Tips on the Malang Field Study Option

By David Armstrong, s23
Murdoch University
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Believe it or not, the hardest part of the Malang fieldwork semester is right at the beginning - choosing what subject to research.

About a month before the semester starts students are asked to submit a proposal to the ACICIS Resident Director (RD) in Yogya and the head of the program at Universitas Muhammadiyah (UnMuh) in Malang. This allows input into the proposed subject from these worthy individuals and also helps in allocating a suitable academic supervisor in Malang. Well-prepared students (and there are some of these rare creatures on the ACICIS program) will already have discussed their ideas with the RD before this.

The difficulty for most students at this stage is twofold. Firstly, they only have a vague idea of what they want to research, and secondly, that vague idea is far too broad in scope. To fit "the History of Leprosy in Indonesia", or "the effects of mass tourism on local cultures in Indonesia", or other such broad topics, into a 10,000-word essay is very difficult. The lecturers at UnMuh are continually encouraging students in the first week to refine and narrow the focus of their research to a more manageable subject. Thus the two examples above could become "Treatment techniques at the ABC Leprosarium in Batu, Malang", and "the effects of foreign tourists on the population of ABC village near Mount Bromo".

The good part about all of this is that the student can easily change their topic up till about 2-3 weeks into the semester. It has happened that students have changed their topics much later than this, though it is not recommended as it leaves very little time to do adequate field work.

Even though many students use the results of their fieldwork as the basis of an honours thesis, it must be remembered that the principal focus of the semester is not the actual fieldwork itself, but rather language acquisition, and also learning the process of research and report writing in an Indonesian context. The actual report at the end of the semester is only 8,000 to 12,000 words in Indonesian. This may sound daunting, but it is not. Few people have trouble writing this much, and most write more.

The vast majority of students choose a qualitative approach to their fieldwork. They go out and interview people and then write up the results of their interviews, and any conclusions that they have drawn. Occasionally they include some statistics they find along the way. An alternative is a quantitative approach, where the main focus of the fieldwork is to find factual data, and then interpret it. This is not as hard as it sounds. The Indonesians are great record keepers, so every government department will be sitting on a mass of data that has never before seen the light of day. Just waiting for someone to come along and collect it and present it in an academic report. This type of fieldwork can be very rewarding, especially if the student is looking for an honours topic. Official government data like this is not subjective and impressionistic. If the student is good with a spreadsheet they can draw great graphs to include in the report and/or PowerPoint presentation.

The conclusion of the semester looms large in the minds of most students as a hugely daunting prospect. There is a one hour presentation of the student's fieldwork, followed by questions, to an audience comprising UnMuh lecturers, fellow western and Indonesian students, and even the press. All in Indonesian. A frightening thought. But by this stage most students have been living in Indonesia for a year, thus are comfortable with the language, and they also thoroughly know their subject. The lecturers too are, in the main, benign people who are not there to embarrass the students. Most people take their presentations in their stride and actually look back on the experience fondly as a major achievement in their academic career.

It is wise to keep in mind the following tips:

• The semester is primarily for language acquisition rather than research.
• Choose your subject carefully, and as soon as practical.
• Choose a subject that really interests you.
• If possible, do some preliminary research in overseas libraries.
• Start your fieldwork as soon as you can.
• Make a plan for the whole semester so that you stay on track to complete everything in time.
• Consult your UnMuh academic advisor often. They are a great help, especially with introductions to important or useful people, and also with any language difficulties, including report writing.
• Don't underestimate how long it will take to write the final report. You also need to get it printed and bound then signed by four different people.