Transforming long-term field research: The impacts of new methodologies, media, technologies and understandings of ‘the field’

Abstract (English)

This roundtable focuses on the impact of innovative methodologies and emergent modes of maintaining long-distance relationships on long-term field research. Various types of long-term field research have ‘traditionally’ been delineated, including: return visits by the same anthropologist(s) over an extended term; ‘passing of the baton’ of fieldwork to (a) younger anthropologist(s), whose training the original field worker(s) has/have had a role, or long-term, locally sited institutional projects (e.g. the Chiapas Project in Mexico) (Foster et al. 1979; Kemper et al. 2002). These forms of long-term field research could focus on sustaining a longitudinal study examining issues of continuity and change over time or on developing a fuller understanding of a particular society, with each successive visit focusing on a different aspect of that society. Such forms of long-term research have spawned various issues: the ethical obligation to do positive good for members of such a researched community, rather than just observing the imperative to do no harm; problems of maintaining ever expanding data banks and the dilemmas of deciding who could access them; negotiating the problem of continuing access to communities not just with members of the communities, but also with the bureaucracies of nation-states providing the permission to conduct research; and drawing out the policy implications of such long-term research both for those nation-states and the communities, among others.

However, new understandings of what constitutes ‘the field’ and emergent methodologies and the technologies for engaging with these expanded horizons of field research have now changed the terms of engagement of long-term field research. With members of such communities increasingly using social media, new forms of maintaining contact with them over time have emerged, as well as the realisation that communities now extend over virtual space as well as occupying physical space, with relationality extending across both online and offline domains. As well, members of these communities are now not just ethnographic subjects, if not objects, but also collaborators in new forms of participatory field research that emphasise partnerships and new norms of the sharing and ownership of knowledge. This roundtable focuses on how these new technologies, media, conceptualisations of the field, understandings of ethical responsibilities and the conduct of (mediated) relationships are transforming how long-term field work is carried out and the expectations of what it should produce. The emphasis will be on sharing of experiences and expectations among audience members and presenters, with the latter regarded primarily as providing some initial case study reflections that can catalyse a focused yet inclusive multilogue that will expand understandings of how long-term field work has and can still be transformed and the purposes for which it should continue to be undertaken.