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Critical Inquiry Seminar (ID001): Diasporas and U.S. Foreign Policy Research and Writing Assignment

In this six-stage assignment, you will conduct in-depth primary and secondary research on a diaspora group with a significant presence in the Los Angeles area and with a history of activism on foreign policy issues with the goal of uncovering the following:

Size, geography and demographic characteristics of your diaspora:

Where do they live and how many of them are there?
When did they come to the U.S.?
Socioeconomic composition, educational attainment

Background, reasons for immigration, identity of diaspora:

Why did they come?
Significant political, economic, social conditions in their country of origin (currently and at time of major immigration wave)
How does this background factor into the identity (or identities) of your diaspora?
What kinds of ties do they maintain with their home country?
What kinds of cleavages exist within the community?
How do they view the current regime in their country of origin?

Organizations and interest groups:

What kinds of organizations represent these communities?
Are there rival organizations with different philosophies?
How are they organized?
How do they exert influence at a local and international level?
What issues do they care about?
What foreign policy issues do they care about, and how do these relate to identity?
How have they sought to influence the foreign policy issues? Have they contributed money to politicians, directly or indirectly?
To what extent have they succeeded in influencing foreign policies, and if so, why?

You will plan and present your research in a series of assignments culminating in a final paper that will synthesize the data you have gathered and present an argument in the context of existing literature.

The pedagogical objectives of this assignment are four-fold:

1) Help you acquire in-depth knowledge of a particular diaspora while exploring broader themes such as identity, immigration, interest groups and their influence, and the sources of U.S. foreign policies. 2) Foster library and research skills in general as well as information literacy. 3) Introduce you to interviewing as a research tool. 4) Help develop collaborative learning, teamwork and presentation skills.

Your stellar research support team includes two of our top Claremont Consortium Librarians: Char Booth (Char_Booth@cuc.claremont.edu) and Sara Lowe (Sara_Lowe@cuc.claremont.edu). Char supports e-learning and instruction and has expertise in Wikipedia. Sara has expertise in political science. You will be meeting them throughout the semester in groups and individual sessions.

Stage 1: Rank-ordered List (ungraded) (due Tuesday, 9/9)

In the second week of class, you will turn in a rank-ordered list of two diaspora groups you would like to research, drawing on the list below. You must present a one-paragraph justification of your top choice.

Uygur
Vietnamese
Armenian
Greek
Polish
Croatian
Iranian-Persian
Filipino
Indian
Taiwanese
Albanian
Ukrainian
Palestinian
Salvadoran
Ethiopian

Stage 2: Preliminary Bibliography and Strategy (10% of your final grade) (due Tue, 9/23)

Based on the results of Stage 1, I will assign you to topics and teams. In the fourth week of class, after consultations with the librarian, you will turn in a group document that will consist of:

• A list of primary sources: organizations present in the Los Angeles area, contact numbers and emails for representatives, locations, etc. • The relevant census data. • Possible interviews with experts and staff of support organizations (academics, immigrant/refugee support services, etc.). • Basic data on your diaspora in Los Angeles. • A list of questions for the fieldwork interviews (including questions for individual papers).

Stage 3: Abstract of Final Paper (5% of final grade) (due Tue, 10/16)

This is an individual product. You will turn in a 300-word maximum abstract that will specify your research question and preview the argument(s) you will present in your final research paper. You can certainly discuss ideas with your research team, but topics and arguments (as well as some secondary sources) need to be sufficiently unique. This may require some coordination in your research team.

Stage 4: Fieldwork Interviews and Reports (15% of your final grade) (due Tue, 11/11)

You will work in groups of two (and one group of three) to schedule and interview representatives of your diaspora groups. Two in-depth interviews are required; more than two interviews would be beneficial, especially if there are multiple organizations that represent your diaspora. In the seventh week of class, you will present the results of your interviews to the class and turn in a 1000-word report highlighting the results of your interviews.

Stage 5: Wikipedia Article (20% of your final grade) (due Tue, 11/25)

You will use the data you have gathered thus far to write, as a team, Wikipedia entries on “[Your Diaspora] in Los Angeles.” In the ninth week of class, you will post these to the Wikipedia site. In the tenth week of class, each group will present their research findings to the class.

If you are not familiar with Wikipedia, below is some background information on what it is, how it is edited, who contributes, etc. The librarians will also be talking a lot about Wikipedia and the problems/advantages of community-edited information in class.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About#Contributing_to_Wikipedia

To create a new page in Wikipedia, it is best to use the Wikipedia Article Wizard.

Stage 6: Final Research Paper (40% of your final grade) (due Thu, 12/11)

In Week 11 of the class, you will submit drafts of research papers for peer review. The final paper, due the last week of class, should be about 5000 words, draw on two fieldwork interviews and 10-12 sources, and present an original argument about your diaspora and its foreign policy-related identity and activism, situating this argument in the existing literature. This is an individual assignment; although you will have been working as teams up to this point, it is imperative that each paper is unique.

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