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Digital Fieldwork

Defining an Ethics of Care in Fieldwork: Reflections on the Digital Turn

Gellman Mural Photo

I have a confession to make. I have been avoiding writing this post for a long time, because secretly, I worry that what I have to say about digital fieldwork will be discouraging, unhelpful, or come off as snobbish. But as a political ethnographer committed to transparency and reflective openness, I know we have to […]

Limits of control: Balancing convenience and security in digital field research

Critical junctures such as the Covid-19 pandemic can disrupt hitherto unquestioned modes of research and thereby offer researchers a chance to break new ground. In fact, driven by the need to adapt, within a span of two years, some social scientists have gotten accustomed to an entirely new (and largely digital) research ecology full of […]

Building Community in Digital Fieldwork

Computer screen showing a Zoom meeting

Like many research programs that rely on ethnographic fieldwork, traditional sociolinguistic research relies heavily on researchers building rapport with participants by spending time in their communities and sitting down with them in person to audio-record informal conversations.

Virtual Trust: Building Confidence at a Distance

So much of what we do as researchers relies on a foundation of trust built over time with the communities where we carry out research activities. When mutual trust is present, we are invited into the lives, minds, and networks of our research participants, which helps animate our research questions.