Join current folklore graduate students and new professionals for a panel discussion and Q&A on fieldwork experiences and what to expect (or unexpectedly encounter!) while in the field. Panelists will discuss their fieldwork contexts (their research questions and contexts) as well as a specific topic from their experience that is interesting and helpful for graduate students about to go into the field.
Register in advance for this meeting:
https://osu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYld-CrrD0pH9VPUcg212g2O6l3d86arrqA
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
If you require an accommodation such as live captioning or interpretation to participate in this event, please contact Cassie Patterson at Patterson.493@osu.edu. Requests made two weeks before the event will generally allow us to provide seamless access, but the university will make every effort to meet requests made after this date.
Panelists
Sarah Craycraft (PhD Candidate, Comparative Studies)
You've passed your exams, written your prospectus, and settled into your fieldsite -- only to find that your carefully planned ethnographic research is derailed by unpredictable events. How do you account for and adapt to crisis during fieldwork? In my presentation, I will discuss the impact of a pandemic that set in midway through 15 months of multi-sited fieldwork in Bulgaria. I will give a brief overview of my original research plan, the effects of COVID-19 on the communities I worked with, and the process of reconfiguring my plans during a time in which planning was almost impossible. My goal is to share practical tips on one level and to prompt us to consider the larger personal and ethical questions you may need to consider in the case of abrupt change.
Jordan Lovejoy (PhD Candidate, Department of English)
Before ethnographers enter the field, they often have big plans and ideas mapped out. But what happens when those plans are altered through experience and listening to the needs of the people you’re working with? This presentation will talk about my plans for reciprocal community engagement before my fieldwork began and how listening to the needs of locals transformed those plans. What does reciprocity look like during fieldwork, and how do you navigate your own research interests alongside what the people you’re working with expect or want from you? I’ll discuss my experiences expanding the concept of reciprocal ethnography beyond my own research’s benefit and share how I found balance between community work and fieldwork.
As folklorists and ethnographers, our research often involves and depends upon in-depth, long-term, and in-person engagement with our field sites. In my presentation, I will talk about my fieldwork in Gatlinburg, TN, and the ways it was interrupted by the ongoing global pandemic. I will discuss the challenges I faced in trying to conduct site-specific research while “out-of-place,” as well as suggest strategies for maintaining engagement while responding to perceived safety/risk for ourselves and those with whom we work. While I will be talking specifically about these topics in terms of the current pandemic, the challenges and strategies I discuss are more broadly applicable to other situations where questions of ethics and access arise in the field.
