Getting Prepared to Be Prepared: How Interpersonal Skills Aid Fieldwork in Challenging Contexts

• Authors: Carla Alberti , Nicole Jenne
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This article deals with fieldwork in challenging research contexts that make preparation for field research particularly difficult. Challenging contexts include generally insecure places, politicized contexts, and unknown settings. Drawing on our experience in the field, we discuss four challenges that are common across these contexts: access, positionality, researcher well-being, and research design and data collection. Bringing together insights from fieldwork with urban elites and in the countryside, this paper describes problems that occurred in both settings and identifies a set of interpersonal skills that helped the authors to tackle the challenges of the field and seize the opportunities it offered. This article posits that recognizing the importance of certain interpersonal skills, namely: openness, empathy, humility, and flexibility, precedes the identification of practical tools. Interpersonal skills, instead, focus on a general attitude that underlies researchers’ capacity to make informed choices about specific courses of actions, preparing fieldworkers to be prepared to confront problems once they arise.

Keywords

EN

Fieldwork; Research Strategy; Challenging Contexts; Qualitative Research

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Łódzki. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
• Journal: Qualitative Sociology Review
• Year: 2019
• Volume: 15
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 42-62

Dates

published

2019-08-01

Contributors

author

Carla Alberti

• Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Chile

author

Nicole Jenne

• Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Chile

References

• Barakat, Sultan et al. 2002. “The Composite Approach: Research Design in the Context of War and Armed Conflict.” Third World Quarterly 23(5):991-1003.
• Belousov, Konstantin et al. 2007. “Any Port in a Storm: Fieldwork Difficulties in Dangerous and Crisis-Ridden Settings.” Qualitative Research 7(2):155-175.
• Cammett, Melani. 2006. “Political Ethnography in Deeply Divided Societies.” Qualitative Methods 4(2):15-18.
• Chiswell, Hannah M. and Rebecca Wheeler. 2016. “‘As Long as You’re Easy on the Eye’: Reflecting on Issues of Positionality and Researcher Safety during Farmer Interviews.” Area 48(2):229-235.
• Firebaugh, Glenn. 2008. Seven Rules for Social Research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Goode, J. Paul and Ariel I. Ahram. 2016. “Observing Autocracies from the Ground Floor.” Social Science Quarterly 97(4):823-833.
• Goodhand, Jonathan. 2000. “Research in Conflict Zones: Ethics and Accountability.” Forced Migration Review 8:12-15.
• Hertel, Shareen, Matthew M. Singer, and Donna Lee Van Cott. 2009. “Field Research in Developing Countries: Hitting the Road Running.” PS: Political Science and Politics 42(2): 305-309.
• Höglund, Kristine. 2011. “Comparative Field Research in War-Torn Societies.” Pp. 114-129 in Understanding Peace Research: Methods and Challenges, edited by K. Höglund and M. Öberg. London: Routledge.
• Johnson, Janet Elise. 2009. “Unwilling Participant Observation among Russian Siloviki and the Good-Enough Field Researcher.” PS: Political Science & Politics 42(2):321-324.
• Kapiszewski, Diana, Lauren M. MacLean, and Benjamin L. Read. 2015. Field Research in Political Science: Practices and Principles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Kapoor, Ilan. 2004. “Hyper-Self-Reflexive Development? Spivak on Representing the Third World ‘Other.’” Third World Quarterly 25(4):627-647.
• Klein, Cameron, Renée E. DeRouin, and Eduardo Salas. 2006. “Uncovering Workplace Interpersonal Skills: A Review, Framework, and Research Agenda.” Pp. 79-126 in International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, edited by G. P. Hodgkinson and J. K. Ford. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
• Krasznai Kovàcs, Eszter and Arshiya Bose. 2014. “Flirting with Boundaries: Ethical Dilemmas of Performing Gender and Sexuality in the Field.” Pp. 109-119 in Fieldwork in the Global South: Ethical Challenges and Dilemmas, edited by J. Lunn. New York: Routledge.
• Lunn, Jenny. 2014. Fieldwork in the Global South: Ethical Challenges and Dilemmas. New York: Routledge.
• McEnery, Jean M. and P. Nick Blanchard. 1999. “Validity of Multiple Ratings of Business Student Performance in a Management Simulation.” Human Resource Development Quarterly; Hoboken 10(2):155-172.
• McLean, Athena and Annette Leibing, eds. 2007. The Shadow Side of Fieldwork: Exploring the Blurred Borders between Ethnography and Life. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
• Mitchell, Wendy and Annie Irvine. 2008. “I’m Okay, You’re Okay?: Reflections on the Well-Being and Ethical Requirements of Researchers and Research Participants in Conducting Qualitative Fieldwork Interviews.” International Journal of Qualitative Methods 7(4):31-44.
• Moscuzza, Alessandro and Jenny Lunn. 2014. “Doing It Togeth-er: Ethical Dimensions of Accompanied Fieldwork.” Pp. 69-82 in Fieldwork in the Global South: Ethical Challenges and Dilemmas, edited by J. Lunn. New York: Routledge.
• Mukeredzi, Tabitha Grace. 2012. “Qualitative Data Gathering: Challenges in a Politically Unstable Rural Environment: A Zimbabwean Experience.” International Journal of Qualitative Methods 11(1):1-11.
• Mügge, Liza M. 2013. “Sexually Harassed by Gatekeepers: Reflections on Fieldwork in Surinam and Turkey.” International Journal of Social Research Methodology 16(6):541-546.
• Nilan, Pamela. 2002. “‘Dangerous’ Fieldwork Re-Examined: The Question of Researcher Subject Position.” Qualitative Research 2(3):363-386.
• Ortbals, Candice D. and Meg E. Rincker. 2009. “Fieldwork, Identities, and Intersectionality: Negotiating Gender, Race, Class, Religion, Nationality, and Age in the Research Field Abroad.” PS: Political Science & Politics 42(2):287-290.
• Palriwala, Rajni. 2005. “Fieldwork in a Post-Colonial Anthropology. Experience and the Comparative.” Social Anthropology 13(2):151-170.
• Roman, Alexandru V. 2016. “Studying Corruption: Reflections on the Methodological, Practical, and Personal Challenges.” Qualitative Sociology Review 12(3):6-27.
• Ross, Karen. 2001. “Political Elites and the Pragmatic Paradigm: Notes from a Feminist Researcher-In the Field and out to Lunch.” International Journal of Social Research Methodology 4(2):155-166.
• Sharp, Gwen and Emily Kremer. 2006. “The Safety Dance: Confronting Harassment, Intimidation, and Violence in the Field.” Sociological Methodology 36(1):317-327.
• Smith, Thomas A. 2014. “Unsettling the Ethical Interviewer: Emotions, Personality, Ethics and the Interview.” Pp. 145-157 in Fieldwork in the Global South: Ethical Challenges and Dilemmas, edited by J. Lunn. New York: Routledge.
• Sriram, Chandra Lekha et al., eds. 2009. Surviving Field Research: Working in Violent and Difficult Situations. London, New York: Routledge.
• Thomson, Susan, An Ansoms, and Judith Murison, eds. 2012. Emotional and Ethical Challenges for Field Research in Africa: The Story behind the Findings. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Townsend-Bell, Erica. 2009. “Being True and Being You: Race, Gender, Class, and the Fieldwork Experience.” PS: Political Science and Politics 42(2):311-314.
• Wong, Rebecca W. Y. 2015. “A Note on Fieldwork in ‘Dangerous’ Circumstances: Interviewing Illegal Tiger Skin Suppliers and Traders in Lhasa.” International Journal of Social Research Methodology 18(6):695-702.
• Wood, Elisabeth Jean. 2006. “The Ethical Challenges of Field Research in Conflict Zones.” Qualitative Sociology 29(3):373-386.
• Zulauf, Monika. 1999. “Cross-National Qualitative Research: Accommodating Ideals and Reality.” International Journal of Social Research Methodology 2(2):159-169.

Identifiers

DOI

10.18778/1733-8077.15.3.03