“Finally we see the city”: involving of students of the Conceptual Urban Studies Master’s program in pre-design research of the Center for Urban Studies of Tyumen State University

Abstract

In this papers, the research fellow at the Center for Urban Studies at Tyumen State University and the head of student field studies for the Conceptual Urban Studies Master’s program writes about involving early career researchers in field research work. The key aspects of practice of the Center for Urban Studies are a) the predesign nature of the research, which involves students of the Master’s program; b) the student staff, which, in addition to bachelor’s graduates, includes many professionals working in the urban enterprises; c) a combination of practical and fundamental research tasks; d) the abductive logic of setting research tasks. The main principle of the student practices is to integrate fundamental sholarly tasks into applied pre-project research, in which not only are specific tasks set by the employer carried out, but also study is carried out on the situation from the point of view of the city process that they observe. Students typically work on basic research skills, primarily field skills — interviews, observations, keeping field diaries, etc. What is most important from an educational perspective is that the situation of fieldwork in real urban contexts, which differs from standard forms of training, reveals students’ knowledge and skills much more effectively than the classroom. While the project logic assumes that students are primarily data collectors performing specific technical tasks, the research logic aims for students to become data interpreters like their senior colleagues.