[Linganth] resource on fieldwork in the pandemic

[Barakos, Dr. Elisabeth]

Hi all,

What a great collection – thanks for sharing this. Very timely and so neatly structured – love it.

Just yesterday, I decided I could no longer continue with my physical ethnographic work in schools, as we head into a second lockdown this Monday.

(Long-term) ethnographic projects in particular take sharp u-turns at the moment; research is no longer linear (well, has it ever been?) and planned (well, this it has); it’s a zig-zag, totally adhoc and erratic. Ever more than before, we as researchers need to be “flexible”, adapt, adjust, bow to spontaneous government measures, consider our own personal and professional priorities as well as concerns over our own safety and wellbeing in the field, but also those of our stakeholders with whom we collaborate (in my case students, teachers, administrators, cleaning staff at the school, parents, social workers …, a web of people, really). Can I blame neoliberalism? Yeah, I will. I call it the neoliberal angle of the pandemic.

I feel that schools are a particularly difficult terrain to navigate for research in socially distanced times, given their (mostly) digital precarity. My case school doesn’t have reliable wifi; my case kids (newly arrived migrant students who barely speak German and are put into preparatory classes, so deal with all sorts of issues over inclusion, exclusion and integration) are barely equipped with a digital infrastructure at home. They struggle on so many ends, socially, culturally and linguistically, that demanding extra tasks from them during a lock-down for research purposes feels totally out of place in my mind. Also “burdening” teachers with extra research labour (Zoom interviews, asking them to write a diary etc.) feels awkward at the moment, knowing how stretched schools all are in this moment of time.

So, there is a lot to re-think in terms of what’s at stake in our fieldwork at the moment and what the most adequate means are to engage our research participants, whilst at the same time problematising that it might be equally difficult for researchers to adjust their plans as it is for our participants, now that the pandemic consumes more or less most of our private as well as professional space. My take is that the pandemic is the socially situated context of any research project and part of the conditions my research children navigate their linguistic and social learning journeys, so it needs to be problematised and acutely debated. But at what cost, on whose terms and in service of what?

This is just a bit of rambling as I now need to sort out what to do next from Monday in practical terms. The resources are thus much appreciated.

I wish everyone well, and hope to have continuing conversations on this topic. It’s exhausting having to continually re-think the ways the pandemic ‘interferes’ with our cosy, thought-through and privileged research plans. But equally a good wake-up call for more reflexivity on who we and our participants are in the field, our various precarious and privileged roles and what we owe ourselves, the ‘field’, the academe and society on a broader scale during a pandemic. I don’t have the answers yet.


All the best,
Elisabeth



Dr. Elisabeth Barakos
Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin / Postdoctoral Research Assistant
Universität Hamburg
DiVER<https://www.ew.uni-hamburg.de/en/einrichtungen/ew1/vergleichende/diver/ueber-uns.html> - Diversity in Education Research Group

Von-Melle-Park 8, 20146 Hamburg
 +49 40 42838-9595
www.elisabethbarakos.com
​@Barakos_E<https://twitter.com/Barakos_E>
​Co-Convenor of the BAAL SIG Language Policy: www.langpol.ac.uk<http://www.langpol.ac.uk/>







Von: Linganth <linganth-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> Im Auftrag von Ilana Gershon
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 28. Oktober 2020 17:22
An: Linguistic Anthropology Discussion Group (LINGANTH at listserv.linguistlist.org) <LINGANTH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>; anthro-sc-grad-l at list.indiana.edu
Betreff: [Linganth] resource on fieldwork in the pandemic

Dear Colleagues,
Many of us are forced to think about how to do fieldwork in this moment, here is a website exploring how to do qualitative research on inequality in a socially distanced time:

https://livingwithdata.org/resources/doing-qualitative-research-which-addresses-inequalities-in-times-of-social-distancing/

Best,
Ilana
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