ABSTRACT
It is a great pleasure to write this afterword to a collection of thought-provoking chapters which demonstrate the vibrancy of research in the Global South by scholars based in Northern institutions, and the insights revealed when reflecting on the research process itself. Nearly 20 years ago when Elsbeth Robson and I were doctoral students in Oxford, conducting research in Nigeria and Mexico respectively, we were the PhD student representatives on the Developing Areas Research Group (DARG) Committee. From our own experiences and discussions with other Geography PhD students at UK universities conducting research in the Global South, we felt that there was a need for students to share their experiences of field research to demonstrate the messiness of research reality, often at odds with the accounts presented in research papers or research methods publications. This led us to convene a session at the 1994 conference of the Institute of British Geographers (as it was then). Contributions to this session were edited into a DARG monograph (Robson and Willis 1994), which was revised and expanded into a second edition (1997).
