Guiding Questions (Part 1 of 3)

A major part of planning out a dissertation is identifying the questions your work will try to answer. It isn't enough to say you're going to write about soft cheese production in ancient Uzbekistan. You need to decide whether you're going to write about how ancient Uzbeks produced cheese, or what factors prompted peaks and troughs in cheese production, or when cheese production was first industrialized, or why the social status of a cheese producer was indirectly proportionate to the softness of his cheeses. You could certainly cover more than one of these topics, but in all likelihood you can't cover them all in sufficient detail and with sufficient evidence and analysis in a single dissertation. You have to define precisely which questions you're going to focus on so people know, going in, what sort of contribution to expect. This also makes it easier for someone else who wants to write on soft Uzbeki cheese to recognize what questions remain unanswered. Optimally this is something you want to determine early on so you know how to direct your research.

When it comes to my own work on the British occupation of Philadelphia, I have two main areas of focus. For each I've crafted a "meta-question" and one or more specific questions. The meta-question asks about a general concept, not tied to any particular period or event. These questions are big and somewhat philosophical and my work won't answer them but will (I hope) contribute in the refinement of an answer. The specific questions are tied more directly to particular points in time and space. These are the questions to which I will give an answer, supported as much as possible by solid evidence and logical analysis. 

So, without further adieu:

Major Questions:

1. Effects of the occupation
• Meta-Question - What factors contribute to the effectiveness of a military occupation against a rebellious or insurgent population?
• Specific question(s) - To what extent, and through what means, did the British occupation(s) of American port cities help and/or hinder the battle for the 'hearts and minds' of the American colonists? How did Philadelphians' perception of Great Britain, her armies and her objectives, change as a result of the military's occupation of the city?
2. Meaning of "occupation"
• Meta-Question - What does it mean for a country, an area or a city to be forcibly "occupied"?
• Specific question(s) - Should the British military's taking, holding and governing of Philadelphia in 1777/1778 be regarded as an "occupation"? Should the periods of local dominance by the Associators, Constitutionalists, and militia that bracket the British stay be regarded as "occupations"? What similarities and differences exist in the way Philadelphia's people, particular the Quakers and others who desired to maintain neutrality in the Revolutionary conflict, experienced these periods?

I'll attempt to flesh each of these out in the next two posts.