Women Fielding Danger: Negotiating Ethnographic Identities in Field Research

(Paperback)

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In 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.

Reviews

If 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

Author Bio

Martha K. Huggins is Charles and Leo Favrot Professor of Human Relations and professor of sociology and Latin American studies at Tulane University. Marie-Louise Glebbeek is assistant professor in the Department of Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University.