To master something, one must be a humble learner, a keen observer and a curious student.This philosophy is equally important for anyone who has a passion for engaging in the development of this country. In India, a country that has 70% of its population living in villages, it is only natural that a person who has a passion for working on issues such as poverty, welfare or productivity will spend time learning and understanding villages. Often, what we know about villages is either from images that the media paints [yellow mustard fields and melodious background music] or through the literature we read. Who among us has ever actually spent time in a village? It should be noted: spending time in villages is more than just paying fly‐by visits.
M.S. Srinivas, in his write up “The Field Worker and the Field: A Village in Karnataka”, once mentioned that, “No one who has spent many nights in a village can claim to be a student of village life”. Being as diverse a country as its villages, India is thus multifaceted in its variety and differences. Through this village study, module participants will engage with and in the complexities and diversity of the village life.
This module will introduce DFP fellows to an invaluable comprehensive learning experience: the village stay. The idea of this module is not only to understand the village’s rich and intriguing complexities, but also to challenge perceptions or views that one may already have. This module will take a fellow on a journey to both learn and unlearn rural life, through discovery to see and perceive things and people in a different light. A secondary objective of this module is that fellows will learn to synthesize information and translate it into a constructive catalyst project.
The village stay is entirely dedicated to providing fellows with an unstructured space for exploring rural lives, challenging one’s own perceptions, and forming a new, more informed view of village systems. Fellows will be encouraged not to focus on certain aspects of village life, but rather learn to see life in the village as an interwoven fabric of social, economic, political and human relationships, just as any human life is.
Expected Objectives
• To explore village life, just as it is
• To understand what shapes interactions between different populations residing in
the village and how those interactions happen
• To develop an empathetic view of village life, i.e. to learn “to see the village from a
“villager’s eyes”
• To synthesize observations, experiences and learning into a reflective village study
document
• To learn to conceive one’s own role as a change catalyst in the village s/he has
studied
Expected Outcome
• Development of a comprehensive and empathetic view of village life
• Skill in making connections regarding how lives in rural areas are constructed, how
does rural areas function, and why
• Assimilation of lessons and observations as comprehensive document
Methodologies
• Periodic stay in villages
• Regular village stay presentations and feedback sessions will be held to assist a
participant determine appropriate direction and to maximize his/her understanding
from the village stay
• Fellows will be given relevant literature as guidelines. Though this module is
dedicated only to village study, there will be several other modules that will
piggyback on this village study module
• Fellows will be asked to submit periodic written village reports and eventually a
comprehensive village study report. The main objective of these writing exercises is
to learn to focus observations into reflective, analytical learning
