Testing Research Tools- Chennapatna

PLANNING AND PREPARATION

We worked in a large group and discussed different tools we could use. Different people came up with different tools, some of which required initial preparation like printing pictures or selecting and drawing certain images. We sat together and finished these on the 21st.

MY TOOL

The tool I was using involved the use of only a pen and the sheets we had made with women wearing different kinds of clothes, from shorts to saris.

LOCATION

We went to Neelassandra village in Chennapatna where wooden beads are made.

MY TOOL

The tool I was using involved the use of only a pen and the sheets we had made with women wearing different kinds of clothes, from shorts to saris.

LOCATION

We went to Neelassandra village in Chennapatna where wooden beads are made.

OUR EXPERIENCE

Language barriers were not a problem with the tool I was using but it was with some of the other tools used by my group. We learnt more Kannada in one day than I had in the last 20 years - using a guide book and asking acquaintances. The people of Neelassandra were only too eager to participate in our exercises. They were having a good time, especially Andanappa and the auto driver of the village who knew a few words of Hindi and acted as a partial interpreter once he had understood what the exercises were about.

FIELD RESEARCH

The tool I was using yielded very interesting results.

Most of the old men seemed to like women in short shorts and dresses (the way they showed us the dress they chose was also interesting,the speed with which they chose also) where as they wouldn't like to see women from their own family wearing all that. The younger men seemed to like women in saris and lehngas. The younger women liked the salwar suit while the older women preferred the saree and the lehanga.

CONCLUSIONS

Strangely enough the old men liked women in short shorts and dresses but wouldn't like to see their family members in them. While the younger men liked women in sarees and lehangas. The younger women liked the salwar suit and the older women liked the saree and lehanga. This shows the kind of thinking that they had. The younger men would shy off when we asked them which one they liked and the women would be eager to answer. The way the older women hit the paper and confidentially said which one they like showed they probably were over getting shy and would be very happy to see women in little clothes. It was nice to see the whole village come out and eager to help us with our research. They also tried teaching us kannada and were very jovial.