I'm a second year research student at UCL, based in the French department but
with secondary supervision in Anthropology. My research concerns the project
for a national museum of immigration, due to open in Paris in 2007 and more
generally, the reconfiguration of national identity in current French museums
and galleries. I am about to go to Paris for a six-month fieldwork period
during which time I will be conducting interviews with artists, curators and
community workers and also (hopefully) observing the exhibition design process
at the new museum. I will of course be keeping 'field' notes but I have also
been wondering whether blogging might be a useful way to keep in touch with my
supervisors, communicate with other researchers working on similar interests,
keep my friends and family informed without boring them with lengthy emails
and, last but not least, force me to reflect on my progress on a regular basis.

I have a number of questions for the list:

Does anyone have any experience (good or bad)of anything similar?
Can anyone recommend a good blog site for this purpose?
Does anyone know of any instances of using virtual networks (e.g. MySpace) to
create a community of linked researchers? Can anyone recommend a 'community'
site of this sort? Would it be useful do you think?

This is an experiment so I would be very grateful for contributions of any sort.
Please reply off list to [log in to unmask] If I receive lots of helpful
contributions then I will email a summary of responses to the list.

And lastly, do let me know if you'd like me to send you the address when it's
all up and running!

Thanks for your help,
Mary Stevens

-- 
PhD Student,
UCL French

Visit my webpage to find out more about my research:
www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~uclfmis