The group that I will be traveling with to India got together and watched the film Seven Years in Tibet this weekend. That film, along with the reading The Making of Modern Tibet by A. Tom Grunfeld that my field study preparation class assigned us to read, has shed a little light on the history of the area in which we will be studying.
The thing about history is that I don't think it's ever unbiased. It has been written by somebody, and nobody is a completely neutral source. Everyone brings some sort of opinion to the table in any work. There will always be details deemed unimportant by the writer, yet may have importance to another. Something will always be left out or it will be mutated, in a small or large way, sometimes unintentionally, and perhaps sometimes not.
The film we watched was entertaining and very interesting, though I've heard from T.J.la, our Tibetan language teacher, that it's a little "hollywood-ized, probably because it has Brad Pitt in it."
He told us that the movie Kundun is a little more realistic but not as exciting. Matt and I should be getting it on our Netflix today and we look forward to watching it.
A. Tom Grunfeld, the author of The Making of Modern Tibet, is not Tibetan, nor did he begin his travels to the region until 1966 (after the exile), nor has he included information from personal interviews, leaving the reader wondering whether or not he actually conducted personal interviews. He is also very interested in Chinese studies, perhaps bringing in a bias towards his Tibetan research and the conclusions drawn from such.
Keeping these things in mind, I continue to work on the details of my own project. What kinds of biases might I bring to my research? As mentioned in previous journals, I bring the bias of American teaching, specifically in parenting and the affects of said parenting on children. Another bias I might bring is actually a lack of knowledge I have of parenting directly, seeing as I don't have any children. These things might affect my observations and the conclusions I draw from them.
Another thought that has come to mind as I have learned more about the history of Tibet is how does this history shape the individual? How does this vary from generation to generation? This is important to my project because a first generation Tibetan in exile might be striving to impress and communicate this history to a second or third generation child or grandchild, and this child or grandchild may or may not consider themselves as closely tied to this history has their parent or grandparent holds them. This may cause conflict or may impact the parenting style and the child response.
As I prepare to enter the field, I will need to keep my biases in check, but also know that the things I have learned through readings, personal research, what T.J.la has taught us, and films I have watched, also have their own biases that I may or may not detect.
It's interesting what you're talking about near the end of your post, about older generations "striving to impress and communicate [...] history to a [...] child or grandchild." I know the Tibetan government aims explicitly to preserve Tibetan culture, and I wonder if parents in Dharamsala also feel an urgency about this, if they also are more aggressive in trying to transmit an identity and culture to their children beyond what parents might feel in another context.
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