THE FIELDWORKER AND THE FIELD

Fieldwork has now been considered as one of the major methods of social
and cultural anthropology.Ever since Malinowski's fieldwork in the
Trobriand Islanders, the fieldwork tradition has travelled far and wide both
with regard to the methods and techniques used, and the kind of
communities and problems studied.As of india, G.S.Ghurye, Radha Kamal
Mukherjee,D.N.Majumdar and N.K.Bose are some of those who laid the
foundations of the fieldwork traditions here.

In simple words, fieldwork is the practical workdone by a researcher in a

specific area of knowledge. In the words of Robert Everhart," Fieldwork is a
developmental process with problems and solutions presenting themselves at
different stages of the research".

Fieldwork encompasses many specific techniques but usually the resaercher

directly observes and participates in small-scale social setting,most often in
his or her home culture.

Just like the fieldwork, the concept of field has also evolved over the
years.The term 'field' simply indicates the community of human beings who
are being studied.One of the ways in which the field is evolving lies in how
the people are changing from being passive to more active. In today's age,
the respondents want to know from the resaercher what is that he or she is
giong to do for them. Another way in which the concept is evolving is that
the researchers are now taking either the neutral positions vis-a-vis the state
or the critical positions. In such research the population is looked at as
people and research undaertaken is qualitative in nature.

The role of fieldworker and his/her impact on the field are quiet significant.
The fieldworker follows varied techniques and tools to carry out the
research. Different scholars suggest different ways for a fieldworker to
organise or coduct himself/herself in the field. For T.N.Madan, the
fieldworker may have around him his own group of friends, admirers, and
helpers. called 'convoy', which helps him or her in a variety of ways and also
ecpects several favours in return.
According to Hortene Powdermaker, the fieldworker is not a faceless robot
or a machinelike recorder of human activities, and therefore is likely to be
involved with people. He may be approached to intervene in several
activities of people.

M.N.Srinivas is of the view that the researcher should reside in the field for
about one year.Then, the first need for a researcher is to identify
himself/herself within the local people and secondly to reside in the field for
prolonged period.

Evans-Pritchard writes that although the fieldworker may have empathic

involvement in the field, he/she does not become one with the people.
However, Nadel describes the fieldworker as a freak member of the group"

It can be here concluded that the fieldworker occupies a marginal place in

the society he/she visits in search of knowledge. He/she may be treated
honorifically because of his/her resource and power, yet it does not entitle
him/her to become a part of the mainstream of society. The native
fieldworker may transscend these restrictions, but the fact that he/she treats
the self as the other creates in him/her a kind of marginality.

NATURE OF THE FIELDWORK

The nature of fieldwork differs from one context to another. Fieldwork in a
society where most of the social life is conducted outside the house- like in a
typical Indian village- will be diferent from where people draw firm
boundaries between the outside and the inside, and most of the social life is
conducted inside the house, like in upper middle class neighbourhood in
metropolises.

Fieldwork is a sensitive process. The raport that the researcher establishes

with the respondents and the way in which it matures over time govern the
success of fieldwork.

Attributes of Fieldwork
1) One of the essential feature of a good fieldwork is the familiarity with the
language which the local people speak.
2) The fieldworker should be free of ethnocentric bias and the fact be
considered that each society has its own cultural and social setting and none
is superior.

3) The researcher must exercise great care in selecting a field area and be
aware of its physical conditions, different problems and be able to put with
them.

4) The researcher ought to maintain a fieldwork diary amd keenly observe

and note daily activities that take place in the field.

5) The researcher must develop not only familiarity but a good rapport with
the respondents for it becomes easy to gather the required information.

6) In an intensive fieldwork, the researcher has not only to collect accurate

information on a variety of items but also be able to think and feel like the
people whom he/she is syudying.

7) Factionalism is widespread if not universal and constitutes a big hurdle to

fieldwork and unfortunately, there are no known rules of observance of
which will enable the fieldworker to stay away from them. Therefore, the
fieldworker should try his/her best to stay away from being a part of any
faction and be fair in his treatment of several factions present.

Ways in Which Fieldworker Carries Out Field Research;

1) Observes ordinary events and everyday activities as they happen in
natural settings, in addition to any unusual occurences.

2) Becomes directly involved with the people being studied and personally
experiences the process if daily social life in the field setting.

3) Acquires an insider's piont of view while maintaining the analytic

perspetive or distance of an outsider.

4) Uses a variety of techniques and social skills in flexible manner as the

situation depends.

5) Produce data in the form of extensive written notes as well as diagrams,

maps, or pictures to provide very detailed descriptions.
6) Fieldworker sees events hollistically and in individually in their social
cotext.

7) understands and develops empathy for members in a field setting and

does not record only "cold" objective facts.

8) Notices both explicit and tacit aspects of culture.

9) Observes ongoing social processes without imposing an outside piont of

view.

10) Copes with high levels of personal stress, uncertainity, ethical dilemmas,
and ambiguity.

Problems Faced By The Fieldworker;

There are different kinds of problems that the fieldworker may face. These
problems can be broadly categorised into practical, methodological, and
moral problems, which are discussed separately as follows;

PRACTICAL PROBLEMS;

1) There is first the problem of whom to be involved with. The common and
erroneous expectation is that the fieldworker would or should interact with
the knowlwdgeable. Almost every fieldworker comes across members of the
local elite who advise his as to what he should do. The elite may begin to
interfere actively or even monopolise the fieldworker. To this category
belong the headman of Rampura who kept putting off Srinivas from meeting
the untouchables. Thus from the fieldworker's point of view, the elite act as
preliminary hurdles to be cleared.

2) The fieldworker's problems become particularly acute in situations where

there are sharply differentiated and opposed groups. B.S.Baviskar felt as
though he was walking on a razor's edge in managing his relationship with
two rival factions in the sugar co-opeartive, Chitra Sivakumar could not get
much information from the commoner students as long as she was friendly
with the princesses and other elite students in the college. Almost every
fieldworker had to manage conflicts between the groups the field.
 The fieldworker cannot be confined to one group, and
his/her attempts to get on with opposing sides may create consternation all
around.

3) The most significant practical problem is to be able to stay on in the field

and collect atleast a minimum of reliable data. Fieldworkers do commit
blunders but as long as these aren't serious and occur during the first few
months, people ignore or forgive them. Indeed, the people who are being
studied like feeling superior to the fieldworker. There is now enough
evidence to show that people like treating the resesrcher as ignoramus but
this somehow forges close bonds between the fieldworker and the people.

METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS;

1) The first methodological problem concerns the choice of the field. The
fieldworker is usually not in a position to spend a great deal of time and
energy choosing the typical field. Some, like Seshaiah, Sharpen, by trial and
error, the criteria of choice as they go along, and others, like Varadachar, are
found by the field instead of finding it. The few who do take the trouble of
searching for the 'typical' field discover that there is no such thing, theirs
only gain being some serendipitious knowledge.

2) Another problem that the fieldworker faces is to overcome certain

expectations that people have of him with regard to the 'resources' he has
like the poor know that the fieldworker has some money and expect him to
make small gifts and loans, patients expect the fieldworker to speak to
doctors and nurses on their behalf, politicians want him to canvass for them,
etc. They may even expect him to place his research expertise at their
disposal, as when the chairman of the sugar co-operative asked B.S.Baviskar
to collect systematic data about the productive performance of sugar
factories in the area.

3) The usual advice to the fieldworker is that he/she should keep aside
his/her personal biases. But the fieldworker cannot do very much even about
the biases he/she is aware of, leave alone those of which he/she is
unaware.Khadiga.A.Gupta provids a telling cxample of personal bias
influencing data collection. Being a muslim married to a hindu, she avoided
interacting with the muslims for fear of their hostile reaction to her
background. She was also haunted by the thought that she may touch off
communal riots by treading on dangerous ground. There is the problem of
introduction of personal biases but nevertheless one can always caution
against the belief that aseptic research is possible.

MORAL PROBLEMS;

1) Unlike primitive societies, members of literate societies expect that the

fieldworker's stay will result in some benefit to them, either individually or
collectively. The fieldworker may deflate these expectation somewhat and
argue that those in power will not be influenced by what he has tp asy, but it
requires coverage of a high order to confess that what he/she is doing is
intrinsically irrelevant for the betterment of the community, which is often
the case.

2) Another kind of moral problem arises from the fieldworker's persuit of a

policy of expediency rather than opting for the ethically right. When it is
necessary to get data from opposing groups, as happens during, election
campaigns, the fieldworker may have no choice but to give each side the
impression that he/she is with it. Judged by strict moral standards this is no
doubt wrong, but difficult to avoid. The fieldworker may also be caught in
situations which ay bring him/her close to a brush with the law of the land.

3) The moral problem takes a different form when the fieldworker is

studying a segment of his/her own society. Most of those who have done
fieldwork in rural india have found the indigenes try to place them in the
local caste structure and cxpect them to follow the code of conduct
appropriate to their respective castes. But as frequently happens, the
fieldworker holds progressive views on a number of social maters including
caste.

The fieldworker's dilemma in such a situation is illustrated

by Anand Chakravarti's experiences in a Rajasthan village. When he, as a
high caste man, accepted a glass of milk from an untouchable in the village,
everyone started talking about the misdeed he had committed. This was later
settled by a village leader who adopted an understanding attitude, towards
him and asked people not to apply their standards of caste morality to him.

STEPS IN PERFORMING FIELD RESEARCH;

The process of doing a field research study is more flexible and less
structured than quantitative research. The diferent steps involved are
described below;

1) PREPARE TO ENTER FIELD; This step involves reading the literature,

learning to be flexible (in field research, one cannot follow preset fixed
steps. Rather one should learn to be able to shift directions, folow leads as
needed and be open to discover new ideas) ,defocusing and being self-aware.

2) CHOOSE A FIELD SITE AND GAIN ACCESS; In the early stages of a

study, one needs to select a site, deal with gatekeepers (people with formal
or informal authority to control access to a site) , enter and gain access,
assume a social role, adopt a level of invilvement, and build rapport with
members.

3) APPLY STRATEGIES; Once in a field site, one will soon need to apply a
range of strategies: negotiate, normalise research, decide how much to
disclose, sample and focus, and cope with stress.

4) MAINTAINING RALATIONS IN THE FIELD; With time, one should

develop and modify social relationships that is; adjust and adapt. Also the
researcher needs social skills and personal charm to build rapport and trust
by avioding conflicts. Moreover, an experienced researcher is one who
appears to be interested in and involved with field events.

5) GATHER AND RECORD DATA; This stage considers how to obtain

good qualitative field data through interviews, obseevation, group discussion
and conducting case studies.

6) EXIT THE FIELD SITE; Work in the field can last from a few weeks to a
dozen yeras.In either case, at some point, it ends. Some researcher suggest
that the end comes naturally when theory building ceases or reaches a
closure; others believe that fieldwork could go on without end and that a
firm decision to cut it off is needed. Experienced field researchers anticipate
a process of disengaging and exiting the field.

REFERENCES;

Babbie,Earl.2017.The Practice Of Social Resesrch.Delhi: Cengage Learning

India Private Limited

Neuman,W.Lawrence.2015. Social Research Methods. Noida, U.P: Pearson

India Education Services Private Limited.

Srinivas,A.M.Shah, and E.A.Ramaswamy (eds), The Fieldworker and The

Field: Problems and Challanges in Sociological Investigation. Delhi: Oxford
University Press.