ABSTRACT
Doing fieldwork abroad carries with it inherent risks. Unlike work at home in sometimes sheltered campus environments, there is much more uncertainty to deal with on a daily basis, there are different cultural and safety codes to comprehend, and there are usually a great many new stimuli to process simultaneously, to the point where sometimes one’s guard is down. Fieldwork also often means extensive travel in-country, since research projects often take place over a broad geographical space. Conducting overseas research often involves working in countries, cities, and areas with fluid political environments. Things happen, regimes change, elections yield unexpected results, issues arise which cause protests and unrest, and natural disasters occur. There are as many pieces of safety advice as there are fieldworkers abroad; the preceding section focused on some of the most obvious. But there are also less obvious strategies, especially for more out-of-the-way and dangerous locales, of the sort frequently visited by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.
