Planning for Real: Bringing Your Whole Self to the Field (QMMR E)
Half Day Short Course
1:30pm – 5:30pm
Fieldwork is never a neutral endeavor. Traditional political science training often presents the researcher as a disembodied, “objective” observer, but in reality, scholars bring their full selves into the field, including their identities, bodies, caregiving responsibilities, financial circumstances, and safety considerations. Planning for Real: Bringing Your Whole Self to the Field is an interactive and reflective short course that invites researchers to reframe how they plan and adapt fieldwork through the lens of embodiment and positionality.
This course explores how a researcher’s race, gender, sexuality, ability, class, and other embodied identities shape field access, safety, gatekeeper dynamics, and participant engagement. It addresses difficult but critical questions: Where is it safe to conduct fieldwork and for whom? How do our perceived identities influence our access and rapport with participants? How do personal responsibilities, such as caregiving or financial constraints, factor into planning field research?
Through open discussion and shared reflection, facilitators will guide participants in thinking through how to navigate these questions in an intentional, respectful, and ethically grounded way. The goal is not only to share expertise and experience, but to create space for scholars, especially those from historically marginalized groups to bring their whole selves into fieldwork preparation.
Presenters:
Natasha Behl, Ethel Tungohan, and Robin L. Turner, each of whom brings extensive experience conducting and mentoring inclusive, critically reflective field research.