“Fieldwork” is the hallmark of anthropology. Now the new endemic COVID19 has completely changed our life style. So what kind of new challenge the field-working anthropologists are likely to face while doing fieldwork in other communities/cultures?
No doubt, life came almost like to a stand still since novel corona entered human life. After so many days and months everywhere across the world, we are now learning to live with Corona.
Following all guide lines, we have to move forward with all challenges. This is a whole new realm of challenges and is an incredibly difficult time.
Wearing mask and maintaining social distance are the new normal of our life and highly necessary for normal life restoration.These are to be religiously followed by one and all including field work Anthropologists.
JAAN BHI JAHAN BHI.... Deepak Kumar Behera We have to take care of both... and to move ahead...
You are right, lifestyle is changed, but people are still doing their activities. The new lifestyle has brought a new market and new demands. There will be a new field and unique way of handling too.
They may continue their work by observing protocol for COVID-19
Itishree Padhi, thanks for your important inputs to the discussion.
As the COVID-19 pandemic gains momentum, various forms and scales of lockdown and self-quarantine are being imposed across the world to halt the spread of the virus. With physical proximity strongly discouraged, people are finding alternative ways to “stay in touch” – playing music, dancing, and applauding the health services from their balconies, hanging out banners inscribed with messages of hope and solidarity from their windows, and holding meetings and catch-up sessions over Skype, Facebook Messenger, and the now (in)famous Zoom. COVID-19’s global movements are mobilizing new and intensified forms of social proximity that in many ways speak to the heightened need for emotional connection in times of crisis. The crisis is foregrounding the things that matter to people we sometimes take for granted – human contact, sharing, laughing, catching up. It is bringing some of us emotionally closer to loved ones, despite and because of physical distance.
COVID-19 experience is thus somewhat akin to what Edward said has described as the strange pleasures of exile – where not fully belonging anywhere enables one to see “the entire world as a foreign land” and therefore makes possible a certain originality of vision.At the same time, this experience tells us something troubling about globalized lives and kinships in the present day. Specifically, the increasing social contact many of us have with our families since the start of the pandemic brings up the unsettling question of whether we need a crisis to better connect, and where our sense of “home” truly lies.
Some researchers will collect data electronically, or will analyse literature. Senior anthropologists may reflect upon, and write about, earlier fieldwork notes.
Others may indeed observe and describe new behavioural patterns of quarantined and locked-down people. . .
Think about those field-working anthropologists who are doing ethnographic fieldwork in difficult regions. Think about those who are planning to start their long-term fieldwork in near future. How are they going to be treated by the community members? Will COVID19 be a hinderance for establishing rapport? What kind of precautions s/he must take to handle the new situation? What about participant observation method for data collection in this ‘new normal’ situation? As ’fieldwork‘ is the hallmark of anthropology, all these questions must be addressed by senior scholars for helping out the young emerging field-working anthropologists. If we don’t start addressing these questions immediately, the discipline may suffer.
Yes, COVID -19 has a profound impact on the fieldwork in anthropology. Now the anthropologist can not go and conduct field work in other communities. The kind of fieldwork we were doing is not possible now till the sitiations became normal. We have to find out alternative methods of doing research till the situation becomes normal.
Lidia Dina Sciama Many thanks for your innovative suggestions. Thanks for participating in this discussion.
Nibedita Nath Thanks for sharing your ideas which appear to be quite logical and practical. Many thanks for participating in the discussion.
Field work has been made difficult by coronavirus-induced lockdowns. However, this does not mean that anthropological research has to come to a standstill. During the pandemic, anthropologists can use social media facilities such as Skype and WhatsApp as virtual replacements of face-to-face interviews and focus group discussions. Participants can still be asked open-ended questions and their responses can be coded and analysed qualitatively. Thick descriptions and detailed quotes, which are the hallmark of ethnographic research, are still possible - even though under less than ideal conditions. If documents are available in hard copy or soft copy on the internet, they can be analysed qualitatively while the researcher observes social distancing at home.
In my view, now (at least for the time being) instead of “Bare Foot Ethnography” we need to adopt “Smart Ethnography”– anthropological research on new innovative topics e.g. Cultural Responses to COVID-19 Pandemic, Knowledge-Attitude-Practices (KAP) related to Covid-19 among students, adolescents and young people, studies on Behavioral Change vis-à-vis Covid-19/the New Normal among uninfected & quarantined people, as well as studies on history and migration of lesser reported indigenous communities/cultures - multidisciplinary studies. Adopt new research designs and methodologies; data collection through social media - internet, use of Google form (questionnaire design & circulation), extensive interviews with informants via mobile phone, over Skype, Zoom App, Facebook Messenger, etc.; data collection through newspapers, print and electronic articles/literature, TV channels; preparing database and analyzing data electronically; maximum application of statistics in data analysis