Fieldwork from Home?: COVID-19 and the Patchwork Future of Japan-Based Fieldwork Pedagogies

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, entry to Japan was heavily restricted causing challenges to research and study opportunities. This extended exclusion from Japan has since emphasised questions about the way in which we approach Japanese Studies in the future, and the nature of academic field research more broadly. In this article, we explore these through an innovative digitised ‘field trip from home’ class that we ran for undergraduate students in 2020 as a replacement for in-country fieldwork. Based on these experiences we argue that, while digital approaches are not a replacement for classic field research, digital approaches to scholarship and pedagogy within Japanese studies and related subjects can help to enhance on-site physical field practices and their position in our subjects. We discuss our findings as an example of ‘patchwork ethnography’ through how pandemic-era teaching and research experiences have shone a spotlight on the necessity to rethink the possibilities for classic fieldwork within contemporary academia. As we move beyond the pandemic, we conclude that the future will require both the reopening of borders and the necessary resources to better support the development of both digital and in person fieldwork training.