"Questioning things should be part of the work" is such a great way to frame your approach to research! What’s ethical or unethical can be so nebulous, and it really is difficult to decide who gets to arbitrate these discussions. Another question that I think naturally follows from everything you’ve mentioned is: can we justify the costs when the possible benefit might never materialize? It seems like so many scientific discoveries have happened by chance, but how do we continue work that may not show any real benefit for years on end, especially after huge costs have accumulated? This is just something that came to mind after reading your reflection, but I am so excited to see where your project will go! 

The point about the difficulty of using American computational scraping tools on Chinese platforms is very interesting. While it's an unfortunate hurdle, I'm interested in seeing how you adapt your project! 

I’ll be focusing on storefronts of Fuzhounese-owned businesses! A large part of the assimilation process for the Fuzhounese community in NYC has taken place through business ownership (restaurants, nail salons, and similar ventures) so I’d like to reflect that in my supplementary photography project. These shops have, to some degree, become a caricature of the Fuzhounese experience, so I want to show how varied these individual experiences really are. Through that, I hope to highlight the diversity within the community and push back against the ways these caricatures can contribute to the Fuzhounese community’s alienation from other Chinese groups.

I would love to see you incorporate your own journalistic writing into your research! That would be such a meaningful addition, and I really appreciate your comment on how my new project helps balance the rest of my research.

Serving as your own boss is such a great way to put it! Tactfully using the resources available to us is a strong approach to developing as our own leaders throughout the research process, and is something I also hope to be mindful of as we embark on our individual projects. It’s so interesting that you’re working with two librarians, and I’m really looking forward to hearing more about the translation aspect of your work! Translation is currently a barrier in my own research (specifically translating Fuzhounese to English), so I’m especially curious to see how you incorporate it into your final project. Would you consider using AI translation tools or some alternative translation tool, or will you primarily rely on your own fluency? Super excited to see how your project evolves!