From 8-10 December RCSD joined with Yunnan University to complete the “Transnational Flows and Ethnic Relations in the Borderlands of the Upper Mekong” Summer School by holding a writing workshop with Yunnan University Department of Ethnology students. These students came to Chiang Mai to do fieldwork in August of this year and have been moving through the process of paper writing, revision, reconceptualizing, and rewriting.
With the stunning backdrop of Yunnan University’s ginko trees turning yellow for the winter, the workshop helped guide students through the work of further clarifying and focusing their use of conceptual frameworks, methodology, literature review, and implementing new online tools that provide invaluable assistance in writing in academic English. Instructors, professors, and participants all gave honest and valuable feedback on the difficulties, lessons, and key takeaways they received from all parts of the summer school, including their fieldwork, and their struggles in structuring and writing academic English. All summer school participants exchanged interesting observations on the differences of academic focus and approach between Thailand and China, and the general experience of conducting research, living and learning in a new and foreign environment and context.
Students are now completing the final versions of their fieldwork papers and the full volume of their student experiences and reflections will be published by RCSD in 2024!
