22-02-2025
2 Objectives-
• to make students understand what a field is, what fieldwork is all about
• to make them understand how to write down their experiences of the field in the form of
fieldnotes
• to teach them how fieldnotes are written
3 Meaning
Studying humans in their natural social and environmental contexts
4 Important components
engages with “the worlds of others” with the aim of studying them at close quarters
Gain first-hand experience
Researcher enters the field to observe and study human interaction directly
Taking field notes
5 Methods Used in Fieldwork
6 Writing in fieldwork
• Clifford and Marcus:
•
• “Writing has emerged as central to what (investigators) do both in the field and thereafter”
•
Writing improves with each draft
Films + photographs are valued
7 Field notes
• Field notes are accounts describing experiences and observations the researcher has made
while participating in an intense and involved manner (Ermerson, Fretz and Shaw 1995: 4-5)
•
•
8 Components of field notes
• Rich detailed concrete description
• ‘Foreshadowed problems’
•
• Reflexivity
1
22-02-2025
Reflexivity
•
9 During Fieldwork
Note making
Time/location/context/respondent (s)
10 Typology of notes
1. Observation notes
2. Methodological notes
3. Theoretical notes
4. Personal notes
11 Levels of Description
Thin Description
Is superficial information that has contains no explanations and little or no context.
Vs
Thick Description
Is in depth information that tells not only what is present, but how and why it is there, what
accompanies it, and what emotions and meanings are attached to it.
(Clifford Geertz)
•
•
12 Deskwork
• Process of writing continues
•
• Crafting the Research
13 Remember
• Write regularly
• Don’t delay
• Begin writing early
• Develop a proposed outline/table of contexts/tentative words
• A lot of data is collected but it all cant be presented.
• Try to get rid of as much extra data as possible
• Between notes create linkages
2
22-02-2025
Between notes create linkages
• After first draft take a break
• Ask people to comment/editors
• After first writing give some time to thinking
• After comments take first draft and begin writing again
14 Insider outsider perspective
15 Remembering and Reconstruction
• Write notes as soon as possible
• From jottings to expanded notes
• From analytic notes to expanded notes
•
16
17 Fieldwork
• To introduce participants to the fieldwork experience, to apply knowledge to practice, and to develop
understanding of the social surroundings
18 Pointers for Field Observation
Try to observe the structure of the market.
Observe the market's segregation and the items sold in each category.
Who are the different stakeholders in the field?
Try observing what kind of items are being sold in Mandi.
Gender dynamics in the Mandi
What kind of sustainable practices are there
How do the participants behave in relation to cleanliness
Consumer behaviour.
Negotiation over pricing
What is the buying and selling process for items?
19 Pointers for Field Observation
Apart from buying and selling, what other activities are taking place?
Do you see any child labour?
What are the social norms of place?
Which objects or people command respect, and which do not?
How can you observe people following the ‘rules’ of the field?
Does anyone break the rules and how are the rules enforced?
Can you make the familiar strange, and notice how people behave in this particular environment?
Reflect on how the social field makes you feel and behave, as well as what it is like to experience
it as ‘researcher.’
Stay in the place for two hour.
You can take brief notes while you are there.
•
3
22-02-2025
20 In preparation of the fieldnotes…
• On one side of the page, note down where you were, the setting and time, and the ‘data’: what
kinds of behaviours or interactions occurred while you were there. On the other side of the page,
note your own thoughts, reflections, and initial analytic insights.
• Describe in your own words what you expect your initial fieldwork experience will be like.
• Describe your apprehension and/or excitement about the fieldwork assignment.
•
•
•
21
• [Link]
•
• [Link]
•
• [Link]
•
•