratitude goes to UPLB team. Without their continous and generous support and help from the every beginning, we could not make it happen with success. Also, we would like to show our sincere appreciation to LGU of Coron, people of Coron involved in our fieldwork. Look forward to the forthcoming final presentation and report of OFW2015. Also, we really appreciate our students’ cooperation and team spirits. We are so proud of them for their great achievemnet in this year lasting program!

Look forward to the forthcoming final presentation and report of OFW2015.

In the last preliminary seminar of OFW2015, we were delighted to invite Mr. Toshihiro Ueda from Rise Asia (NGO). Mr. Ueda shared his experience of participating various activities in international cooperation in the Philippines since the late 1980s, particularly in NGO sector. His talk was very touching and helpful for participants to reconsider the purposes and targets for international cooperation.

Our gratitute also goes to Mr. Motoni Mizutani for his excellent interpretation for this seminar!

On July 29, four groups of OFW2015 program made presentations about their resesearch plans for fieldwork in September. After preparing for three months, each team explained their reasons, focus and methods for their fieldwork. Based on comments and questions received from audiences, our participants will further improve their plans and get ready for the forthcoming fieldwork.

Prof. Umemura, on July 22, offered us an introductary lecture about Project Cycle Management (PCM). The lecture included history of PCM, conceptual framework, characteristics of PCM and procedure of PCM.

The lecture provided a good opportunity for our participants to reconsidered their research questions of each working group by a logical thinking.

On July 15, Prof. Okada and Prof. Liu shared their research experiences and observation of previous OFW with participants of OFW preliminary seminar. Based on personal experiences, two speakers talked about how to deal with hypothesis, how to balance priority and keep flexible, ethical issues, how to balance roles as researcher and participant in fieldwork, practical skills for fieldwork…

We hope the talk was helpful for participants’ preparation for the forthcoming fieldwork in September.

“Today’s visit to Odai town is very helpful for us to further understand the situation of Odai town and our design of our survey in October…” This is an exciting feedback from one of DFW2015 participants after the pilot survey in Odai town on July 10, 2015.

Different from previous years, in order to provide participants an opportunity to know the field before they start their fieldwork, DFW committee arranged this visit for DFW2015.

Participants not only got a chance to practice their skills of conducting interview and collecting information but also observe the real situation of Odai town by themselves.

We hope this arrangement was helpful for them to further prepare their research plan and design.

On July 3, we were pleased to invite Dr. Hitoshi Kikuchi from Meitesu Hospital Vaccinations Center to give participants of OFW2015 a lecture about infectious disease in the world and preventation. Dr. Kikuchi told us a lot of knowledge about disease and the preventation, particularly for the fieldwork in the developing countries. His detailed explanation was quite helpful for our preparation for OFW2015 fieldwork in the Philippines.

On June 25, DFW2015 program held presentations about tentative research proposals by each group.  Presenters explained their research topics, objectives and research methods. They also received comments and advises from Mr. Tolu Sawahata, Prof. Usami, Prof. Yamashita and Prof. Kusaka. After revising their research plan based on these comments, three groups will conduct their pre-survey in Odai town on July 10.

After the 1st stage of preliminary seminars on introduction to the Philippines, we entered into the 2nd stage of this year’s OFW preliminary seminar. It started with lectures on how to write research proposal by Prof. Peddie, Mr. Takahiro Kiyohara and Ms. BALCITA Glo Ann Nazareno.

Prof. Peddie provided us a comprehensive lecture about how to write research proposal. Besides introducing the basic structure of a proposal, he also used examples to give detailed explanation of the important components of a research proposal.

As a new part of OFW preliminary seminars, we also invited Mr. Kiyohara and Ms. Glo to share their experiences in OFW last year. I believe their experiences are quite helpful for our participants to prepare their own fieldwork in Coron.

From today, there is almost a month for our participants to prepare for their proposals.

Look forward to their presentation ! Good luck!

On June 17, Dr. Aser provided us his 3rd lecture for OFW2015 preliminary seminars.

As an expert in the field of goverance, Dr. Aser shared his framework and understanding about goverance in general and its context in the Philippines. His summary of dynamic views of governance is very helpful for the audience to understand how to understand and consider governance in the veiws of self, community, power and process.

OFW2015 Preliminary seminars just finished the 1st stage of introducing the Philippines to our participants. From next week, the seminars will invite speakers to introduce more details about research skills. Hope these will be helpful for our participants.