Call for papers:

Future Fields
- A National Conference on Fieldwork for Graduate
Students
and Junior Researchers


Oxford, December 17-19 2003


Much has been written about the need for new and
innovative fieldwork 
methods in anthropology since the reflexive turn of
the discipline in 
the 
1980s. As research interests of anthropologists have
changed, so have 
the types of fieldworks that are being undertaken. New
contexts for 
fieldwork and the re-evaluation of old theoretical
assumptions have 
widened the anthropological gaze. The ideal of
long-term fieldwork in a 
rural location among non-Western peoples still exerts
a powerful 
influence on the discipline as the implicit norm for
ethnographic 
fieldworks. However, while fieldwork remains the most
significant rite 
de 
passage for anthropologists and one of the key
identifiers of the 
discipline, there has been little discussion of how
one goes about 
doing 
fieldwork in different kinds of fields and what
epistemological 
implications 
for the discipline different kinds of fieldwork have.
While traditional 
methods such as long-term site work and participant
observation are 
still 
valid, they now must be complemented by innovative
methods that 
respond to contemporary epistemological challenges.
The very notion of 
“the field” itself may need critical questioning.
Graduate students and 
junior researchers are at the forefront of these
developments. 

Students of anthropology are expected to carry out
long term fieldwork 
in 
contexts where they will often find themselves in
marginal and 
vulnerable 
positions vis-à-vis the ‘locals’. The fieldworker may
find herself 
being 
objectified by her informants and may find her
identity as researcher 
challenged. Upon return, however, the data produced in
often 
compromised and compromising encounters must be
transformed into 
an authoritative academic text. 

The Oxford University Anthropological Society and
Anthropology Matters 
would like to invite graduate students and junior
scholars to a 
conference 
that aims to de-mythologise fieldwork and stimulate
debate over which 
kinds of fieldwork respond to the challenges of our
time. The 
conference 
is based on the idea that our generation of
researchers are facing new 
challenges that need to be addressed and that we can
learn from each 
other's experiences.  

Possible themes and issues include the following (but
we welcome 
abstracts on other aspects of fieldwork and methods as
well):

--Urban fieldwork
--The challenge of studying elites
--Multi-sited fieldwork and fieldwork focusing on
transnational 
movements 
of people, images, stories, etc.
--Fieldwork at home
--Fieldwork under fire
--Professional ethics and audit culture
--Doing fieldwork with or about children
--Short-term fieldwork/research based on multiple
visits to the field
--Reflexivity
--The political economy of doing fieldwork and the
issue of the 
fieldworker’s position vis-à-vis her informants
--Disciplinary boundaries and fieldwork

The conference also offers two workshops for
participants: one on 
postgraduate teaching and another on applying for jobs
and research 
funding.


Please send abstracts of app. 200 words by November 3
to OUAS: 
[log in to unmask] 
or postal address below.


The conference will take place at ISCA, December 17-19
2003. 
Fee: £15, including accommodation, breakfast and
lunches. 
Participants must pay for their own dinners. Oxford
participants 
will not be offered accommodation. 
A limited number of travel bursaries are available
upon application.

Information updates will be posted on the OUAS
website.

This conference is financiually supported by C-SAP,
ISCA, ASA and the 
Proctors of the University of Oxford. 
It is organised by OUAS and Anthropology Matters.

 
*********************************
Oxford University Anthropological Society
51 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PE
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~anthsoc/

 


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