Doing Fieldwork

Christopher Pole, Sam Hillyard

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780761959649, 9780761959632
• eBook ISBN: 9781473966352
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Research & Methodology
• Index: Social Sciences

"This is not yet another step-by-step guide to research methods. Rather, Pole and Hillyard draw the reader into fieldwork as a form of living and lived research. They take key threads of research practices and processes and weave them into a holistic approach to fieldwork. Doing Fieldwork is a must read for new researchers planning a journey into the immersion of ?being there? that is field work."
- Professor Garry Marvin, University of Roehampton

Fieldwork is central to Sociology, but guides to it often treat the real questions invisibly or over-load the reader with micro-details. This refreshing, authoritative volume, written by two experienced, highly respected fieldworkers, provides a one-stop, engaging guide. The book:

• Clearly explains fieldwork methods
• Shows how to locate a field and map it
• Covers common problem areas and ethical considerations
• Provides a ready reckoner of time management issues
• Helps with analysis of findings.

Doing Fieldwork is an invaluable teaching and research resource. It should be in every student's backpack and part of every researcher's tool kit.

Professor Chris Pole is Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Brighton. His long-standing research interests are in social research methodology, especially Ethnography and in the Sociology of Education and Childhood.

Dr Sam Hillyard is a Reader in Sociology at Durham University. Her research interests are in qualitative research methods, interactionist social theory and rural studies. 

1 What is Fieldwork?

Chapter overview

• Fieldwork is an intellectually and technically challenging total experience aimed at capturing meaning.
• Being there first-hand is important.
• Fieldwork is also curiosity-driven – to gain insight and understanding or verstehen.
• In this book we are against methodological fundamentalism, but rather advocate an inclusive approach to fieldwork.

This is a book about doing research. Not any research in general, but a specific kind of research which is as much about the role of the researcher as it is about the focus of the research. The intention is to provide an open and frank account of what it is like to do research: where you, the researcher, are the reason(s) why it will succeed or fail; where you are the main influence on what the research will discover and; how it will be received and evaluated by those who read or use its findings. The idea is that by the end of the book you will have a good idea of the ethos surrounding doing fieldwork – what it’s all about and what knowledge it can yield. This includes what this kind of research entails, but also what it’s like to do it. We will talk about the excitement of research, the challenges and frustrations, the rewards, the tedium and the sheer hard slog that all research projects involve in different proportions, at one time or another.

The kind of research this book is about is that which is based on fieldwork. The idea behind fieldwork is that it is about getting involved with what and who you are researching. It is about doing research in a practical, applied, ‘hands on’ sense. The essence of it is what Robert Park, when he was director of the Chicago School of Sociology, instructed his Chicago undergraduates to do, ‘go get the seats of your pants dirty in real research’ (Park in Prus 1996: 119). In this sense, fieldwork is about getting out there, wherever there is, and becoming part of what is going on and what you are researching. It is about what Geertz (1988: 1) called ‘being there’. But, furthermore, in our digital age, understanding that this may also take place in a virtual research environment where no-face-to-face contact is made but nevertheless co-presence occurs.

However, this is not the full story. By emphasizing ‘doing’ research in this active (or participatory) sense, we are not suggesting that it is only about running around collecting data. To suggest that is all there is to it would be to reduce research to a set of technical operations. We are not doing what Mills (1959: 74) called ‘fetishism of the Concept’ and getting stuck with over-elaborations of method (Mills 1959: 74–75). This book is about making sense of, or analysing the data that are collected, about writing and representing the research findings and conclusions. In this sense, it is about the whole package. It is about the research process – from initial ideas and thinking about research, to designing, executing, analysing, writing and finishing research. We also want to emphasize that research based on fieldwork is real research – serious, scholarly and powerful. It can begin to tell us a great deal about things that are strange to us and also encourage us to question and re-examine things that are familiar. Indeed, perhaps the latter is trickier than the former.

In some ways, this is a book which is a celebration of fieldwork. We do not apologize for this, as the reason for writing it is that we believe it is central to social science and has an important role to play in the way in which we try to understand and make sense of the world. However, we are not saying that research based on fieldwork is the only way of doing research or that it should be the only way. Underpinning the approach we take is a belief in the need to fit the research question or problem with the right kind of research methods. Sometimes it will not be obvious which is the right method, but finding out which is, forms part of the research process and can, itself, tell us something about the subject we are researching and the things we value exploring.

What is Fieldwork?

So far we have only talked in general terms about fieldwork. Before going any further it is necessary to define it in order that we know what we are concerned with throughout the book. However, as with many things in social science there will be disagreement over the definition of what we argue counts as fieldwork.

To some extent disagreement and debate is positive as it encourages us to think about the thing being defined and to come to an understanding of whatever it is we are concerned with. What we are presenting is our definition of fieldwork and we invite you to consider your own definition against it. If you can’t do that now, it may be possible after you have read more of the book or after you have had a go at something you would like to call fieldwork. Having encouraged you to do this, we are not suggesting that anybody’s definition of fieldwork is as good as anybody else’s. To do this would be to suggest that anything goes, that fieldwork could be both everything and nothing. Whilst we would accept a fairly broad definition, we nevertheless, see it as a specific approach to research, which can be differentiated from approaches which are not fieldwork approaches. Therefore, it is possible to say what fieldwork is and what it is not. So here goes:

What it is: Fieldwork is a way of doing research where the emphasis is placed on the collection of data at first hand by a researcher. It relies on personal interaction or engagement between the researcher and those being researched in the research setting, during which the researcher(s) will use one or a combination of particular methods to collect data over a prolonged period of time.

What it is not: Fieldwork is not the kind of research that relies on a ‘scientific’ distance between researcher and research subject or object. Through its emphasis upon emersion, it is not research which can be conducted quickly. As a richness of data flows from emersion in the field, neither does fieldwork necessarily look to produce generalizations which cover large populations or groups of people.

The problem of providing definitions, either in terms of what things are or what they are not, is that there are always exceptions and grey areas. By offering these two definitions some of you will now be saying, ‘But what about this situation’ or ‘Does that rule out that method?’ Some of you will disagree with our definitions and, implicitly or explicitly, suggest your own. In turn, other people will take issue with your definitions and suggest that they too are ambiguous, exclusionary, too broad and confused. And so it goes on. The best we can hope for in offering these definitions is to identify some general principles, which underpin fieldwork, and to use these in our following discussions. In doing this, we may, ourselves, come to challenge the definitions and so push back the boundaries of what fieldwork is and what it is not. Importantly, we do not see the traditional as static or rooted in the past. So, these debates keep it fresh and better able to engage with changes in society.

Researching in The Field and Doing Fieldwork

From the definitions it is possible to draw an important distinction between doing fieldwork and working in the field. Whilst fieldwork takes place in the field – albeit a field that is broadly defined – it does not follow that all research which occurs there is fieldwork. In drawing this distinction we are separating location and activity. For example, there are many hundreds of books which describe the use of many different kinds of methods which might be used in the field. Many of these are, in our opinion excellent books that we have both used in teaching research methods (e.g. Berg 2004, Bryman 2012, Greener 2011, Mason 1996, Neuman 2011, Robson 2002, etc.) and doubtless have helped many researchers over the years. In most cases, however, these and many others, remain books about a range of methods, rather than books about fieldwork per se. By way of contrast, Burgess (1982, 1984), Delamont (2002), Hammersley and Atkinson (2007), Shaffir and Stebbins (1991) and Wolcott (2005) again to name just a few, address fieldwork as a distinctive approach to research. Whilst such texts may very well draw on a similar range of methods as those outlined in the more general books, it is possible to draw an important distinction between them. Whilst the former are concerned with research tools or techniques, the latter are concerned with a holistic approach to a particular kind or style of doing research. It is not the intention to suggest that one of these types of books is qualitatively better than the other, nor to dismiss any out-of-hand. Both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses. The intention is, however, to draw attention to the difference between research methods and research methodology. This merits further explanation. In short, research methods refer to the range of tools that the researcher has at his/her disposal. Methodology, meanwhile, is about the way in which the researcher uses these tools, the relationship between the tools, the data which they can yield and the knowledge which follows from those data. Applying this distinction to our discussion of fieldwork, we are purporting that fieldwork is a methodology rather than a method. It is simply more than the sum of its parts.

Fieldwork as Methodology

Having made what some might see as lofty claims for fieldwork as a distinctive methodology, we should say more about what it seeks to achieve and what distinguishes it from other approaches to research. This in itself is not easy. As with discussions about what makes ethnography a distinctive approach to research (Atkinson 1990, Brewer 2000, Hammersley 1990, 1992, Hammersley and Atkinson 2007, Pole and Morrison 2003, Walford 2009, Willis and Trondman 2000), the term fieldwork is often used interchangeably with a number of other phrases, which are seen, if not as direct synonyms, then as phrases that describe broadly similar activities. For example, ethnography, case study and qualitative research are all terms used to convey a picture of research that seeks to collect primary data at source, usually on a face-to-face basis. Therefore, in discussing and seeking to define fieldwork, it may be that we are also discussing other forms of research or certain aspects of it.

However, we want to adopt an inclusive approach. That is, our argument is that fieldwork may incorporate these synonyms, for example, an ethnographic approach may be taken to fieldwork, similarly, a case study may be conducted as part of fieldwork and fieldwork is usually based on qualitative research. Consequently, using these terms in place of fieldwork fails to convey all that this might involve. Whilst we would not wish to diminish ethnography or case study research, we would argue that there remains something which sets fieldwork apart from these approaches. In short, this is the capacity of fieldwork to embrace the entire research process and to incorporate research design, method and methodology, field relations, politics and ethics of research, analysis, dissemination and subsequent impact. It is then, a total experience. When we say we are engaging in fieldwork we are by implication taking on all of the above as integral to our research. Moreover, to return to a point made at the very start of this chapter, they are all processes which are mediated at first hand through the researcher.¹

The Total Experience

It is not our intention to build fieldwork into something which is unattainable or remote from all but the largest, generously-funded research projects. In defining fieldwork as a total experience we would see it as applicable or relevant to research of large and small scale, available to experienced researchers and to students who may be coming to research for the first time as part of their undergraduate studies.

In using the term ‘total experience’ we are doing two things. Firstly, we are attempting to convey a sense in which doing fieldwork is an absorbing activity by virtue of the involvement that it demands of the researcher, technically in terms of the deployment of particular methods and intellectually in thinking about and planning research strategies. In many respects, fieldwork may be seen as a form of living research. Secondly and closely allied to this, the term total experience relates to the theoretical underpinnings of fieldwork where the intention is to seek to understand whatever is being studied from the perspective of those who are being studied. In order to do this, it will be necessary for the researcher to immerse him/herself in the research setting and to deploy research methods which provide, as far as possible, an insider’s view.

Whilst there are many modern commentators who base their work on such a position (e.g. Allan 2012, Atkinson 2005, Delamont and Stephens 2006, Sparkes et al. 2012, to name but a few), the approach may be traced back to that of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century anthropologists like Powdermaker, Rivers and in particular Malinowski. These pioneers of modern anthropology sought not to rely on the second-hand reports of faraway places from missionaries and travellers, but to see and experience things for themselves. They talked directly to the ‘natives’; they lived with them and took part in their everyday lives as well as the festivals, feasts and other less ordinary activities.

Figure 1.1

Source: Malinowski (1922) Argonauts of the Western Pacific. Plate I The ethnographer’s tent on the beach of the Nu’agasi, demonstrating ‘life among the natives’.

The intention was that by taking part in the everyday life of the research setting and by participating alongside members of the indigenous population, the researcher(s) would, as far as possible, become members of the social setting which they were studying. In an original anthropological sense, therefore, the notion of fieldwork could be taken quite literally, that it was work (research) conducted in a field (rural location).

The idea of sailing away to uncharted, faraway lands to study unknown or little-known people, lends to fieldwork a degree of exoticism in which the anthropologist (fieldworker) may be cast as explorer, swashbuckler or pioneer. This may have been the case at the turn of the twentieth century when foreign travel was rare and many parts of the planet remained inaccessible to Westerners. It is now, in a globalized context, little more than a caricature perpetuated largely by Hollywood heroes like Indiana Jones! Few of today’s fieldworkers would see themselves in such a role.

The advent of relatively cheap and easy international travel has meant that few places in the world – physically or culturally – remain inaccessible to the tourist, let alone the intrepid anthropologist or researcher. In addition, a rethink about the ethical and political relationship between the ‘visiting’ anthropologist or fieldworker and the indigenous population, has led to a greater emphasis on researchers in what might previously have been seen as faraway places, researching their own societies. The world has, in effect, become a much smaller place. This more local approach to fieldwork was typified by the work of the Chicago School of Sociology, who produced many studies of everyday events in Chicago during the early decades of the twentieth century (e.g. Anderson 1923, Polsky 1967, Shaw 2013 [1930], Thrasher 1927). Their approach was to treat the relatively new phenomenon of the city of Chicago, with which they were familiar, in the same way as the anthropologist would treat the faraway locations. In doing this, the Chicago sociologists were instrumental in encouraging an approach that challenged the familiar and looked beyond what was often taken for granted within their own society.

In the words of Burgess (1982) as the twentieth century progressed, anthropology came home. By this, he refers to the fact that although traditional ‘faraway’ anthropology has declined, ironically, the research methods and the general approach are now more common than ever. Researchers may no longer travel to the islands of the South Pacific to gather data and try to understand ‘exotic’ and remote communities in the way that they did at the start of the twentieth century, but they are now more likely to be found ‘at home’ in their own communities practising fieldwork. For some modern day fieldworkers, the homecoming meant that they studied whole communities. Classic examples being Stacey’s (1960) study and restudy (Stacey et al. 1975) of Banbury, or Frankenberg’s (1957) study of a north Wales village. Here, the approach to what became known as the community study was, and in many respects remains (Payne 1996), very similar to that taken by the anthropologists working in the islands of New Guinea. The principles of working (and living) alongside the ‘natives’ did not vary with the location, be it Banbury or the South Pacific. The objective of understanding the location (the field) at first hand, from the inside remained the same.

Transporting the principles of anthropological fieldwork a little further, the approach did not always have to be applied to a field in a rural or geographical sense. The ‘coming home’ of anthropology meant that research based on fieldwork became common in what in some sense, were much smaller or more tightly defined fields. For example, the definitions of a school or a factory, a football stadium or a family as a field, meant that researchers could apply anthropological techniques to situations with which they were often very familiar. In this respect, it could be argued that the late-twentieth-century emp...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Acknowledgements
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• About the Authors
• 1 What is Fieldwork?
• 2 Finding the Field
• 3 Field Relations
• 4 Tools for the Field
• 5 Fieldwork: Values and Ethics
• 6 When it’s Time to Go
• 7 Analysis
• 8 Conclusions
• References
• Index