January 14

Last night I got the opportunity to interview someone who had lived in Tonga for 2 years for his LDS mission. I asked him about the lifestyle there, and about family lives. He said a lot of women spend their time taking care of the homes and then make tapa cloth and weave, which they usually sell for a profit. Then the men work out in "the bush." I told him that I am extremely interested in learning more about the social aspects of weaving that the women participate in. While weaving, the women talk about family life, stories, and even gossip. I'm looking into spending more time on researching this specific topic. I would love to do my research as an ethnography, and just write about what its like in Tonga to be in a group of women weaving all day together.
For my research, I'm definitely leaning toward a qualitative research study, but I have to give it some sort of validity. I'm not one to say that positivism and the scientific method gives us real "truth" or that there is one perfect way to give us unadulterated truth. My experiences in Tonga won't be the same as everyone else's, and it most certainly won't be the same as my friend who served his mission there. What gives validity to my research, then, is the argument against this "perfect way" of studying a people to find truth. Anyone who studies a people or culture will have their biases. As much as they try to avoid that, any person studying another culture only sees it through their perspective of "culture". There is no real way to eliminate our own perspective on our research. Therefore, as a qualitative study, my experiences aren't necessarily a scientific claim on what life is like there in Tonga or what "reality" is for the people in Tonga. I can't possibly know that, since I am not a native born Tongan. My claim is only to share what I discovered while there, in my involvement with the people and through my experiences as an outsider looking in through my empirical knowledge. I am in no way saying that my research will reflect the same research that has been done in Tonga or will be repeatable as a scientific experiment in the future. Those are just some thoughts I had on where I'm coming from in my research.