Fieldwork in Nonwestern Contexts: Continuity and Change

Abstract

Fieldwork has a long and varied history in geography, from being employed in the service of empires in the past to its use in participatory research for social advocacy and empowerment of the poor and the powerless today. This paper focuses specifically on continuity and change in the nature of fieldwork in nonwestern settings over the last half century. Geographical questions originate, are documented, and are tested in the field. Although technological innovation has benefited some aspects of fieldwork, many other dimensions of fieldwork remain unchanged. The advance of technology is no guarantee that the quality of fieldwork will improve. The character of fieldwork has also been influenced by the changing nature of societies themselves. The past fifty years have seen the end of formal European colonies. Finally, discussions of fieldwork in geography have been influenced by the growing interest in poststructuralism and feminism. Geographers are increasingly aware of their situatedness or positionality as researchers and of their responsibilities toward those whom they study as well as toward scholarship itself. We discuss the practice of fieldwork informed by our experiences in three different parts of the world—Africa (Porter), Papua New Guinea (Grossman), and the Eastern Caribbean (Grossman)—representing research at different times beginning in the 1950s. We consider more general discussions of fieldwork in the literature that address issues of the politics and ethics of knowledge production. While the ways of doing fieldwork change and even purposes change, the task ultimately is to understand our world and help make it a good, continuing place for humankind.