Fieldwork, Interrupted.
Over seven months into the pandemic and many of us are still not sure if/when we’ll get to the field. In early September, Costa Rica announced that travelers from eleven US states, including Maryland, will be able to enter the country. But, ongoing University travel and research restrictions, along with increasing caseloads, will likely keep me here until at least January, perhaps longer.
In the meantime, I’m attempting to continue my research remotely. I spent the majority of the summer drafting background chapters and reworking my methods. I’m also hoping to begin conducting online interviews with national-level stakeholders next month.
Keeping up the momentum has proven difficult. I’ve spent many an afternoon trying to feel motivated, often perusing the internet for inspiration. The following are some of the resources I've found for conducting ‘fieldwork’ and dissertating in the time of COVID-19. Many of which have proven useful along the way:
General
Dr. Shane T. Huntington’s Medium post on “How to Survive a PhD During a Pandemic”
Fieldwork
Doctoral student, Jolynna Sinanan’s recent post about doing ethnographic research during the pandemic
Living With Data’s new resource page, “Doing Qualitative Research on Inequalities During COVID”
Dr. Deborah Lupton’s crowdsourced document, “Doing Fieldwork in a Pandemic”
Anthro{dendum}’s blog series “Fieldwork in a Time of Coronavirus”
Mental Health & Well-being
Dr. Aisha S. Ahmad’s full piece for the Chronicle of Higher Ed, “Why You Should Ignore All That Coronavirus-Inspired Productivity Pressure”
Tara Haelle’s article on surge capacity, ambiguous loss, building resilience, and cutting yourself a break