ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the methods of research employed in the study and reflects upon the fieldwork experience. It highlights the way in which the research was conducted in identifying some of the socio-economic and spatial aspects of shelter access while also acknowledging some of the limitations of the study. Traditionally, surveys and anthropological methods have been viewed as oppositional research strategies where objectivity and subjectivity have been often seen as having conflicting results. In social research the translation of opinions and attitudinal information into finite sets of values is therefore a highly constructed process. The role of the researcher during the fieldwork period is a complicated one which involves issues of power relations, control, accountability and legitimacy. The use of research by development practitioners and policymakers has created an uneasiness among many social science researchers interested in critical studies of development processes.
