ABSTRACT
Every year a great number of enthusiastic, well-trained young scholars set out on their first overseas research project and, with an awesome display of energy and creativity, reinvent the flat tire. The authors believe that a fair proportion of such missteps and obstacles are due not to poor formal training, but to a lack of field-tested advice on practical matters. Anyone who has set out to collect data in “the field” knows the gnawing feeling that previous methodological study is of limited value in the successful conduct of field research. Field research is not deterministically controlled by an investigator. That would not only prove dull, but would likely suffocate illuminating discoveries born of chance. But neither is it a fatalistic endeavor. One exerts considerable influence over one’s research environment by the resolution of particular issues that frequently arise.
