Field research
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Field research, field studies, or fieldwork is the collection of raw data outside a laboratory, library, or workplace setting. The approaches and methods used in field research vary across disciplines. For example, biologists who conduct field research may simply observe animals interacting with their environments, whereas social scientists conducting field research may interview or observe people in their natural environments to learn their languages, folklore, and social structures.
Field research involves a range of well-defined, although variable, methods: informal interviews, direct observation, participation in the life of the group, collective discussions, analyses of personal documents produced within the group, self-analysis, results from activities undertaken off- or on-line, and life-histories. Although the method generally is characterized as qualitative research, it may (and often does) include quantitative dimensions.
History
Field research has a long history. Cultural anthropologists have long used field research to study other cultures. Although the cultures do not have to be different, this has often been the case in the past with the study of so-called primitive cultures, and even in sociology the cultural differences have been ones of class. The work is done... in "'Fields' that is, circumscribed areas of study which have been the subject of social research".[1] Fields could be education, industrial settings, or Amazonian rain forests. Field research may be conducted by ethologists such as Jane Goodall. Alfred Radcliffe-Brown [1910] and Bronisław Malinowski [1922] were early anthropologists who set the models for future work.[2]
Conducting field research
The quality of results obtained from field research depends on the data gathered in the field. The data in turn, depend upon the field worker, their level of involvement, and ability to see and visualize things that other individuals visiting the area of study may fail to notice. The more open researchers are to new ideas, concepts, and things which they may not have seen in their own culture, the better will be the absorption of those ideas. Better grasping of such material means a better understanding of the forces of culture operating in the area and the ways they modify the lives of the people under study. Social scientists (i.e. anthropologists, social psychologists, etc.) have always been taught to be free from ethnocentrism (i.e. the belief in the superiority of one's own ethnic group), when conducting any type of field research.
When humans themselves are the subject of study, protocols must be devised to reduce the risk of observer bias and the acquisition of too theoretical or idealized explanations of the workings of a culture. Participant observation, data collection, and survey research are examples of field research methods, in contrast to what is often called experimental or lab research.
Field notes
When conducting field research, keeping an ethnographic record is essential to the process. Field notes are a key part of the ethnographic record. The process of field notes begin as the researcher participates in local scenes and experiences in order to make observations that will later be written up. The field researcher tries first to take mental notes of certain details in order that they be written down later.
Kinds of field notes
Field Note Chart
Types of Field Notes | Brief Description |
---|---|
Jot Notes | Key words or phrases are written down while in the field. |
Field Notes Proper | A description of the physical context and the people involved, including their behavior and nonverbal communication. |
Methodological Notes | New ideas that the researcher has on how to carry out the research project. |
Journals and Diaries | These notes record the ethnographer's personal reactions, frustrations, and assessments of life and work in the field. |
Interviewing
Another method of data collection is
Analyzing data
In
Field research across different disciplines
Anthropology
In anthropology, field research is organized so as to produce a kind of writing called ethnography. Ethnography can refer to both a methodology and a product of research, namely a monograph or book. Ethnography is a grounded, inductive method that heavily relies on participant-observation. Participant observation is a structured type of research strategy. It is a widely used methodology in many disciplines, particularly, cultural anthropology, but also sociology, communication studies, and social psychology. Its aim is to gain a close and intimate familiarity with a given group of individuals (such as a religious, occupational, or sub cultural group, or a particular community) and their practices through an intensive involvement with people in their natural environment, usually over an extended period of time.
The method originated in field work of social anthropologists, especially the students of Franz Boas in the United States, and in the urban research of the Chicago School of sociology.[3] Max Gluckman noted that Bronisław Malinowski significantly developed the idea of fieldwork, but it originated with Alfred Cort Haddon in England and Franz Boas in the United States.[4]: 242 Robert G. Burgess concluded that "it is Malinowski who is usually credited with being the originator of intensive anthropological field research".[5]: 4
Anthropological fieldwork uses an array of methods and approaches that include, but are not limited to: participant observation, structured and unstructured interviews, archival research, collecting demographic information from the community the anthropologist is studying, and data analysis. Traditional participant observation is usually undertaken over an extended period of time, ranging from several months to many years, and even generations. An extended research time period means that the researcher is able to obtain more detailed and accurate information about the individuals, community, and/or population under study. Observable details (like daily time allotment) and more hidden details (like taboo behavior) are more easily observed and interpreted over a longer period of time. A strength of observation and interaction over extended periods of time is that researchers can discover discrepancies between what participants say—and often believe—should happen (the formal system) and what actually does happen, or between different aspects of the formal system; in contrast, a one-time survey of people's answers to a set of questions might be quite consistent, but is less likely to show conflicts between different aspects of the social system or between conscious representations and behavior.
Archaeology
Field research lies at the heart of
Biology and ecology
In biology, field research typically involves studying of free-living wild animals in which the subjects are observed in their natural habitat, without changing, harming, or materially altering the setting or behavior of the animals under study. Field research is an indispensable part of biological science.
Animal migration tracking (including bird ringing/banding) is a frequently-used field technique, allowing field scientists to track migration patterns and routes, and animal longevity in the wild. Knowledge about animal migrations is essential to accurately determining the size and location of protected areas.
Field research also can involve study of other
Field courses have been shown to be efficacious for generating long-term interest in and commitment for undergraduate students in STEM, but the number of field courses has not kept pace with demand. Cost has been a barrier to student participation.[6]
Earth and atmospheric sciences
In
Economics
The objective of field research in economics is to get beneath the surface, to contrast observed behaviour with the prevailing understanding of a process, and to relate language and description to behavior (Deirdre McCloskey, 1985)[clarification needed].
The 2009 Nobel Prize Winners in Economics,
Edward J. Nell argued in 1998 that there are two types of field research in economics. One kind can give us a carefully drawn picture of institutions and practices, general in that it applies to all activities of a certain kind of particular society or social setting, but still specialized to that society or setting. Although institutions and practices are intangibles, such a picture will be objective, a matter of fact, independent of the state of mind of the particular agents reported on. Approaching the economy from a different angle, another kind of fieldwork can give us a picture of the state of mind of economic agents (their true motivations, their beliefs, state knowledge, expectations, their preferences and values).[11]
Business use of field research is an applied form of anthropology and is as likely to be advised by sociologists or statisticians in the case of surveys. Consumer marketing field research is the primary marketing technique that is used by businesses to research their target market.
Ethnomusicology
Fieldwork in ethnomusicology has changed greatly over time. Alan P. Merriam cites the evolution of fieldwork as a constant interplay between the musicological and ethnological roots of the discipline.[12] Before the 1950s, before ethnomusicology resembled what it is today, fieldwork and research were considered separate tasks.[13] Scholars focused on analyzing music outside of its context through a scientific lens, drawing from the field of musicology. Notable scholars include Carl Stumf and Eric von Hornbostel, who started as Stumpf's assistant. They are known for making countless recordings and establishing a library of music to be analyzed by other scholars.[14] Methodologies began to shift in the early 20th century. George Herzog, an anthropologist and ethnomusicologist, published a seminal paper titled "Plains Ghost Dance and Great Basin Music", reflecting the increased importance of fieldwork through his extended residency in the Great Basin and his attention to cultural contexts. Herzog also raised the question of how the formal qualities of the music he was studying demonstrated the social function of the music itself.[15] Ethnomusicology today relies heavily on the relationship between the researcher and their teachers and consultants. Many ethnomusicologists have assumed the role of student in order to fully learn an instrument and its role in society.[16] Research in the discipline has grown to consider music as a cultural product, and thus cannot be understood without consideration of context.
Law
Legal researchers conduct field research to understand how legal systems work in practice. Social, economic, cultural and other factors influence how legal processes, institutions and the law work (or do not work).[17]
Management
Aktouf (2006, p. 198) summed-up Mintzberg observations about what takes place in the field:‘’First, the manager’s job is not ordered, continuous, and sequential, nor is it uniform or homogeneous. On the contrary, it is fragmented, irregular, choppy, extremely changeable and variable. This work is also marked by brevity: no sooner has a manager finished one activity than he or she is called up to jump to another, and this pattern continues nonstop. Second, the manager’s daily work is a not a series of self-initiated, willful actions transformed into decisions, after examining the circumstances. Rather, it is an unbroken series of reactions to all sorts of request that come from all around the manager, from both the internal and external environments. Third, the manager deals with the same issues several times, for short periods of time; he or she is far from the traditional image of the individual who deals with one problem at a time, in a calm and orderly fashion. Fourth, the manager acts as a focal point, an interface, or an intersection between several series of actors in the organization: external and internal environments, collaborators, partners, superiors, subordinates, colleagues, and so forth. He or she must constantly ensure, achieve, or facilitate interactions between all these categories of actors to allow the firm to function smoothly.’’
Public health
In public health, the use of the term field research refers to epidemiology or the study of epidemics through the gathering of data about the epidemic (such as the pathogen and vector(s) as well as social or sexual contacts, depending upon the situation).
Sociology
Pierre Bourdieu played a crucial role in the popularization of fieldwork in sociology. During the Algerian War in 1958–1962, Bourdieu undertook ethnographic research into the clash through a study of the Kabyle people (a subgroup of the Berbers), which provided the groundwork for his anthropological reputation. His first book, Sociologie de L'Algerie (The Algerians), was an immediate success in France and was published in America in 1962. A follow-up, Algeria 1960: The Disenchantment of the World: The Sense of Honour: The Kabyle House or the World Reversed: Essays, published in English in 1979 by Cambridge University Press, established him as a major figure in the field of ethnology and a pioneer advocate scholar for more intensive fieldwork in social sciences. The book was based on his decade of work as a participant-observer with Algerian society. One of the outstanding qualities of his work has been his innovative combination of different methods and research strategies as well as his analytical skills in interpreting the obtained data.
Throughout his career, Bourdieu sought to connect his theoretical ideas with empirical research, grounded in everyday life. His work can be seen as sociology of culture. Bourdieu labeled it a "theory of practice". His contributions to sociology were both empirical and theoretical. His conceptual apparatus is based on three key terms, namely, habitus, capital and field. Furthermore, Bourdieu fiercely opposed rational choice theory as grounded in a misunderstanding of how social agents operate. Bourdieu argued that social agents do not continuously calculate according to explicit rational and economic criteria. According to Bourdieu, social agents operate according to an implicit practical logic—a practical sense—and bodily dispositions. Social agents act according to their "feel for the game" (the "feel" being, roughly, habitus, and the "game" being the field).
Bourdieu's anthropological work was focused on the analysis of the mechanisms of reproduction of social hierarchies. Bourdieu criticized the primacy given to the economic factors, and stressed that the capacity of social actors to actively impose and engage their cultural productions and symbolic systems plays an essential role in the reproduction of social structures of domination. Bourdieu's empirical work played a crucial role in the popularization of correspondence analysis and particularly multiple correspondence analysis. Bourdieu held that these geometric techniques of data analysis are, like his sociology, inherently relational. In the preface to his book The Craft of Sociology, Bourdieu argued that: "I use Correspondence Analysis very much, because I think that it is essentially a relational procedure whose philosophy fully expresses what in my view constitutes social reality. It is a procedure that 'thinks' in relations, as I try to do it with the concept of field."
One of the classic ethnographies in Sociology is the book Ain't No Makin' It: Aspirations & Attainment in a Low-Income Neighborhood by Jay MacLeod.[citation needed] The study addresses the reproduction of social inequality among low-income, male teenagers. The researcher spent time studying two groups of teenagers in a housing project in a Northeastern city of the United States. The study concludes that three different levels of analysis play their part in the reproduction of social inequality: the individual, the cultural, and the structural.[18]
An additional perspective of sociology includes interactionism. This point of view focuses on understanding people's actions based on their experience of the world around them.[19] Similar to Bourdieu's work, this perspective gathers statements, observations and facts from real-world situations to create more robust research outcomes.
Notable field-workers
In anthropology
- Napoleon Chagnon - ethnographer of the Yanomamö people of the Amazon
- Georg Forster - ethnographer (1772–1775) to Captain James Cook
- George M. Foster
- Clifford Geertz
- Alfred Cort Haddon
- Claude Lévi-Strauss
- Bronislaw Malinowski
- Margaret Mead
- Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown
- W.H.R. Rivers
- Renato Rosaldo
- James C. Scott
- Colin Turnbull
- Victor Turner
In sociology
In management
In economics
- Truman Bewley
- Alan Blinder
- Trygve Haavelmo
- John Johnston
- Lawrence Klein
- Wassily Leontief
- Edward J. Nell
- Robert M. Townsend
In music
- Alan Lomax
- Peel Sessions)
- Vincent Moon (with his Take-Away Shows)
See also
- Citizen science
- Empirical research
- Exploration
- Observational study
- Participant observation
- Public Health Advisor
- Wildlife observation
- Market research
- Usability
- Industrial design
- Requirements analysis
References
- ^ Burgess, Robert G., In the Field: An Introduction to Field Research (Hemel Hempstead, U.K.: George Allen & Unwin, 1984) at 1.
- ^ Burgess, Robert, ibid. at 12-13.
- ^ A variant of participant observation is observing participation, described by Kaminski, who explored prison subculture as a political prisoner in communist Poland in 1985.
- ISBN 978-1-136-52849-1.
- ISBN 978-1-134-89751-3.
- PMID 36196223.
- ^ Price, Nancy (June 2005). "Fieldwork: It May Be More Important Than You Think" (PDF). American Institute of Professional Geologists. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-10-08. Retrieved 2017-10-08.
- ^ see http://newlegalrealism.wordpress.com/tag/fieldwork/. Posted on October 31, 2011.
- ^ There is a nice exchange toward the end about how much economists will miss if they ignore the knowledge offered by scholars in other fields. http://www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=1223&view=1.
- ^ See her Nobel Prize presentation at: http://www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=1223&view=1.
- ^ For further details see Nell (1998, Part II).
- ^ Merriam, Alan. 1960. "Ethnomusicology: A Discussion and Definition of the Field." Ethnomusicology 4(3): 107-114.
- ^ Nettl, Bruno. 2005. "Come Back and See Me Next Tuesday." In The Study of Ethnomusicology: Thirty-One Issues and Concepts, 139. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
- ^ Christensen, Dieter. 1991. "Eric M. von Hornbostel, Carl Stumpf, and the Institutionalization of Comparative Musicology." In Comparative Musicology and Anthropology of Music, ed. B. Nettl and P. Bohlman, 205. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- ^ Herzog, George. 1935. "Plains Ghost Dance and Great Basin Music." American Anthropologist37(3): 403-419.
- ^ Nettl, Bruno. 2005. "Come Back and See Me Next Tuesday." In The Study of Ethnomusicology: Thirty-One Issues and Concepts, 141. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
- hdl:1814/74506.
- ^ MacLeod, Jay. (1995). Ain't No Makin' It: Aspirations & Attainment in a Low-Income Neighborhood. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
- ISBN 978-0-203-41816-1.
Further reading
- Abu-Lughod, Lila (1988). "Fieldwork of a dutiful daughter". In Altorki, Soraya; Fawzi El-Solh, Camillia (eds.). Arab Women in the Field: studying your own society. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 0815624492.
- Cohen, Nissim; Arieli, Tamar (2011). "Field research in conflict environments: methodological challenges and snowball sampling". Journal of Peace Research. 48 (4): 423–436. S2CID 145328311.
- Groh, Arnold (2018). Research Methods in Indigenous Contexts. New York, NY: Springer. ISBN 9783319727745.
- Helper, Susan (2000). "Economics and field research: you can observe a lot just by watching". American Economic Review. 90 (2): 228–32. JSTOR 117226.
- Jarvie, I. C. (1967). "On theories of fieldwork and the scientific character of social anthropology". Philosophy of Science. 34 (3): 223–242. S2CID 145096759.
- Mason, Peter.(2013). "Scientists and Scholars in the Field. Studies in the History of Fieldwork and Expeditions." Journal of the History of Collections. V. 25 (November): 428–430.
- ISBN 978-0-470-65715-7.
- Rosaldo, Renato (1986). "From the door of his tent: the fieldworker and the inquisitor". In Clifford, James; Marcus, George E. (eds.). Writing Culture: the poetics and politics of ethnography. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520056527.
- Nelson, Katie. 2019. “Doing Fieldwork: Methods in Cultural Anthropology” in Perspectives: An Open Invitation to Cultural Anthropology 2nd edition, Edited by Nina Brown, Thomas McIlwraith, and Laura Tubelle de González. Arlington: American Anthropological Association. pp. 45–69. ISBN 9781931303668
- Shinbrot, Xoco A.; Treibergs, Kira; Hernández, Lina M Arcila; Esparza, David; Ghezzi-Kopel, Kate; Goebel, Marc; Graham, Olivia J.; Heim, Ashley B.; Smith, Jansen A.; Smith, Michelle K. (2022). "The Impact of Field Courses on Undergraduate Knowledge, Affect, Behavior, and Skills: A Scoping Review". BioScience. 72 (10): 1007–1017. PMID 36196223.
- Udry, Christopher (2003). "Fieldwork, economic theory and research on institutions in developing countries". American Economic Review. 93 (2): 107–111. .
External links
- Media related to Field work (science) at Wikimedia Commons