Challenges Of Fieldwork Research Articles

Navigating tourism ethnographies – fieldwork embroiled in time, movement and emotion

ABSTRACT In this paper, we reflect on the challenges of ethnographic fieldwork in tourism research. Specifically, we discuss the intense, messy and complex dynamics of doing (tourism) ethnographic fieldwork, highlighting how key challenges have affected us as researchers, our practises, relationships and experiences in the field. Our reflections are illustrated considering respectively our research experiences of mountaineering in the Himalayas, walking tourism in China, horse-riding tourism in the UK and volunteer tourism in Peru. Although these fields have very different social and geopolitical contexts, we experienced similar issues. Our most commonly experienced challenges include time limitations, having ‘enough data’, accessibility to the informants and rapport building. Through the discussion of these challenges, we unpack the often conflicting emotional contours of fieldwork which are commonly experienced but rarely spoken of. With this paper, we seek to open critical debates on the emotional aspects of tourism research which may be particularly useful for novice ethnographers and scholars constrained by the institutionalized pressures of academia.

Linguistic Challenges of Fieldwork for First-Generation Ethnic Researchers

Language is a significant part of any fieldwork in cultural and cross-cultural qualitative research. With a growing number of 1.25-, 1.5- and second-generation children of immigrant families entering academia, many assume their bilingual proficiency helps them bypass translational and linguistic challenges. Based on my fieldwork experience, I am exploring the linguistic challenges of intragroup research. While I presumed my bilingualism in English and Farsi would help me build communal rapport during my fieldwork, I was surprised by my participants’ choice of broken English and refusal to complete their interview in Farsi. In this article, I argue that my positionality as a researcher and the intruding Anglo culture in the research process diminished my communal identity and intensified my hierarchical position. Upon assessing the linguistic challenges, I will make recommendations and suggestions to address similar challenges in the fieldwork.

MedMinas project: design and use of mixed methods in the evaluation of pharmaceutical services in primary health care in Minas Gerais, Brazil

BackgroundThe main purposes of primary care-based pharmaceutical services (PHCPS) in Brazil are to provide free access to medicines and pharmaceutical care to patients. Several obstacles hinder achieving their goals; thus, MedMinas Project aimed to evaluate the PHCPS, the supply system, and the use of medicines. This paper reflects on our experience designing, planning, and conducting the project, describing the issues yielded in the field and lessons learned.MethodsThis work consists of a mixed-methods study conducted in Minas Gerais, Southeastern Brazil. We adopted the principles of Rapid Evaluation Methods, employing a multistage stratified sampling for the quantitative and a purposeful sampling for the qualitative components, respectively, and a documentary research. Data sources included individuals (patients and professionals), prescriptions, dispensed medicines, and policy documents collected between April and October 2019. The quantitative data described in this paper were analysed by descriptive statistics and the qualitative by Thematic Content Analysis.ResultsA total of 26 municipalities varying from 37,784 to 409,341 inhabitants were included. The field team spent, on average, 16 days in each location. We interviewed 1019 respondents, of which 127 were professionals and 892 patients. The participation rate varied from 92 to 100%, depending on the respondent subgroup. Most interviews lasted between 45 min and one hour. Fieldwork challenges included participants’ enrolment, field team, interview processes, and project budget. The participants provided positive feedback and five main themes emerged from the interview experience (self-awareness, sense of gratitude, research value, access to findings, and benefits of the research). Additionally, we collected copies of 1072 documents and 2070 pieces of data from prescriptions filled and medicines dispensed at the PCP.ConclusionWe demonstrated the viability of conducting the MedMinas Project in an extensive geographic area within effective time frames that provided meaningful, high-quality data from multiple actors. The methods and lessons learned are valuable for researchers across various disciplines in similar urban settings in Brazil and other countries of low- and middle-income (LMIC).

Insecurities of nativism

This article, through various ethnographic encounters, highlights the advantages and explores the challenges of fieldwork for a female researcher studying what might be taken to be her own community. Doing a native anthropology in a marginal borderland that has not been explored anthropologically before turns out to be an interesting experience. On the one hand, the identity of being a native of the region carves out ways in the field that help her overcome barriers; on the other hand, the same identity, through her common ethnic and cultural belonging, kinship relations, and local familiarity restricts her in many ways. Through explorations of her identity in the field along gender, caste, class, and ethnic lines, the work highlights how sometimes she is an insider, sometimes an outsider, and sometimes a partial-insider-outsider, thereby collapsing the strict division of a researcher into categories of an outsider and an insider.

From a Distance: The ‘New Normal’ for Researchers and Research Assistants Engaged in Remote Fieldwork

Doing remote fieldwork is a ‘new normal’ in the COVID-19 pandemic era. It is challenging, but not impossible. With planning and preparation, comprehensive training and ongoing support for Research Assistants (RAs), researchers can overcome the challenges of remote fieldwork. In this article, we reflect on the experience of employing local RAs to support doctoral research involving in-depth household interviews and focus group discussions with ethnic minority people in upland Vietnam. The challenge of adapting to this ‘new normal’ provided us with an opportunity for a critical appraisal of the researcher–RA relationship. The approach to remote fieldwork we developed centres on frequent communication, feedback and building trusting team dynamics. We argue that this approach can overcome some of the power hierarchies between global north researchers and local RAs, and therefore, should not simply be seen as a temporary or inferior ‘Plan B’ for researchers, but should be embraced as a way of reimagining knowledge production. We discuss lessons learned in how to carry out remote fieldwork, present practical strategies and recommendations, and consider the strengths of this approach for knowledge production and the empowerment of researchers in the global south.

Fieldwork Challenges Stemming from Doing Studies in Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT)

Fieldwork Challenges Stemming from Doing Studies in Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT)

Female sex research with men in Kenya: Fieldwork challenges and reflections

The sexuality of women during fieldwork with men becomes constantly scrutinised, and sexualised, and the perceptions of others on our sexuality often impinge on sex research processes in patriarchal societies. This paper discusses challenges and conceptual reflections of gender interactions in sex research fieldwork by a woman with men aged 18–54 in Nairobi, Kenya. It also provides insights on practical safety strategies for women conducting sex research fieldwork. The paper draws on the researcher's field notes and reflections on experiences and interactions with gatekeepers and male participants to present brief accounts of challenges of gender interactions in sex research fieldwork. The impact of gender on the well-being of women doing gender interactions sex research during fieldwork in patriarchal societies is particularly salient. The scrutiny on women, women's sexual subjectivities and positioning of their sexuality by men occur more often than may occur with male researchers who research women. The reproduction of sex knowledge is a key aspect of ethical considerations and part of the ethical reproduction of knowledge, which needs to consider difficulties with gender interactions. Hence, this paper is a proposed resource for fieldwork and policy making in programmes that support the sexuality of men.

The loneliness of the long-distance ethnobotanist: a constructive critique of methods used in an ethnoveterinary study in Mongolia

BackgroundFieldwork plays an important role in research projects across a variety of fields, especially in the multidisciplinary setting of natural and social science research. As is the nature of fieldwork, things do not always work out as planned, and yet this is not often written about. In response to the need for honest and transparent accounts of fieldwork, the purpose of this article is to review the methods used during fieldwork for the first author’s dissertation research on ethnoveterinary knowledge.MethodsTo critically review and reflect on the fieldwork methods used for an ethnoveterinary study in Mongolia, we compare the theory underpinning each method with the practical reality of implementing the method in the field. From this comparison, we draw out and discuss a number of key themes.ResultsEighteen methods and approaches used for the research project are reviewed and compared. From this, we distil and further discuss the following five overarching themes: reflections on specific data collection methods (free listing, semi-structured interviews with interpreters, voucher specimen collection); assumptions around involving local people; power dynamics; gender relations; and researcher well-being.ConclusionBy juxtaposing the theory and practical reality of the methods used, we highlight many potential fieldwork challenges and, within this context, offer general pointers, especially for novice female researchers doing fieldwork in foreign countries. A critical review of this type, where the experience and use of various methods, techniques, and approaches are openly shared and evaluated, is a contribution to selecting, adapting, and fine-tuning the methods best suited to a particular research context.

Work conditions and burnout: an exploratory study among Hungarian workers in family and child welfare, child protection and pedagogical professional services

ABSTRACT The study focuses on the relationship between professional working conditions and burnout among Hungarian social and pedagogical professionals. The novelty of our research is that in addition to the role of mainstream work and organisational factors studies, it points out the roles of conflicts of interaction and cooperation with clients, management of cultural distance and differences, and challenges of fieldwork in the occurrence of burnout measured by an individualised scale. Two hundred and sixty-one professionals participated in our cross-sectional questionnaire survey; the data were analysed by factor analysis and multinomial logistic regression. Adjusted for work field and age, the results showed that the challenges related to clients and fieldwork, as well as job and task fitting problems played a significant role in emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation of social and pedagogical workers. In addition to that, the deficiencies related to work-motivation are positively associated with the reduced personal accomplishment of professionals. The empirical results suggest that in order to prevent the burnout of professionals, it is essential not only to create organisational motivating conditions for work, but also to prepare them for the substantive parts of work, real life situations, the associated expectations for their role and conflicts management, and provide on-going professional support.

Challenges of fieldwork for LGBTQ+ scientists.

Challenges of fieldwork for LGBTQ+ scientists.

Investigating the Use and Challenges of Field Work Towards Teaching and Learning of Geography in Selected Schools in the Wa Municipality

The study was undertaken to examine the contributions of field work towards the teaching and learning of Geography in selected Senior High Schools in the Upper West Region of Ghana. The descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The sample population was students and 3 Geography teachers. Both structured questionnaires and interview guides were the instruments used to collect the data for the study. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the qualitative data was organized into themes. Findings from the study revealed that the extent to which field work was used by Geography teachers is not frequent though it was affirmed by students and teachers that field work is vital in the teaching and learning of geography. Further, it was recognized that challenges such as lack of financial resources, inadequate time, lack of support from school management and parents and lack of logistics and material resources such as vehicles to convey students to the field in most instances deprived teachers from organizing field work as a method of teaching and learning. The study recommended the following; the Ghana Education Service should organize workshops and seminars to equip teachers in the organization of workshops, availability of videos of field sites that are in line with the geography curriculum for senior high schools, teachers should also explore more on the field work opportunities within their immediate school and community environment and all educational stakeholders should assist in the organization of field work to enhance effective teaching and learning of geography in senior high schools. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/12-22-03 Publication date: August 31 st 2021

“Useful Knowledge” in Charles-Alexandre Lesueur’s visual and textual accounts of Missouri in 1826

Artist and naturalist Charles-Alexandre Lesueur (1778-1846) valued his work as useful to science generally and to France in particular, including during the time he lived and traveled in North America from 1816 to 1837. Starting with Daniela Bleichmar’s concept of “visual epistemology: a way of knowing based on visuality, encompassing both observation and representation,” this essay claims that Lesueur’s art and scientific practice adhered closely to a belief in the authority of art from direct observation in nature, and they served different professional, educational, community, and potentially commercial purposes. It charts the conditions under which he produced the art, the purpose(s) of the art, the types of art (sketches, paintings, prints, landscape drawings), and the intended audience through four types of subjects from the expedition to Missouri in 1826: the challenges of scientific fieldwork, Blacks in Missouri, lead mining, and inland but especially riverside towns.

Being There

Conrad W. Watson describes fieldwork as ‘a period of particular heightened intensity’ (1999a: 2) in the introduction of Being There (1999b). The authors of this volume were by far not the first, nor the last, anthropologists questioning and critically reflecting on what it is that they are actually doing when being there in their respective fields. For Watson and others (Borneman and Hammoudi 2009; Geertz 2004; Hollan 2008), this was primarily an epistemological question, following ruptures in the discipline’s identity after the Writing Culture Debates of the late 1980s. Forced to rethink their fieldwork practices, anthropologists saw their understandings of theory-building and knowledge production follow suit. However, the complexities and challenges of ethnographic fieldwork also confronted and still confront many anthropologists with intricate questions of inequalities, power structures and violence that not only need to be theorised but also navigated in the everyday practice of fieldwork.

Navigating procedural ethics and ethics in practice in outdoor studies: an example from sail training

ABSTRACT Researching ethically is an institutional requirement and cornerstone of good everyday practice in conducting research, adopting a mindful consideration for participants and resisting the temptation to use methodological approaches which may exploit participants or their trust in the research process or researcher. In the context of outdoor studies and framed by Kantian ethical and moral principles, this paper describes the procedural ethics of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) and how our own moral and ethical positioning influences the planning for the opportunities, dilemmas and challenges of fieldwork, shaping the ethics in practice during research and in post-study reporting. From a sail training study, I describe the ethical and methodological dilemmas and the decisions made in respect of audio recording and the use of photo-elicitation; and the sense of uncertainty and unease stimulated by reflective and reflexive practice.

SPLITSnow: A spectral light transport model for snow

Snow is a fundamental component of the climate system. It is also an important part of the planet's hydrological cycle. Accordingly, the investigation of its light scattering properties is essential for remote sensing applications employed in the estimation of changes in the current amount of snowpack. These wide-scale environmental changes are key indicators of future climate events affecting global sustainability. Viewed in this context, computational simulations of light interactions with snow can be used to increase the effectiveness-to-cost ratio of remote sensing initiatives in this area. More specifically, by enabling a controlled assessment of the effects of snow granular structure and composition parameters on its light reflection and transmission profiles, these simulations can be instrumental in the high-fidelity interpretation of data remotely acquired from snow-covered landscapes that pose sizable challenges for field work. In order to contribute to these interdisciplinary research efforts, this paper presents a novel light transport model for snow that can predictively simulate the spectral and spatial distributions of light interacting with this ubiquitous particulate material. While the former radiometric responses are quantified in terms of hyperspectral reflectance and transmittance, the latter are quantified in terms of BSDF (bidirectional scattering distribution function). The proposed model employs a first-principles simulation approach that accounts for the positional dependence of the scattered light in the quantification of its spatial distribution. Thus, this distribution can also be expressed in terms of BSSDF (bidirectional surface-scattering distribution function). The predictive capabilities of the proposed model are quantitatively and qualitatively evaluated by comparing modeled results with measured data obtained from in situ experiments and phenomenological traits reported in the literature, respectively.

Studying Violence in Africa: Contributions from Sources, Fieldwork Challenges and Ethical Considerations

Studying Violence in Africa: Contributions from Sources, Fieldwork Challenges and Ethical Considerations

Resilience, professionalism, and reflective thinking: The three-legged stool of health professional and teacher education students’ fieldwork practice / Resilienz, Professionalität und reflektierendes Denken: die drei Säulen für das Praktikum von Studierenden der Gesundheitsberufe und der Lehrerbildung

Abstract Background Fieldwork is a core element of health professional and education student training that is often a professional registration and practice requirement. There are many personal, social, and professional factors that impact on students’ fieldwork performance. The impact of professionalism, resilience, and reflective thinking on fieldwork performance is not well described in the literature. Aim To examine the relationship between health professional and teacher education university students’ perceptions of professionalism, resilience, reflective thinking and their links to fieldwork performance. Methods Ten focus group interviews were conducted with university undergraduate or master's students across four disciplines: occupational therapy (n = 18), pharmacy (n = 6), social work (n = 38), and education (n = 16). Thematic analysis was used to identify codes and categories in focus group transcripts. Commonalities of ideas and constructs were identified and interpreted to create meaningful themes. Results Six themes were identified. Fieldwork placement created real-world opportunities for developing technical and nontechnical skills, professional acclimatization, psychosocial traits, and behaviors for coping with the transition from student to proto-professional. However, these outcomes had consequences related to bridging the gap between university course theory and the reality of the workplace, adapting to cultural differences and local practice as well as seeking their own resources, supports, and learning. Conclusion Despite the personal, professional, and practical challenges of fieldwork, students independently establish mental models of professionalism, resilience, and reflective thinking, which support their fieldwork performance. However, developing these mental models should be underpinned by theory, and coordinated university and industry supports should be provided to augment this process.

(Folk)Life, Interrupted: Challenges for Fieldwork, Empathy, and Public Discourse in the Age of Trump

Abstract This article argues that the political and social developments of the current American moment represent a crisis for folkloristics and other humanistic fields that goes well beyond pragmatic concerns. It makes the case that, in response, we must conduct (or reinvigorate) sustained conversations about how we as scholars of folk cultures should engage with our subjects and with the public more broadly.

The Challenges of Fieldwork for LGBTQ+ Geoscientists

A new survey reveals the unique issues that traveling for research poses for LGBTQ+ scientists. The data should help us create solutions that foster safety and inclusion.

Insider and Outsider Fieldwork Challenges in Medellín, Colombia

High levels of violence and conflict in Latin America have attracted the interests of local and international researchers to further understand how to reduce this violence and prevent current and future outbreaks. Conducting research in any environment is challenging. However, the obstacles facing not only researcher safety but also data collection methods are particularly complex in settings with high levels of violence and conflict. This article contributes to the methodological literature, as it provides reflections from two researchers, an insider from the Global South and an outsider from the Global North, each collecting data in Medellín, Colombia. It also argues the importance of collaboration between Global North and Global South researchers investigating violence and insecurity.