Goodbye Mother Ship – Setting Foot in the Field

Post by Anat Goldman: 

I grew up in one of my research sites, and had lived and studied in the other, and yet, from the moment I set a foot in the field, in late December 2013, and for the entire year of research, I felt more vulnerable than ever before. Sure, coursework and qualifying exams can be very stressful, but the type of uncertainty inherent to international field research can be just as stressful and daunting. In this post I would like bring up some causes of this uncertainty that I think anyone doing international dissertation fieldwork might encounter, and use this list as means to start a conversation on possible ways to deal with them.

So why are we so vulnerable?

-       Scarce Funding: Many institutions don’t provide funding for dissertation fieldwork, or provide limited funding for their graduate students. If you are lucky, you have been able to land one of the bigger (and hopefully prestigious) grants and have a full year of research ahead, but what happens when you don’t? How would you deal with local economic issues such as currency collapse, or rent hike, or inflation? What would you do when your funding is over? Would you take a job on site to stay close to the field while writing (and be away from your advisors and colleagues), or would you go back to your home institution to write? This is even more complicated for international students who cannot be in the US without being enrolled full time (meaning that they pay tuition).

-       Logistics: unlike some study abroad programs, there is no one to help you take care of your logistical issues. You will have to find housing and arrange plane tickets and visas on your own without being fully familiar with laws and procedures on your research site and without having complete fluency in the local language or cultural codes. But logistics is just one part of the story, since you will have to keep doing your academic work with minimum distractions and meet deadlines while apartment hunting, traveling, or trying to find a place to fix your laptop that crushed. Where can you get affordable housing and how do you know if your landlord is fair? What are good ways to travel between locations? How much time should you spend on each site? Is it better to just stay in one place until you finish or to go back and forth? What would you do with your books? What kind of equipment would you use for archival work or for storing recorded interviews (not to mention protect your informants)? How do you store and manage the insane amount of data that you are about to gather and make it easily accessible for the time you start writing your dissertation?

-       Time management: our funding is limited; our visas are limited and our families at home or on site will make their own demands. Also, doing research in a changing region might yield all sorts of surprises, from a currency collapse, to rent hikes, to mass demonstrations and riots, internet censorship and shut downs, and a even to war (all true stories). How can anyone stay focused productive despite all that? How not to get overwhelmed or consumed by everyday events and demands and finish what you came to do? How do you decide what risks to take and what not to take?

-       Ever-changing research topic: maybe the data you thought you might find doesn’t exist or isn't accessible? Maybe the archive is closed or some of the documents are not available. Maybe you discover a goldmine of data that will shift your focus to a story you didn’t expect or initially did not think was important. It is likely that two or three months into your research your prospectus will begin to seem outdated. But how do you stay on track even if your question and arguments change? How not to get lost in all the data you discover and still be able to see the big picture?

-       Relationships on site: landlords, bus drivers, baristas housemates, local colleagues and friends, librarians, archivists, informants, interviewees, academics etc. The success of your project depends on the relationships you build with all these people, but how do you do it? Apart from some ethical questions, how do you handle working with people who don’t like each other, don’t agree with each other, or for whatever reason don’t like you? How do you get reluctant librarians and archivists to help you get what you need? How can you tell who’s your friend and who isn’t? How do you express anger or hold your ground with a person who’s trying to hurt you in your 3^rd or 4^th language?

-       Isolation: your advisors and colleagues are on the other side of the world, you are probably on-leave from your home institution, the fellowship people just want to know that you are making progress, and the people on site (including friends and family) often don’t understand what you’re doing all day, since you don’t seem to have a “real job”. Who would you talk to about all these concerns, how do you make decisions while in the field?

Anything else?

To be continued