LONDON — The results of a major research on public opinion in Diaspora communities will be formally launched at an online event on 5 September.
The Armenian Diaspora Survey (ADS)—the first of a three-year study project—was held in four communities in 2019: Argentina, Lebanon, Canada (Montreal) and Romania. The fieldwork took place between September and December 2019, 3000 Armenians took part in the study.
“The Armenian Diaspora Survey is an attempt to study the opinions of Armenians living in various communities around the world and aims to explore the ‘ingredients’ of being Armenian in the 21st century,” said ADS director Dr. Hratch Tchilingirian of University of Oxford.
The research provides a snapshot of the contemporary Diaspora by studying public opinions on identity, language and culture, community engagement, and relations with Armenia.
ADS is funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and is carried out by a team of experts under the auspices of the Armenian Institute in London.
“We are pleased that this multi-country systematic survey of the Diaspora has been done with extensive fieldwork and large participation,” said Dr. Razmik Panossian, Director of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s Armenian Communities Department. “I thank all the people who were involved with and supported this research project,” he added.
The 175-page full results of the 2019 study will be available for downloading for free from the ADS website: www.armeniandiasporasurvey.com.
The launch will be live streamed on Saturday, 5 September 2020 at 15:00h London time (Beirut & Bucharest 21:00h; Yerevan 18:00h; Buenos Aires 10:00h; Montreal & New York 10:00h; Los Angeles 07:00h) on www.facebook.com/armsurvey and Youtube: shorturl.at/dzY47.
2 comments
Surveys can tell us a lot or they can skew our perceptions of what our compatriots think and want. Are those 3000 survey takers truly a representative sampling of Armenians from those communities? We find it fascinating that some issues were raised in the survey while others were not. For example we know that many respondents in Boston offered a write-in question regarding their desire for land return and reparations by Turkey. But this was not reported by the Diaspora survey takers. On the other hand, the survey takers were sure to inform readers that they got write-in questions about toxic masculinity and LGBT issues. Are social justice issues that interest the Left and that are approved of by the Gulbenkian Foundation sponsors the only issues worth reporting?
Years ago when I was publishing a magazine, I hired a readership survey company to tell me what percentage of our readers purchased a product or service advertised in the magazine. It’s an important data when sales people call ad agencies. When the results came in, I was disappointed by the numbers. They were also about the same as that of our competition. Noticing my disappointment, the head of the company doing the survey told me that he could improve our statistics if he “massaged” the numbers in a different way.