Navigating Fieldwork in the Social Sciences

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xviii

   PDF

2. Collecting Stories

   • Nicholas Apoifis, Phillip Wadds, Susanne Schmeidl, Kim Spurway

   Pages 1-11

3. Sex in the Academy/Sex in the Field: Bodies of Ethics in Activist Research

   • Zahra Zsuzsanna Stardust

   Pages 13-37

4. Sitting with the Mess

   • Caroline Lenette

   Pages 39-60

5. Fear and Loathing in the Cross: Researching the Policing of Nightlife in Sydney

   • Phillip Wadds

   Pages 61-84

6. Doing Critical Drugs Research: From Deconstructing to Encountering Risk in the Field

   • George Dertadian

   Pages 85-106

7. ‘I Hope Little Worms Die in Your Arse’: Fieldwork, Anarchists, Fascists and Academic Snitches

   • Nicholas Apoifis

   Pages 107-128

8. Doing Elite Interviews in Feminist Research: Confessions of a Born-Again Observationist

   • Louise Chappell

   Pages 129-145

9. Risking the Self: Vulnerability and Its Uses in Research

   • Tanya Jakimow

   Pages 147-161

10. Enter the Dragon: Coming of Age as Blond, White, Female Researcher in Fragile Contexts

    • Susanne Schmeidl

    Pages 163-187

11. ‘If You Want to Know About Evil, Ask the Devil’: Research in Post-conflict Countries

    • Kim Spurway

    Pages 189-214

12. Sharing Stories

    • Phillip Wadds, Nicholas Apoifis, Susanne Schmeidl, Kim Spurway

    Pages 215-219

13. Back Matter

    Pages 221-223

    PDF

This edited collection of first-person stories about risk in the field offers an arsenal of practical examples where fieldworkers have attempted to negotiate the complexities and risks of field research. Field research can be a risky and dangerous journey where the line between safety and danger can be crossed in quick time, often with little warning. These risks manifest in diverse and novel ways. They can be physical and psychological, ephemeral and enduring. They can impact the researchers, participants, collaborators and interviewees. Indeed, they can condition the very foundation of our processes of knowledge production. Fieldwork is no small stakes game. Covering research from Afghanistan, Chad, DR Congo, Greece, the Horn of Africa, Iraq, Laos, Lebanon, Palestine, India, Indonesia, Mexico, The Netherlands, Vietnam and Australia, each chapter highlights diverse, eclectic, raw and vulnerable narratives about risks experienced before, during and after the conduct of this research. This book is of great value to inexperienced and experienced fieldworkers alike.    

• fieldwork
• ethnography
• research ethics
• research
• criminology
• research challenges
• dangerous fieldword
• interviews
• risk to participants
• data collection
• post-conflict settings
• ethical practices
• action-based research
• refugees
• conflict assessment
• militant ethnography
• night-time economy
• disability
• pornography
• political assassination

“Navigating Fieldwork in the Social Sciences is one of the most honest and courageous books on fieldwork I have read. … More than a must-read for field researchers, I hope these contributions beget more honesty and courage from similarly situated scholars, and in this way ease the sufferings and help in the struggle toward egalitarian knowledge production.” (Chester Antonino C. Arcilla, IQAS, International Quarterly for Asian Studies, Vol. 53 (4), 2022) “This book offers moving accounts of risk, vulnerability and the resoundingly human encounter that is fieldwork. Delivered as a generous exercise in reflexive consciousness, it is an education in self-care through story-telling, delivering as it does a searching analysis of the tender, messy, and moving encounters we share while learning with and from others. Fieldwork changes us, and writing of how we are changed takes courage” (Amanda Kearney, Co-author of Reflexive Ethnographic Practice and Professor at Flinders University, Australia)

“Vulnerable, inviting, sometimes terrifying – Navigating Fieldwork takes the reader deep inside the risky situations and improvised solutions that define good fieldwork. Crisscrossing research settings and academic disciplines, the book provides vivid first-hand narratives that coalesce into a collective account of the fieldwork process itself. As a result, Navigating Fieldwork offers field researchers, ethnographers, and other students of the social world something remarkable: a veritable handbook of what might happen” (Jeff Ferrell, Author of Crimes of Style, Tearing Down the Streets and Empire of Scrounge and Professor of Sociology at Texas Christian University, USA)

“This book offers lucid and insightful discussions on negotiating the risks, problems and perils of conducting ethnographic research in the social sciences. Covering such diverse populations as sex workers, refugees, street gangs, anarchists, and even Taliban warlords, the authors have produced a must-read for anyone interested in ethnographic fieldwork” (Mark S. Hamm, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Indiana State University, USA)

“This edited collection is about the many risks of field research, including risks that continue long after fieldwork ends. It speaks to the critical importance of field research, but also the need to be aware of the risks that come with it. Ethical fieldwork thatdoes no harm, and is safe for researchers, co-workers and communities starts with honest stories from fieldworkers. This book tells these stories, stories that will emotionally and intellectually challenge readers of all kinds. Read this book!” (Dorothea Hilhorst, Professor of Humanitarian Studies, Erasmus University, The Netherlands)

• School of Social Sciences, UNSW Australia, Sydney, Australia

  Phillip Wadds, Nicholas Apoifis, Susanne Schmeidl

• Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia

  Kim Spurway

Phillip Wadds is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. He has spent the last decade undertaking ethnographic and field-based research examining various features of nightlife in Sydney with an enduring focus on its policing and regulation. 


Nicholas Apoifis is Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. His 2017 manuscript Anarchy in Athens (Manchester University Press), was based on unprecedented access to one of the world’s most militant anarchist movements and involved Militant Ethnography.


Susanne Schmeidl is Senior Lecturer in Global Development at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. She is a scholar practitioner with field experience in Afghanistan. Her research focuses on understanding drivers of conflict and forced migration as well as grassroots peace efforts.


Kim Spurway is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University. She has worked on five national surveys commissioned by the United Nations on the socio-economic impact of landmines and unexploded ordinance on post-conflict countries.  

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