Williams2023
| Williams2023 | |
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| BibType | INBOOK |
| Key | Williams2023 |
| Author(s) | Joseph Williams |
| Title | On the importance of intermissions in ethnographic fieldwork: lesson from learning New York |
| Editor(s) | Robin James Smith, Sara Delamont |
| Tag(s) | EMCA, Ethnography, Fieldwork, Mobility, Homelessness, Care, Reflexivity |
| Publisher | Manchester University Press |
| Year | 2023 |
| Language | English |
| City | Manchester, UK |
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| Pages | 180-191 |
| URL | Link |
| DOI | |
| ISBN | 9781526157652 |
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| Howpublished | |
| Book title | Leaving the field: Methodological insights from ethnographic exits |
| Chapter | |
Abstract
This chapter provides an account of fieldwork and discusses the working-through of different modes of reflexivity accompanying (re)entering and (re)leaving the field. The focus, an ‘intermission’ in fieldwork; how it shapes the field and is a moment of transition in reflexive thinking. The details are from an ethnographic study of homeless outreach workers in Manhattan. The discussion is of realising the potentialities of the boundaries of this fieldsite – which are anthropologically clear (geographically and temporally) but sociologically blurry (exploring ‘Homelessness’ as a subject) – and are affected by different modes of reflexivity. This emphasises the significance of an ‘intermission’ as a time to develop sociological reasoning and review how ‘the field’ might be getting done. The chapter discusses how ‘intermissions’ provide the opportunity to engage in at least three modes of reflexivity: Anthropological/Ethnographic, Philosophical, and Ethnomethodological. This addresses how leaving the field, geographically, temporarily or permanently, and reflexively, can assist the researcher in seeing the field and the social phenomena. The idea of an ‘intermission’ is not intended as a methodological prescription but a conceptual tool for thinking reflexively with ‘initial observations’, and further, as an ongoing process of reflexivity and analysis throughout the research process both in and out of the field. The purpose of this chapter is to explore how leaving the field in combination with such reflexive concepts might enable the researcher to identify social resources, social phenomena, and distinguish this from preconceived notions; making way for a deep engagement with the ethnographic method, the fieldsite, and fieldnotes as data.
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