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.
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 interviewing, specifically interviewing in the qualitative paradigm. Interviewing can be done in different formats, this all depends on individual researcher preferences, research purpose, and the research question asked.
Analyzing data
In qualitative research, there are many ways of analyzing data gathered in the field. One of the two most common methods of data analysis are thematic analysis and narrative analysis. As mentioned before, the type of analysis a researcher decides to use depends on the research question asked, the researcher's field, and the researcher's personal method of choice.
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]:242Robert 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.
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 kingdoms of life, such as plantae, fungi, and microbes, as well as ecological interactions among species.
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]
In geology fieldwork is considered an essential part of training[10] and remains an important component of many research projects. In other disciplines of the Earth and atmospheric sciences, field research refers to field experiments (such as the VORTEX projects) utilizing in situ instruments. Permanent observation networks are also maintained for other uses but are not necessarily considered field research, nor are permanent remote sensing installations.
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, Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson, have advocated mixed methods and complex approaches in economics and hinted implicitly to the relevance of field research approaches in economics.[11] In a recent interview Oliver Williamson and Elinor Ostrom discuss the importance of examining institutional contexts when performing economic analyses.[12] Both Ostrom and Williamson agree that "top-down" panaceas or "cookie cutter" approaches to policy problems don't work. They believe that policymakers need to give local people a chance to shape the systems used to allocate resources and resolve disputes. Sometimes, Ostrom points out, local solutions can be the most efficient and effective options. This is a point of view that fits very well with anthropological research, which has for some time shown us the logic of local systems of knowledge — and the damage that can be done when "solutions" to problems are imposed from outside or above without adequate consultation. Elinor Ostrom, for example, combines field case studies and experimental lab work in her research. Using this combination, she contested longstanding assumptions about the possibility that groups of people could cooperate to solve common pool problems, as opposed to being regulated by the state or governed by the market.[13]
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).[14]
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.[15] Before the 1950s, before ethnomusicology resembled what it is today, fieldwork and research were considered separate tasks.[16] 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.[17] 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.[18] 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.[19] 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).[20]
Management
Mintzberg played a crucial role in the popularization of field research in management. The tremendous amount of work that Mintzberg put into the findings earned him the title of leader of a new school of management, the descriptive school, as opposed to the prescriptive and normative schools that preceded his work. The schools of thought derive from Taylor, Henri Fayol, Lyndall Urwick, Herbert A. Simon, and others endeavored to prescribe and expound norms to show what managers must or should do. With the arrival of Mintzberg, the question was no longer what must or should be done, but what a manager actually does during the day. More recently, in his 2004 book Managers Not MBAs, Mintzberg examined what he believes to be wrong with management education today.
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 popularizing 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 successful in France and 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 significant 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 in Algerian society. One of the outstanding qualities of his work has been his innovative combination of different methods and research strategies and 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 a sociology of culture, which Bourdieu labeled a "theory of practice". His contributions to sociology were both empirical and theoretical. His conceptual apparatus is based on three key terms: 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.[21]
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.[22] 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
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavior, while cultural anthropology studies cultural meaning, including norms and values. The term sociocultural anthropology is commonly used today. Linguistic anthropology studies how language influences social life. Biological or physical anthropology studies the biological development of humans.
Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The term sociocultural anthropology includes both cultural and social anthropology traditions.
Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining the behavior of the participants in a given social situation and understanding the group members' own interpretation of such behavior.
Bronisław Kasper Malinowski was a Polish-British anthropologist and ethnologist whose writings on ethnography, social theory, and field research have exerted a lasting influence on the discipline of anthropology.
Participant observation is one type of data collection method by practitioner-scholars typically used in qualitative research and ethnography. This type of methodology is employed in many disciplines, particularly anthropology, sociology, communication studies, human geography, and social psychology. Its aim is to gain a close and intimate familiarity with a given group of individuals and their practices through an intensive involvement with people in their cultural environment, usually over an extended period of time.
Applied anthropology is the practical application of anthropological theories, methods, and practices to the analysis and solution of practical problems. The term was first put forward by Daniel G. Brinton in his paper "The Aims of Anthropology". John Van Willengen defined applied anthropology as "anthropology put to use". Applied anthropology includes conducting research with a primary or tertiary purpose to solve real-world problems in areas such as public health, education, government, and business.
In the social sciences and related fields, a thick description is a description of human social action that describes not just physical behaviors, but their context as interpreted by the actors as well, so that it can be better understood by an outsider. A thick description typically adds a record of subjective explanations and meanings provided by the people engaged in the behaviors, making the collected data of greater value for studies by other social scientists.
Sociocultural anthropology is a term used to refer to social anthropology and cultural anthropology together. It is one of the four main branches of anthropology. Sociocultural anthropologists focus on the study of society and culture, while often interested in cultural diversity and universalism.
Hortense Powdermaker was an American anthropologist best known for her ethnographic studies of African Americans in rural America and of Hollywood.
Visual sociology is an area of sociology concerned with the visual dimensions of social life.
Digital anthropology is the anthropological study of the relationship between humans and digital-era technology. The field is new, and thus has a variety of names with a variety of emphases. These include techno-anthropology, digital ethnography, cyberanthropology, and virtual anthropology.
The sociology of culture, and the related cultural sociology, concerns the systematic analysis of culture, usually understood as the ensemble of symbolic codes used by a member of a society, as it is manifested in the society. For Georg Simmel, culture referred to "the cultivation of individuals through the agency of external forms which have been objectified in the course of history". Culture in the sociological field is analyzed as the ways of thinking and describing, acting, and the material objects that together shape a group of people's way of life.
Online ethnography is an online research method that adapts ethnographic methods to the study of the communities and cultures created through computer-mediated social interaction. As modifications of the term ethnography, cyber-ethnography, online ethnography and virtual ethnography designate particular variations regarding the conduct of online fieldwork that adapts ethnographic methodology. There is no canonical approach to cyber-ethnography that prescribes how ethnography is adapted to the online setting. Instead individual researchers are left to specify their own adaptations. Netnography is another form of online ethnography or cyber-ethnography with more specific sets of guidelines and rules, and a common multidisciplinary base of literature and scholars. This article is not about a particular neologism, but the general application of ethnographic methods to online fieldwork as practiced by anthropologists, sociologists, and other scholars.
Anthropology of media is an area of study within social or cultural anthropology that emphasizes ethnographic studies as a means of understanding producers, audiences, and other cultural and social aspects of mass media.
Video ethnography is the video recording of the stream of activity of subjects in their natural setting, in order to experience, interpret, and represent culture and society. Ethnographic video, in contrast to ethnographic film, cannot be used independently of other ethnographic methods, but rather as part of the process of creation and representation of societal, cultural, and individual knowledge. It is commonly used in the fields of visual anthropology, visual sociology, visual ethnography and cultural studies. Uses of video in ethnography include the recording of certain processes and activities, visual note-taking, and ethnographic diary-keeping.
Educational anthropology, or the anthropology of education, is a sub-field of socio-cultural anthropology that focuses on the role that culture has in education, as well as how social processes and cultural relations are shaped by educational settings. To do so, educational anthropologists focus on education and multiculturalism, educational pluralism, culturally relevant pedagogy and native methods of learning and socializing. Educational anthropologists are also interested in the education of marginal and peripheral communities within large nation states. Overall, educational anthropology tends to be considered as an applied field, as the focus of educational anthropology is on improving teaching learning process within classroom settings.
Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In the United States, social anthropology is commonly subsumed within cultural anthropology or sociocultural anthropology.
Visual ethnography is an approach to ethnography that uses visual methods such as photography, film and video. There are many methods available to conduct visual ethnography. According to Sarah Pink, visual ethnography is a research methodology that brings “theory and practice of visual approaches to learning and knowing about the world and communicating these to others”. As a methodology, visual ethnography can guide the design of research as well as the methods to choose for data collection. Visual ethnography suggests a negotiation of the participants’ view of reality and a constant questioning on the part of the researcher.
Anthropology is the study of human societal and cultural development in the past, present, and future with a number of facets that are categorized into five different fields. These fields include: biological (physical) anthropology, cultural (socio-cultural) anthropology, linguistic anthropology (linguistics), archaeology, and applied anthropology. Applied anthropology is the analysis of human interaction with the purpose of solving practical problems that affect and arise throughout time between cultures and societies. Applied anthropologists use many different methods to conduct research on agriculture, health and medicine, housing, social services, political-economic development, displacement and resettlement, business and industry, education, nutrition, environment, and aging. Applied anthropology research methods are: policy research, evaluation research, cultural intervention, activist (action) research, participatory action research (PAR).
Off the verandah is a phrase often attributed to anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski, who stressed the need for fieldwork enabling the researcher to experience the everyday life of his subjects along with them. In this context, it is also interpreted as criticism of armchair theorizing.
References
↑ Burgess, Robert G., In the Field: An Introduction to Field Research (Hemel Hempstead, U.K.: George Allen & Unwin, 1984) at 1.
↑ A variant of participant observation is observing participation, described by Kaminski, who explored prison subculture as a political prisoner in communist Poland in 1985.
↑ 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.
Groh, Arnold (2018). Research Methods in Indigenous Contexts. New York, NY: Springer. ISBN9783319727745.
Helper, Susan (2000). "Economics and field research: you can observe a lot just by watching". American Economic Review. 90 (2): 228–32. doi:10.1257/aer.90.2.228. JSTOR117226.
Jarvie, I. C. (1967). "On theories of fieldwork and the scientific character of social anthropology". Philosophy of Science. 34 (3): 223–242. doi:10.1086/288154. S2CID145096759.
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.
Nelson, Katie. 2019. “Doing Fieldwork: Methods in Cultural Anthropology” in Perspectives: An Open Invitation to Cultural Anthropology2nd edition, Edited by Nina Brown, Thomas McIlwraith, and Laura Tubelle de González. Arlington: American Anthropological Association. pp.45–69. ISBN9781931303668
Udry, Christopher (2003). "Fieldwork, economic theory and research on institutions in developing countries". American Economic Review. 93 (2): 107–111. doi:10.1257/000282803321946895.
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