Trial by Fire

Abstract

In this Introduction, we take two persistent tropes of fieldwork, the ‘trial by fire’ and the ‘heroic fieldworker’ to task. Our analysis traces out what we call everyday decentering of these tropes, which we argue is necessary for fieldwork to be taught and engaged with beyond romanticised twentieth century masculinist heroics. We argue that anthro-pology and related field research based disciplines might be better served by adopting a more ethnographic approach towards the lived reality of fieldwork. Through our review, we situate the contribution that the six pieces in this volume make to pedagogies of the field. Readers are invited to continue this conversation about fieldwork futures in anthropology’s second century.

Ethnography after anthropology

“…One of Burman's (2018, pp. 60–61) solutions for changing anthropology for the better “would [be for anthropologists to] dare to join forces with community organizations or social movements to advance social or environmental justice or to address other problems identified by the people with and among whom we work.”8 This makes for a self‐congratulatory figure, one who overlooks the complexity of engagement as described by Velasquez (2016), and evokes the idea of the heroic and ideologically driven anthropologist (Arif, 2020; Douglas‐Jones et al., 2020). It also ignores an ethnographer's commitments to justice and ethics that may or may not overlap with those held by the ethnographer's interlocutors.…”

The Fieldwork Wellness Framework: a new approach to field research in ecology

“…2020; Douglas‐Jones et al . 2020). In many cases, researchers undertaking fieldwork are expected to independently manage all risks without the tools or resources to identify, mitigate, or confront those risks (Nash et al .…”

“…Suffering in the field is not a requisite for graduate or early career training, but rather a signal that intervention is needed (Douglas‐Jones et al . 2020; King et al . 2020).…”

“…Under the traditional do‐it‐yourself approach to fieldwork, the ability and willingness to make such decisions alone signals an individual's innate capacity to succeed (Douglas‐Jones et al . 2020; King et al . 2020).…”

Photo Documentation While Brown: Fear and Data Collection in (white male) USA

“…A focus on safety comes only if we—qualitative methodologists—take seriously the ways in which race, gender, and other identities play a role in the research process (Ball, 2021; Douglas-Jones et al, 2020a; Grenier, 2021; Hanson & Richards, 2017, 2019; Schilt & Williams, 2008). There need to be far more formal discussions in classroom settings, between advisor/advisees and mentor/mentees, and in publications on how social capital impacts the processes of gaining access to participants, data collection, and data analysis, and how assumptions about identities can hinder these processes (Douglas-Jones et al, 2020a; Robertson, 2002). To date, criminology still largely presents the researcher as neutral, nonsexual or asexual, and undesirable.…”