ABSTRACT
Within anthropology, ethnography, archaeology and cultural geography, the concept of
fieldwork has become problematised. As social anthropologist Ulf Hannerz wrote, ‘we
do not seem to know what the field is or where it should be, if it is real or perhaps
virtual and even if there has to be one at all’ (Hannerz 2006: 23). Despite this, there
appears to be a consensus that fieldwork is fundamental to these disciplines; a recent
report on university archaeology courses concluded that ‘graduates felt they should
have been exposed to more fieldwork opportunities during their degree, and that this
element of the course should be compulsory and its importance emphasised’ (Jackson
and Sinclair 2007: 28). The importance of being ‘out there’ in the field continues to be
stressed, but the meanings of that experience and the deployment of the data gath-
ered through it have come under scrutiny. Recent cross-disciplinary debate has encour-
aged a move away from what once appeared an uncomplicated performance of set
procedures of recording and compiling data, towards a much more reflexive considera-
tion not only of the significance of the role of the fieldworker, but also of her/his acts of
interpretation.
