Development Fieldwork

A Practical Guide

Regina Scheyvens, Regina Scheyvens, Author

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781446254776, 9781446254769
• eBook ISBN: 9781446297445
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Global Development Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This book provides an invaluable guide to undertaking development fieldwork in both the developing world and in western contexts. It takes you through all the key stages in development research and covers:

 

• Research design and the roles of quantitative and qualitative methods.
• Research using archival, textual and virtual data, along with using the internet ethically.
• Practical as well as personal issues, including funding, permissions, motivation and attitude.
• Culture shock, ethical considerations and working with marginalized, vulnerable or privileged groups, from indigenous peoples through to elites and corporations.
• How to write up your findings.

Sensitive, engaging and accessible in tone, the text is rich in learning features; from boxed examples to bullet-pointed summaries and questions for reflection. Development Fieldwork is the perfect companion for students engaged in research across development studies, geography, social anthropology or public policy.

1

INTRODUCTION

REGINA SCHEYVENS AND SHARON MCLENNAN

PURPOSE

The purpose of this book is to assist researchers, especially postgraduate students, to prepare for development-related fieldwork. A broad approach is taken to allow ample attention to be paid to practical, methodological, and ethical issues. We endeavour to show that where researchers are well-prepared for ‘the field’ and sensitive to the local context and culture, development fieldwork can be a valuable experience for both the researcher and their participants.

We also assert that development research can be carried out in the North, the South, the East and the West. Given global interconnectedness, the economic successes of some countries formerly considered to be ‘third world’,¹ the effects of financial crises on wealthier countries, and, most importantly, the pervasive inequality and poverty in almost every country in the world (Sumner and Tiwari, 2011), there are new ‘fields’ for development research. Obviously to be ‘development research’ the issues examined will have a development focus: that is, they will be associated with positive social change and enhanced well-being, particularly for those who are poor, oppressed or marginalised. For example, the research may investigate the effectiveness of intentional development initiatives or explore the impacts of immanent development processes on vulnerable communities (see Cowen and Shenton, 1996), or it might examine the values of development actors or probe the workings of people’s movements for change. This book could thus have general relevance to researchers working in any cross-cultural context in which there are critical social and economic development issues, from the hill tribes of Thailand to the reclaimed tribal lands of Maori in New Zealand, from the rural poverty of Burkino-Faso to the urban decay of Brixton. We assume that most development researchers will be working cross-culturally, and/or across significant lines of socio-economic difference.

The contributors to this book are well aware of the mixture of excitement, apprehension and even self-doubt which commonly faces researchers who are preparing for fieldwork. To prepare well for their field experience the advice they need extends beyond practical tips to guidance on ethical issues and personal/psychological preparation for the difficulties they may encounter in the field. Often it is these issues that determine the success or otherwise of fieldwork – at least as much as methodological challenges. As Devereux and Hoddinott concur, ‘Anyone who has done research outside his or her home community knows that questions relating to lifestyle and personal relationships loom as large as narrowly defined technical issues’ (1992: 2). We have therefore aimed to provide a text which:

• first, provides practical information for researchers entering ‘the field’ and wishing to effectively explore questions about development with their respondents;

• second, prepares researchers for some of the ethical issues and personal challenges they may face, and also makes supervisors aware of these issues; and

• third, overviews issues of research design and the selection of appropriate research methods.

This allows the book to cover a wide range of critical issues facing researchers in the field, from managing relationships with the ‘host’ community and avoiding cross-cultural misunderstanding, to negotiating with ‘gatekeepers’, practising reciprocity, and keeping up morale while facing unanticipated obstacles.

This book is primarily aimed at both qualitative and quantitative researchers and postgraduate research students based in universities who are planning to do development fieldwork. Their work is often interdisciplinary, drawing from disciplines including politics, human geography, sociology, economics, international relations and social anthropology, as well as development studies.

We take it as given that most readers of this book will be convinced that there is value in conducting development research, even after reading the entertaining view of researchers that a research participant put to an Indian anthropologist (see Box 1.1). Although there are valid criticisms of fieldwork, which will be raised in this chapter, we hope that overall readers of this book will gain insights into how valuable development field research can be when conducted in an ethical and appropriate manner.

Box 1.1 A lesson about obsessive researchers

‘Suppose you and I are walking on road’, said Swamiji. ‘You’ve gone to University. I haven’t studied anything. We’re walking. Some child has shit on the road. We both step in it. “That’s shit!” I say. I scrape my foot; it’s gone. But educated people have doubts about everything. You say, “What’s this?!” and you rub your foot against the other.’ Swamiji shot up from his prone position in the deckchair, and placing his feet on the linoleum, stared at them with intensity. He rubbed the right sole against the left ankle. ‘Then you reach down to feel what it could be,’ his fingers now explored the ankle. A grin was breaking over his face. ‘“Something sticky!” You lift some up and sniff it. Then you say, “Oh! This is shit:”’ […]

‘Educated people always doubt everything. They lie awake at night thinking, “What was that? Why did it happen? What is the meaning and the cause of it?” Uneducated people pass judgment and walk on. They get a good night’s sleep.’

Source: Narayan (1998: 178)

‘THE FIELD’

So, what is ‘the field’, this locus of development-related ‘fieldwork’? Spatial differences are inherent in dominant conceptualisations of ‘the field’: ‘When one speaks of working in the field, or going into the field, one draws on mental images of a distinct place with an inside and outside, reached by practices of physical movement’ (Clifford, 1997: 54). In addition, ‘the field’ encapsulates cultural difference in that traditionally, fieldwork was about a search for the ‘exotic other’. Such differences added to the mystique of fieldwork and also made adjustment difficult for first time fieldworkers:

‘being there’ demands at the minimum hardly more than a travel booking and permission to land; a willingness to endure a certain amount of loneliness, invasion of privacy, and physical discomfort; a relaxed way with odd growths and unexplained fevers; a capacity to stand still for artistic insults, and the sort of patience that can support an endless search for invisible needles in infinite haystacks. (Geertz, 1988: 23–24)

Academics have queried the binary oppositions suggested by conventional understandings of ‘the field’, including ‘home’ versus ‘away’ or ‘here’ versus ‘there’, and ‘staying’ or ‘moving’, ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ (Clifford, 1997: 84), terms which are embedded with the notion of spatiality. But, as Coleman and Collins note, ‘in a world of interconnections, we never leave the field’ (2006: 5). Their book on Locating the Field asserts that spatial considerations are ‘significant but not absolutely primary dimensions of ethnographic practice’ (2006: 17). Meanwhile, Hannerz (2012) suggests that if our primary interest is in social relationships, ‘place’ is not necessarily central to fieldwork. Such thinking aligns with Gupta and Ferguson,² who posit that we should conceptualise field sites as ‘political locations’ rather than ‘spatial sites’:

Ethnography’s great strength has always been in its explicit and well-developed sense of location, of being set here-and-not-elsewhere. This strength becomes a liability when notions of ‘here’ and ‘elsewhere’ are assumed to be features of geography, rather than sites constructed in fields of unequal power relations. (1997: 35)

Their views are supported by contributors to a special edition of the Professional Geographer devoted to ‘Women in the field’, which supports the idea of the ‘field’ being a ‘social terrain’ where there is considerable overlap between the realms of the personal and the political (Nast, 1994: 57). Hall (2011a: 12–16) adds a layer of complexity to the definitional debates by agreeing that we can see ‘the field’ as a political and a social space, but also suggesting it can be a temporal space, a physical space, an ethical space, and a theoretical/methodological space.

Clearly many social scientists agree that ‘the field’ is not simply a distant, geographical space. It is useful to move beyond a spatialised sense of the field, as this ‘uphold[s] an evaluative hierarchy regarding the kinds of fieldwork and subjects of research that are deemed “appropriate”’ (Caputo, 2000: 19). It used to be considered that the more exotic and distant the site, the more difficult or dangerous the experience (Passaro, 1997), and the longer it was endured, the more valuable it was.

When compared to the diverse experiences of fieldwork practice today, such traditional conceptions of fieldwork can seem limited, inaccurate, romanticised, or largely fictional (Amit, 2000: 2). Much valuable research is being conducted in cosmopolitan, urban centres rather than in remote villages, there has been a growth of research on transnationalism, and work among the powerful is being seen as increasingly important (see Chapter 10 on elite research). For example, examining the experience ofWestern mining companyemployees working as expatriates in developing countries (Cannon, 2002) can be just as valuable as intensive research at grassroots level among the supposed ‘victims’ of mining activity. There is also a good deal of multi-sited ethnography that is conducted including Teaiwa’s research across Fiji, Kiribati and Australia (Hannerz, 2012; Teaiwa, 2004): as posited above, fieldwork can be a legitimate practice in any country experiencing poverty and inequality. Meanwhile, other researchers have reflected on the value of development fieldwork which uses the Internet/cyberspace (Burrell, 2009; see also Chapter 5; Hall, 2011b; Mawdsley, 2006; Muir, 2004).

For the purposes of this book on development fieldwork then, ‘the field’ is understood to be a socio-political and/or geographical site where a researcher spends time collecting data to gain a deeper understanding of development issues such as poverty and inequality.

As an aside, we are not particularly supportive of the traditional anthropological practice of preserving the mystique of fieldwork (Gupta and Ferguson, 1997: 2), and throwing unprepared students into unknown field situations to see if they will sink or swim. Rather, we feel they should carefully choose their field sites and examine their motivations for doing so (see Chapters 6 and 7), be meticulous when selecting an appropriate methodology (Chapters 2, 3 and 4), and conscientiously consider relevant ethical issues (Chapters 9 and 10). Under such circumstances fieldwork is more likely to be less of a ‘baptism of fire’ and more of a mutually beneficial experience.

CONCERNS OVER APPROPRIATENESS OF DOING DEVELOPMENT FIELDWORK

An important concern about fieldwork needs to be raised at the outset. Before discussing how to do fieldwork, there is the ethical dilemma of whether to do development fieldwork. This is an issue which has stimulated much debate in recent years, primarily from those concerned about the power gradients inherent in events such as a relatively privileged researcher travelling from a Western university to a developing country to study people living in poverty. Some have referred to such research as ‘academic tourism’ (Epprecht, 2004: 695; Mowforth and Munt, 2008: 98).

Twenty years ago, Madge argued that academics had ‘not yet adequately explored the power relations, inequalities and injustices’ upon which differences between ourselves and those we research are based (Madge, 1993: 297). Challenging questions have since been directed at geographers, social anthropologists, sociologists and others who carry out social research in developing countries, and a great deal of soul-searching by both academics and students has occurred (see, e.g., Hales, 2008; Kapoor, 2004; Simpson, 2007).

One concern is that fieldwork can be intrusive and expose those we are studying to considerable risk, with England (1994: 85) even suggesting that ‘exploitation and possibly betrayal are endemic to fieldwork’. Too often in the past, development research has been of no benefit at all for the country or communities concerned, bringing into question its relevance (Edwards, 1989). According to Lather (1988: 570), in the worst cases ‘rape research’ has occurred whereby exploitative methods of inquiry have been used exclusively in the interests of the researcher’s own career.

A further, major criticism is that much development discourse has been constructed so as to legitimate the voices of Western ‘experts’ while undermining those of local people (Escobar, 2012). A number of post-colonial scholars have made a contribution to such critiques. Nagar and Geiger, for example, assert that ‘scholars based in resource-rich institutions of the north continue to dominate the international context in which knowledge about southern peoples and places is produced, circulated and discussed’ (2007: 2 – footnote). Similarly, Abbott titled her (2006) article ‘Disrupting the “whiteness” of fieldwork in geography’, while Epprecht suggests that field trips taking Western students to developing countries might ‘contribute to the very kinds of underdevelopment and colonial-style North–South relations that they are intended to critically address’ (2004: 693). Missbach (2011) provides a pertinent example of concerns about the domination of research in Aceh, Indonesia, by foreigners. Aceh has become something of a ‘social laboratory’ in the aftermath of the 2004 Asian tsunami and the end of armed conflict in the following year. While this research has accelerated the academic careers of the foreigners, local researchers who lack funding, have poor access to international literature and struggle ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle
• Advertisement
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• List of Boxes
• Notes on Contributors
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• 1   Introduction
• Part I: Methodology
• Part II: Preparation for the Field
• Part III: In the Field
• Part IV: Leaving the Field
• References
• Index