Fieldwork Experience Research Articles

A WALK-THROUGH TIJUANA: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC REFLECTION ON THE DAILY LIFE AND THE MIGRANTS’ CARAVANS’ IMPACT IN TIJUANA, BAJA CALIFORNIA, MÉXICO

The following article presents an anthropological and urban reflection focused on the daily life and the main problems including: the impact of the Migrant Caravans, and urban issues in Tijuana during the years 2018 – 2021. Furthermore, the article discusses other important issues such as: the COVID-19 pandemic impact, and the historical socio-cultural patterns developed to survive the economic inequality conditions in Tijuana. Methodologically, the article utilized a qualitative approach based on fieldwork experience including participant observation, and multiple interviews conducted with residents and workers during my visits to Tijuana, Baja California, México between 2018 – 2021. The conclusions of this article present a reflection to understand and to make visible the living conditions of the migrants, the efforts provided by one Migrant organization and the unique lifestyle and contemporary urban problems developed in the border city of Tijuana.

Community-Based OT Program Planning: A Virtual Level II Fieldwork Program Developed in Response to the Global Pandemic

The purpose of this article is to explain how an occupational therapy (OT) program in a university setting developed a virtual Level II community-based fieldwork program in response to the COVID-19 global pandemic. This virtual fieldwork program, guided by the PRECEDE-PROCEED Planning Model (PPM), was designed to help keep students on track with their academic goals while providing them with experiential learning that would increase their confidence in OT program planning and promote their professional development. Outcome measures for this study consisted of a pre-and post-fieldwork survey that asked participants to rank their self-perceived confidence in five distinct areas of community-based OT program development. Some portions of Section III in the Student’s Evaluation of the Fieldwork Experience (SEFWE) form were also used to examine students’ feedback after participating in this virtual fieldwork program. Retrospective data analysis of pre-post survey results showed improvements in students’ perceived confidence with certain aspects of OT program development in community settings. Within the core function of program development, occupation-based approaches to community-based programs can be used to inform, educate, and empower people and populations about important health issues while simultaneously offering students rich opportunities for professional development and identity. Dissemination of this information can be helpful to other OT professionals who are developing alternate fieldwork programs in response to the pandemic and beyond.

Factors Impacting OT and OTA Student Feedback Use during Level II Fieldwork Experiences

Feedback is used in experiential learning to help occupational therapy (OT) and occupational therapy assistant (OTA) students develop the specific knowledge and skills needed to become entry-level practitioners. However, many students do not use the feedback given by fieldwork (FW) educators or perceive it as helpful in improving performance. Therefore, this study aimed to identify factors impacting the integration of feedback for OT/OTA students during Level II FW experiences. An invitation email was sent to 102 students from two OT and two OTA education programs in Ohio to participate in a survey regarding their Level II FW experiences. The survey consisted of three parts comprised of multiple-choice and 5-point Likert-scale questions. There was a 52.9% response rate. Results indicated that several factors were moderately or strongly associated with students’ application of feedback. Factors specific to the student included their overall perspective of their FW placement and educator, previous experiences, learning styles, and emotional responses to feedback. Additionally, it was found that the FW educators’ training experience and nonverbal communication, along with the type, quality, and quantity of feedback either moderately or strongly associated with feedback use. Results suggested that improvement in FW educator training opportunities and OT curriculum preparation are warranted to enhance student use of feedback. Implications for the study will better prepare students, FW educators, and academic programs to give and receive feedback so that current OT/OTA students can assimilate into competent and well-rounded entry-level practitioners more easily.

Using Self-Assessment and Reflection to Develop Self-Efficacy in Occupational Therapy Assistant Fieldwork Students

Many occupational therapy students navigate the transition to the Level II fieldwork experience effortlessly, while others require support due to a lack of perceived self-efficacy. This perception dramatically impacts fieldwork performance and challenges academic fieldwork coordinators to support students struggling to believe in their own capabilities. This study utilized a quantitative quasi-experimental research design with a purposive sample of 16 occupational therapy assistant students to determine if an educational intervention increased perceived self-efficacy and overall confidence. Data collected from the Student Confidence Questionnaire (SCQ) pre, and post-intervention provided insight into the students’ report of perceived self-efficacy and overall confidence during the Level II fieldwork experience. This questionnaire assessed the domains of professional competence, communication, adaptability, innovation, risk-taking, supervision, and clinical practice (Derdall et al., 2002). The educational module included an introduction to the key concepts of self-efficacy, self-assessment, and reflection, seven weekly reflective practice journal assignments centered around domains of the SCQ, and feedback using a reflective practice rubric to scaffold the development of self-efficacy. A statistically significant increase occurred in self-efficacy and overall confidence after the intervention across all seven domains of the post-test SCQ. The results indicated that the educational module created an influential impression on the development of self-efficacy and overall confidence during the Level II fieldwork experience. Level II fieldwork performance was not measured. Considering that many students struggle with perceived self-efficacy this educational intervention provides a potential solution to support fieldwork students challenged by a lack of belief in their own capabilities.

Strefa kontaktu, czyli interaktywne relacje antropologa w terenie


 
 
 Based on the classic concept developed by M.L. Pratt and the author’s experience of fieldwork in Africa, this article discusses methods of building a contact zone during anthropological field research. Under the conditions of such research, a limited space of mutual, lasting, interactive relations is created between the anthropologist and the local social environment. The contact zone understood in this way is produced discursively and practiced physically. The time factor and coordination of the anthropologist’s availa- bility with the rhythm of life in the studied community are paramount. The contact zone may have different scope and social depth – it will be shallow, scattered and short-lived in field research covering an extensive area, but will acquire an interactive depth during an “intensive habitation”, when an anthropologist shares everyday life with the studied community.
 
 

Examining relational social ontologies of disaster resilience: lived experiences from India, Indonesia, Nepal, Chile and Andean territories

PurposeThe neoliberal resilience discourse and its critiques both contribute to its hegemony, obscuring alternative discourses in the context of risk and uncertainties. Drawing from the “ontology of potentiality”, the authors suggest reclaiming “resilience” through situated accounts of the connected and relational every day from the global south. To explore alternate possibilities, the authors draw attention to the social ontology of disaster resilience that foregrounds relationality, intersectionality and situated knowledge.Design/methodology/approachQuilting together the field work experiences in India, Indonesia, Nepal, Chile and Andean territories, the authors interrogate the social ontologies and politics of resilience in disaster studies in these contexts through six vignettes. Quilting, as a research methodology, weaves together various individual fragments involving their specific materialities, situated knowledge, layered temporalities, affects and memories. The authors’ six vignettes discuss the use, politicisation and resistance to resilience in the aftermath of disasters.FindingsWhile the pieces do not try to bring out a single “truth”, the authors argue that firstly, the vignettes provide non-Western conceptualisations of resilience, and attempts to provincialise externally imposed notions of resilience. Secondly, they draw attention to social ontology of resilience as the examples underscores the intersubjectivity of disaster experiences, the relational reaching out to communities and significant others.Originality/valueDrawing from in-depth research conducted in six disaster contexts by seven scholars from South Asia, South America and Northern Europe, the authors embrace pluralist situated knowledge, and cross-cultural/language co-authoring. Thus, the co-authored piece contributes to diversifying disaster studies scholarship methodologically.

A pomidory są te, co zawsze. Refleksje z baskijskiego terenu

This article focuses on personal experience of fieldwork in the Basque Country. The author reflects on the linguistic and political dimensions of her research, on the relationship between the researcher and research participants, and on the emotional challengesof ethnographic fieldwork, with particular focus on the impact of motherhood on such research. Emphasizing the importance of autoethnography, the author also points out a variety of approaches to the research process and ways of presenting research results.

Virtual recreation therapy internship during the COVID-19 pandemic: A programmatic review

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, academic-, healthcare-, and community-based recreation therapy (RT) programs have been creative in how to help students progress in their curriculum and complete their capstone fieldwork experiences through remote means. This article reports one university’s RT program’s development, implementation, and evaluation of a virtual internship, where the university provided both academic and agency supervision that met the requirements of national and state credentialing bodies as well as RT accreditation standards. Evaluation data from students and clients who received RT services are summarized, and implications for other similar programs are reported.

Inside, Outside, Upside Down: Power, Positionality, and Limits of Ethnic Identity in the Ethnographies of the Far-Right

Methodological literature on ethnographies of the far-right has largely centered around the ethical and political implications of such studies. Discussions on researcher’s positionality with regard to his/her insider–outsider positioning, ethnic-racial characteristics and concomitant power relations in the field remain relatively undertheorized. What occurs, for example, when the researcher studying anti-minority, ethnic nationalist right-wing groups is from a minority ethnic community? To what extent s(he) can gain access and develop rapport with the respondents? In this article, I seek to answer these questions by providing insights from my fieldwork experiences. I reflect upon my own position as a non-White, minority ethnic, and female ethnographer who conducted extensive fieldwork among grassroot activists of “Alternative für Deutschland,” a German right-wing political party. The article demonstrates that even in face of an apparent noncongruence between an immigrant ethnographer and right-wing, pro-majority respondents, researcher’s position is not static but fluid, intersectional and deeply situational. Ethnographer’s long term sustained proximity to the respondents, exposure to the everyday contexts of their lives create zones of congruence for an apparent outsider and can at times undermine the dominant category of ethnicity as primary social signifier.

The effect of emotional experiences in fieldwork: embodied evidence from a visual approach

ABSTRACT Emotion has become an important topic in fieldwork courses of higher geography education. This study attempts to provide embodied evidence of the important value of emotional experiences in fieldwork and clarify that the teaching effect produced by fieldwork in a real environment is difficult to achieve in a virtual environment. Using eye-tracking , this study captured the eye movement data of 16 fieldwork participants and 15 nonparticipants gazing upon photographs and analyzed how emotions affect their acquisition of geographic knowledge. The eye-tracking experiment showed that students who participated in fieldwork processed visual information more quickly and had stronger emotional responses than those who did not participate. This article proposes that fieldwork can provide students the opportunity to encounter the environment in a “mind-body-environment” system, thereby constructing the following two different forms of geographic knowledge: characterizable and explicit knowledge and nonrepresentational, implicit, and embodied knowledge. The latter can be realized only via emotional experiences in the field. Therefore, this article claims that although the information age enables students to acquire remote knowledge of geographical environments through multiple channels, training qualified geographers remains inseparable from fieldwork, especially for cultivating cognition, emotions and responsibility for the “living” world..

Ethnography in Western Popular Music Research Revisited

In this article, I focus on ethnomusicological and popular music studies’ examinations of Western popular music cultures, and provide a critique of some of their methods. Further, my main aim is not to propose a new method, but to suggest a re-emphasis of some of the fundamental ethnographic approaches in studying Western popular music cultures. These include participatory observation, grounded ethnography, materialism, thick description, and cultural relativism. To substantiate these arguments, I examine my own ethnographic research of American DIY (“do-it-yourself”) venues and scenes as an example of a participatory research of living and touring with DIY participants and studying their everyday lives. I recount my fieldwork methods and experiences and demonstrate how the focus on non-musical and private aspects of American DIY music cultures can produce a better understanding of their musical and public sides. Finally, I also argue how the proposed methodological re-evaluation can help to decolonize music studies.

Preservice Music Educators’ Perceptions of In-Person and Asynchronous Online Fieldwork Experiences

The purpose of this instrumental case study was to examine preservice music educators’ (PMEs) perceptions of a semester-long fieldwork experience first delivered in person and then asynchronously online. Using the community of inquiry (CoI) framework, I analyzed the PMEs’ perceptions of their teaching presence in both fieldwork experiences. Participants cited benefits and challenges with lesson plan organization, in-person and asynchronous instruction, and building consensus about effective teaching. Notably, the asynchronous fieldwork provided a non-reactive environment where the script and delivery of content took precedent over a rehearsal mindset, which was more responsive and occurred during the in-person fieldwork. Based on these findings, music teacher educators might consider asynchronous fieldwork when in-person fieldwork is unavailable or as a stepping stone to prepare PMEs for in-person fieldwork experiences.

HUBUNGAN HASIL BELAJAR KEWIRAUSAHAAN DAN PENGALAMAN PRAKTIK KERJA LAPANGAN TERHADAP MINAT BERWIRAUSAHA SISWA SMK KELAS XII KOMPETENSI KEAHLIAN OTOMOTIF

This study aims to determine the relationship between the learning outcomes of entrepreneurship and job training experience with a class XII student interest in entrepreneurship competence automotive expertise SMK X. This research method is correlation method. The population in this study is a class XII student competence automotive expertise SMK North Jakarta area as many as 4,461 students in 2019/2020, SMK 55, SMK 56, SMK 4, and SMK 36. The sampling technique used purposive sampling to determine the size of the sample using the formula Slovin and data analysis technique used is simple regression analysis and correlation. The results of this study were (1) the results of entrepreneurial learning has a positive and significant relationship to the interest in entrepreneurship class at SMK XII North Jakarta area with r1 values of 0.181 and a r2 by 3,2%. (2) Experience job training has a positive and significant relationship to the interest in entrepreneurship class XII at SMK Region North Jakarta with a value of r2 0,452 and a r2 by 20,3% (3) the results of study entrepreneurship and practical experience of field work jointly have a positive influence and significantly to class XII student interest in entrepreneurship at SMK North Jakarta area with values of 0.479 and r3 r2 result by 23%.
 Keywords: Quantitative Associative, Relationship Research, Interest In Entrepreneurship

The Importance of Fieldwork Experience in Public Health Education

The Importance of Fieldwork Experience in Public Health Education

Christopher J. Shepherd, Haunted Houses and Ghostly Encounters. Ethnography and Animism in East Timor 1860-1975

The author of this intellectually stimulating book, Christopher J. Shepherd, an anthropologist, has an experience of fieldwork in East Timor. The book addresses the period from the second half of the 19th century to 1975. In a ground-breaking “anthology” of ethnographic writing and practice, Shepherd provides a discursive analysis of fieldwork’s methodology and background on the Eastern region of the island. Ethnographic locations of anthropologists are considered in the line of Clifford and ...

KOSMOS: An Open Source Underwater Video Lander for Monitoring Coastal Fishes and Habitats.

Background: Monitoring the ecological status of coastal ecosystems is essential to track the consequences of anthropogenic pressures and assess conservation actions. Monitoring requires periodic measurements collected in situ, replicated over large areas and able to capture their spatial distribution over time. This means developing tools and protocols that are cost-effective and provide consistent and high-quality data, which is a major challenge. A new tool and protocol with these capabilities for non-extractively assessing the status of fishes and benthic habitats is presented here: the KOSMOS 3.0 underwater video system. Methods: The KOSMOS 3.0 was conceived based on the pre-existing and successful STAVIRO lander, and developed within a digital fabrication laboratory where collective intelligence was contributed mostly voluntarily within a managed project. Our suite of mechanical, electrical, and software engineering skills were combined with ecological knowledge and field work experience. Results: Pool and aquarium tests of the KOSMOS 3.0 satisfied all the required technical specifications and operational testing. The prototype demonstrated high optical performance and high consistency with image data from the STAVIRO. The project’s outcomes are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA license. The low cost of a KOSMOS unit (~1400 €) makes multiple units affordable to modest research or monitoring budgets.

Walking a Fine Line: The Struggle for Parent Advocacy in the NYC Child Welfare System☆

AbstractThis article investigates parent advocacy in the child welfare system amongst families living in low‐income and racialized urban areas, those most impacted by this system. Drawing from my fieldwork experience at the community‐based organization Child Welfare Organizing Project (CWOP) in East Harlem, New York, I interrogate the political trajectory of the organization, its practices, and its purpose. I analyze how the decision parents make to advocate is tied to the injustice, stigma, and surveillance they—and especially mothers—experience in the child welfare system. While exploring how parenting and its political dimension are reshaped for disfranchised mothers through advocacy, I describe the “fine line” between compliance and resistance that CWOP has walked throughout its history to preserve its existence. This article illustrates how this form of activism takes place within a fragmented and increasingly privatized welfare regime, in which community‐based organizations struggle for their right to remain political actors and not be overtaken by the logic of service provision. Through my analysis, I aim to contribute to anthropological understandings of the forms of political agency taken up by stigmatized subjects in their interactions with the state, and the limits the state demonstrates in “hearing” their claims and requests for change.

'I Would Say I Am Austrian but …' - Multiple Spatial Belongings and Hybrid Identities among Young People in Vienna, Austria

Young people who live in or attend school in Vienna grow up in multicultural environments, as immigration has shaped the Austrian society over the last decades. In public debates, migrants and their descendants are repeatedly called on to “integrate”, while their feelings of belonging to Austria are questioned. Drawing from discussions on hybrid and multiple identities, this study explores the spatial dimension of identity constructions of students in Vienna aged between 14 and 19 years. Quantitative data from a comprehensive online survey and qualitative data from group discussions reveal that multiple spatial belongings on different scales are the rule and not the exception among young Viennese. Furthermore, on a national level, participants identify with Austria to a much larger extent than with any other country. Findings emphasise the need for a mixed-methods approach when researching questions of identity constructions. Fieldwork experiences furthermore show that young people are highly interested in discussing the topic, as they are confronted with these issues on a daily basis.

Marketing the Profession: The Influence of Non-Traditional Psychosocial Fieldwork on Perceptions of Occupational Therapy

Current literature examines nontraditional occupational therapy (OT) fieldwork experiences from the students’ perspective while investigating the professional identity within these settings. There is a lack of research from the perspective of other professionals working with students in these settings. This qualitative study identified six themes from interviews with non-OT professionals working in psychosocial settings: OT is a holistic/client-centered profession, individual professional growth, common skills of an OT, benefits of OT, student preparation, and sustainability of services. Results indicate that nontraditional fieldwork heightened awareness of the OT profession and marketed its value in community-based psychosocial settings.

Teaching Fieldwork Experience: Experiment, Embodiment, Emotions

The emotional and sensual dimension of fieldwork, as well as the positionality of the researcher are often debated and considered crucial in anthropology. We assume that “good ethnography” includes sensory and bodily fieldwork experience. But how do we address these issues in teaching? How can we teach students to notice, analyse and make sense of their bodily experiences? How do we encourage the awareness of positionality? What practical steps can we take in designing suitable learning experiences that address these points? In this paper, we share our experience of teaching adapted courses that provide students with fieldwork encounters, where the significance of embodied knowledge can be explored, and their ethnographic awareness cultivated. Basing our analysis on the undergraduate Ethnographic Lab and Ethnographic Methods courses taught at the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Warsaw, we argue that it is important to put students in uncomfortable or unusual fieldwork and teaching situations, forcing them out of their comfort zone so that they experience fieldwork encounters both emotionally and bodily. Recordings of these encounters and the bodily reactions of themselves and others constitute a core part of the data to be gathered, which prevents students from focusing solely on narratives and discourses.