Fieldwork in the context of Covid-19
Before we begin: an important caveat to this post is our belief that, despite directives from universities and workplaces, a pandemic is not a time to focus on increasing productivity. Many of our colleagues have family and friends who are desperately ill in hospital because of this pandemic, and we need to take care of ourselves and our loved ones, rest, and grieve before we can move forward. That said, we hope TNE might be able to bring you some support, comfort and ideas if this pandemic has caught you in the midst of fieldwork.
The COVID-19 pandemic is radically changing how we are able to conduct ethnographic research, and what kinds of fieldwork may or may not be possible in the year(s) ahead. This is a difficult time to be doing and supervising research. Ethnographers are having to radically rethink their research strategies, and many have had their fieldwork abruptly cut short. Already precarious academics and students about to enter a competitive job market must imagine and predict what post-COVID academia may look like, and this pandemic forces us to reconsider our various privileges, while taking care of our multiple home and research communities. Now more than ever we need our universities to practice more compassionate (link), caring, and cooperative practices and to prioritise their duty of care both towards researchers, and towards the communities and individuals we conduct research within.
COVID-19 brings with it an experience of everyday uncertainty, insecurity and restriction. TNE was founded by two doctoral candidates conducting ethnographic fieldwork in conflict-like conditions. This meant navigating daily insecurities of food, income, physical safety, and mental health both for the people we worked with and ourselves. Intermittent social distancing became a strategy for survival – taking opportunities between intense bouts of interviews, participant observation and socialising with interlocutors for rest; and attempting to construct boundaries to maintain the resemblance of a workday. Curfews, lockdowns, and restrictions on movement were the norm, and continue to shape the lives of the communities we worked within. Feelings of isolation in new linguistic and social environments, as well as adjusting from university to fieldsite resulted in anxiety, depression, and loneliness. Conducting fieldwork in these circumstances led us to think, write, and latterly teach about mental health, ethics, gender and subjective identities, and safety and risk through The New Ethnographer, and we hope some of the resources available through our blog can be helpful for ethnographers grappling with these new uncertainties and insecurities at this time. As we move towards operationalising ‘Distance Ethnography’, we believe these themes remain as critical as ever.
Mental health should be prioritised in the planning and execution of any ethnographic fieldwork, be that physically ‘in’ a field or in the building and maintenance of fieldwork relationships online. The COVID-19 pandemic has created new anxieties on top of those that were already inherent in preparing for, conducting, and the aftermath of fieldwork. Public discourse has recently centred around caring for oneself in crisis, particularly relying on the use of technology to maintain human connections across distances, remote counselling and therapy services, and ways of creating downtime and escape in difficult circumstances. Throughout difficulties in research at home or further afield, it is ok to care for yourself, to ask for help from others, and to remind our institutions of their duty of care in supporting us.
Conducting ethnographic fieldwork has always been fraught with difficult ethical dilemmas, which often need to be resolved in split-second decisions. These high stakes ethical decisions have now entered our homes, family relations, and everyday lives. The ethical choices to be made surrounding continuing or postponing research during COVID-19 are many, and should be considered as an ongoing process and discussion with significant repercussions to the health and wellbeing both to ourselves and to those we work with.
The impact of COVID-19 is and will continue to be fundamentally class based, gendered and racialised. The ability to continue fieldwork, or imagine new possibilities for fieldwork which may now be cancelled will depend on individual circumstances, connected (among others) to access to healthcare, food and funding. With the pandemic placing individuals regardless of status at risk of an invisible and highly contagious illness, management of our health and safety has become an everyday issue. While fieldwork safety has tended to be a concern only for those embarking on research in places or among communities that are ‘dangerous’ or ‘violent’, COVID-19 forces academics and institutions to seriously reconsider the bar of what is considered ‘safe’.
At TNE we are working on developing new (online) tools for teaching and guidance for ethnographers facing challenges similar to these as they navigate fieldwork possibilities in the context of COVID-19. On April 9, 2020 we hosted our first #TNELive event answering your questions about fieldwork during the pandemic. Follow us on Twitter for future live events.