ABSTRACT
Fieldwork processes in social science research depend on people who facilitate access, understanding and reflection. This chapter draws on insights from research in ‘Southern’ development cooperation agencies to introduce the notion of facilitator into the conceptualization of fieldwork processes. With reference to Edmund Husserl’s focus on subjectively perceived life-worlds and Marcel Mauss’s emphasis on reciprocity in the creation of social bonds, I argue that facilitators – individuals who support and accompany research stays – are an important part of fieldwork processes, and that a focus on facilitator–researcher relationships is a particularly insightful way of approaching questions of positionality. Based on that I suggest that schemes of mutual facilitation during fieldwork can be a way of addressing issues of social hierarchy and structural privilege by putting an emphasis on reciprocal exchanges. The empirical material I engage with to discuss these issues has primarily emanated from fieldwork stays in Mexico and Turkey. Some of the in-between realities that representatives of these two countries face in the field of international development are reflected in how my research experiences compare to previous fieldwork stays in more ‘traditional’ Northern or Southern settings.
