ABSTRACT
Indeed, it has been argued that field research involves flexibility as a variety of approaches can be used (McCall, 1978; Shaffir, Stebbins and Turowetz, 1980). However, such a position poses problems for those individuals about to embark on a field study. How do you prepare for field research? Where do you begin? When do you begin? How do you begin? Although much has been written about field research, relatively little material is available on how to prepare and when to start and the problem of access and how to obtain it. The start of field research is quickly passed over in many texts or remains relatively unexplored. Indeed, McCall and Simmons have discussed this aspect of the research process in the following terms:
Once our organization or situation has been selected as the subject of a participant observation study and initial steps have been taken toward gaining entrée to it, the researcher will find himseif developing a suitable and comfortable blend of the research techniques at his disposal. (McCall and Simmons,1969, p. 61)
This account raises questions about how a research topic is selected, how access is obtained and how the researcher establishes a series of field roles. Such questions are not easy to answer as the preparation that can be done and the access that can be obtained will depend on the researcher, the field situation and the problem to be investigated (Evans-Pritchard, 1973). Yet standard methodology texts (Bailey, 1978; Moser and Kalton, 1971; Selltiz, Wrightsman and Cook, 1976) see the selection of a research
problem and the design of the investigation as the first stage in all research. However, experienced researchers (Becker et al., 1961; Goffman, 1963; Dalton, 1964; Strauss et al., 1964) indicate that in field studies, research design and the collection and interpretation of data take place simultaneously. Furthermore, Becker et al. (1961) point out that their study did not start with a research design, as they remark:
In one sense, our study had no design. That is, we had no well-worked-out set of hypotheses to be tested, no data gathering instruments purposely designed to secure information relevant to these hypotheses, no set of analytic procedures specified in advance. Insofar as the term ‘design’ implies these features of elaborate prior planning, our study had none. (Becker et al., 1961, p. 17)
In a similar way Morris Freilich sums up the situation for anthropologists in the field, when he writes that the researcher
is not just a dogged follower of an artistic research design; he is not a puppet programmed to follow automatically a plan of research operations; he is not just the bearer of research tools, he is not just a ‘reader’ of questions found on questionnaires and he is not just a dispenser of printed schedules. He is the project: his actions will make the field trip either a success or a failure. What he does in the field will tend either to attract or to repel information. He is the information absorber, the information analyzer, the information synthesizer and the information interpreter. (Freilich, 1977b, p. 32)
As a consequence, the data that is gathered during field research depends on the actions and activities of the researcher and the theoretical framework that is adopted. Nevertheless, the way in which researchers establish themselves and their projects will influence the pattern of events that occur in the field, the degree of access that they are given, and the relationships that they establish with their informants. In short, it is important for researchers to define their projects and their roles as this will influence the whole of the research process. However, these projects and field roles will often be redefined by those who are researched. Freilich (1977b) indicates that the problems that exist at the start of a project do not neatly disappear, but appear and reappear in difierent guises throughout the research. As Geer (1964) indicates, direct links can be made between the start of a research project, data collection, analysis and publication.
