ABSTRACT
So what is fieldwork? For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater (2007: 1) ‘The field is the site for doing research, and fieldworking is the process of doing it’. A more nuanced understanding of fieldwork is provided by McCall (2006), who identifies three different meanings of the term in a research context. First, it refers to primary research that occurs outside the controlled settings of the library or laboratory. It may involve ‘field experiments’ but field methods usually lean towards the non-experimental in approach and utilise observational studies, which can be either quantitative or qualitative in character or a combination of the two. Second, it can refer to the period of time in a research period in which data collection and/or preliminary study occurs in a field setting. This period is then distinguishable from other phases such as
design, analysis and writing up, which usually do not completely take place in the field, although some elements will as the researcher adapts to the fieldwork situation and/or writes while observations are ‘fresh’. Finally, McCall (2006: 3) argues that there is a third meaning of fieldwork which is peculiar to the social sciences, and especially to anthropology and sociology, and stems from the phenomenon of reflexivity, ‘inclusion of the observer in the subject matter itself ’ (although note Thorn [2003] with respect to the role of qualitative thought in the physical sciences). Interestingly, the elements of fieldwork identified by McCall (2006) fit very well with the definitions of fieldwork provided at a University of Southern Denmark graduate workshop (see Table 1.2 in Hall, Chapter 1, this volume).
