Description
Book SynopsisIn a compelling exploration of an oft-hidden aspect of qualitative field research, Women Fielding Danger shows how identity performances can facilitate or block field research outcomes. The book asks questions that are crucial for all women engaged in field research. Do researchers enter their field site with a totally neutral identity? Can a researcher''s own identity be at odds with how interviewees see her? Could a researcher be of the wrong gender, sexuality, nationality, or religion for those being studied? Must some of a researcher''s identities be subsumed in certain research settings? How much identity disguise is possible before a researcher violates research ethics or loses herself? Together, these questions inform the book''s themes of the centrality of gender, social and political danger, the negotiation of identities, and on-site ethics.Focusing on ethnographic research across a wide range of disciplines and world regions, this deeply informed book presents practical to-dos and technical research strategies. In addition, it offers unique illustrations of how the political, geographic, and organizational realities of field sites shape identity negotiations and research outcomes. Understanding these dynamics, the authors show, is key to surviving the ethnographic field.
Trade ReviewIf you take gender, fieldwork, and theory seriously, this is the book you want to read. Leading scholars across disciplines 'in the field' take us to the intersections of danger, identity, and ethics as we both live them in our world and explore them in our writing. These are academic crossroads at their creative best. -- Carolyn Nordstrom, University of Notre Dame
A must-read for all field researchers! In this impressive volume, top scholars across disciplines and working around the globe take on thorny issues of morality, physical peril, danger to informants, and the lack of credibility that women face as field researchers. Their insights are fresh and compelling. In work that is brave but not arrogant, they set a new standard for field research in the twenty-first century. -- Kathleen M. Blee, University of Pittsburgh; author of Inside Organized Racism: Women in the Hate Movement
This book is full of fascinating stories seldom told about women, in their roles as professional researchers, negotiating multiple dangers in the field. The editors have done a wonderful job of putting scholars, across disciplines and working in twelve countries, into conversation to illuminate how gender dynamics influence the ethical and political dilemmas that arise at every turn of the research process. -- Lori Marso, Union College; author of (Un)Manly Citizens: J. J. Rousseau's Subversive Women
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Similarities among Differences Part I: Gender's Front Stage: Insiders and Outsiders Chapter 1: Fixing and Negotiating Identities in the Field: The Case of Lebanese Shiites Chapter 2: Studying Environmental Rights and Land Usage: Undergraduate Researcher Gets "Gendered In" Chapter 3: Globalizing Feminist Research Chapter 4: Veiling the "Dangers" of Colliding Borders: Tourism and Gender in Zanzibar Part II: Danger and "Safe Spaces" Chapter 5: Gendered Observations: Activism, Advocacy, and the Academy Chapter 6: Human Rights in East Timor: Advocacy and Ethics in the Field Chapter 7: Securing "Safe Spaces": Field Diplomacy in Albania and Kosovo Part III: Negotiating Research Identities Chapter 8: Negotiating the Field in Rural India: Location, Organization and Identity Salience Chapter 9: Perils of Witnessing and Ambivalence of Writing: Whiteness, Sexuality, and Violence in Rio de Janeiro Shantytowns Chapter 10: Power, Safety and Ethics in Cross-Gendered Research with Violent Men Chapter 11: Negotiating the Muddiness of Grassroots Research: Managing Identity and Data in Rural El Salvador Part IV: Ethics and Secrecy Chapter 12: Secrecy and Trust in the Affective Field: Conducting Field Work in Burma Chapter 13: The Veiled Feminist Ethnographer: Fieldwork among Women of India's Hindu Right Chapter 14: Studying Violent Male Institutions: Cross-Gender Dynamics in Police Research—Secrecy and Danger in Brazil and Guatemala
