Mirik College, Studio 1947

Geography lives in the hills around Mirik. In partnership with the Department of Geography at Mirik College, Studio 1947 designed and led a field study that took 100 household conversations across Soureni Tea Garden communities. The project moved research out of the classroom and into Mandir Gaon, Soureni, and Phuguri, where residents shared daily realities around water access, livelihood constraints, and aspirations for the future.

Mirik College

Mirik, India

Brand Idenity

Survey & Research

Communication Ecosystem

Our Role

Studio 1947 collaborated with the Department of Geography, Mirik College, to design and execute a community-centered field study across Soureni Tea Garden. The work unfolded in four connected phases, each building on the last.

Research Framework & Classroom Foundation

Faculty from Mirik College and the Studio 1947 team co-developed a research framework grounded in livelihoods, settlement patterns, regional development, and human–environment relationships. Twenty hours of classroom sessions prepared student researchers with conceptual tools and ethical guidelines before they stepped into the field.

Field Methods & Ethical Engagement Workshops

Twenty hours of workshops focused on ethical field engagement, household survey design, interview techniques, and data documentation. Students practiced consent protocols, learned to navigate power dynamics in tea garden communities, and calibrated survey instruments for local context.

Household Survey
Fieldwork

Twenty hours of face-to-face fieldwork across Mandir Gaon, Soureni, and Phuguri villages. Student researchers conducted 100 household surveys capturing income sources, employment patterns, access to services, water availability, and lived experiences of tea garden workers and their families.

Analysis, Synthesis & Reporting

Twenty hours of post-fieldwork analysis at the Studio 1947 office. Students cleaned and coded data, identified patterns, and drafted findings under mentor supervision — an internship-style experience that translated raw responses into structured insight.

Key Outcomes

Experiential Learning Framework

An integrated model combining classroom theory, ethical field practice, and supervised analysis. The framework is replicable across academic institutions seeking to ground geography and social science curricula in community reality.

Primary Livelihood Documentation

Ground-level data from 100 households across three Soureni Tea Garden villages. The dataset captures income diversity, water access gaps, service delivery shortfalls, and aspiration maps — a baseline for future advocacy and planning.

Student Capacity & Confidence Building

Student researchers progressed from classroom learners to independent field practitioners. Each received a Studio 1947 certificate recognizing research design, ethical engagement, data collection, and analytical synthesis competencies.

Creators

Meet the team behind the Mirik College project: a multidisciplinary collective of strategists, researchers, and designers united by a commitment to purposeful work. We combine rigorous fieldwork with creative analysis to build research initiatives that serve real communities and advance missions worth championing.