Place on The New Ethnographer's Roundtable on 'Designing New Approaches to Impediments to Fieldwork' at the AAA/CASCA 2019
We have unfortunately had a presenter drop out and are accepting new applications to our roundtable, 'Designing New Approaches to Impediments to Fieldwork', the abstract for which is posted below. If you are attending the AAA/CASCA Conference this November and would like to take part please email [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> with a brief bio and abstract detailing the relevance of your intended contribution.
Over a decade ago, Amy Pollard's 'Field of Screams' (2009) highlighted that ethnographers returning from fieldwork with different kinds of trauma was emerging as ubiquitous rather than exceptional. Even ethnographers who conduct research in so-called low- to medium- risk settings face issues related to their safety, ethics, gender, finance, health, and wellbeing in the field. Fieldworkers are often almost entirely responsible for careful planning to reduce potential risks and treatment for unforeseen issues, which may impact their long-term career and mental and physical health and wellbeing after fieldwork. In the process of planning, the main focus is often placed on methods and research participants, instead of researchers themselves even though researchers are especially vulnerable in the field. Preventions and solutions for a better fieldwork experience are often not discussed in academia. For instance, precarity and harassment of anthropologists are often not addressed in journals, lectures, and fieldwork training sessions, and such experiences or ways of managing them remain unknown to many prospective and even experienced fieldworkers. Ethnographers have struggled to move away from past attempts to separate 'emotion' from 'data' in what Foley calls 'a somewhat schizophrenic manner' (2002:474), including the emotions embedded in their own lives and relationships in the field. Many researchers do not consider their fieldwork years as a rupture from normal life in isolation or next to the limit of endurance, but a precious and continuous part of their lives. New approaches that enable fieldworkers to conduct research without sacrifices, compromises, or perseverance would potentially make a significant difference in the experience of fieldworkers. In this roundtable, we explore how the relationship among fieldworks have developed over time and can potentially change over time for more effective communication and better fieldwork experience through building on negotiations, reciprocity, mutual trust, and efficient collaboration. We explore perpetuating and arising issues around safety, harassment, ethics, and mental and physical health and wellbeing of ethnographers. Our discussion topics include but not limited to 1) harassment, exploitation, and vulnerability of researchers and their resistance 2) prevention and treatment for unforeseen circumstances, greater empathy, and compassion for what it means to face challenges in ethnographic research 3) effective planning, risk assessment, and ethical clearance for both fieldworkers and research participants 4) personal safety, security, and crisis management for ethnographers in the field 5) new challenges and opportunities in anthropological research in the 21st century. The aim of this roundtable is to provide with opportunities to discuss how anthropologists can envision and conduct more compassionate research practice for both themselves and the communities we work with.
Best,
Branwen Spector
PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology
London School of Economics
Co-founder, The New Ethnographer<https://thenewethnographer.org/>
Field Methods Consultant at TNEConsultancy<https://www.tneconsultancy.org/>
Co-founder, LSE Digital Ethnography Collective<https://twitter.com/DigEthnogLSE>
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