Doing Fieldwork at Home

Book excerpt: This book engages readers via the international contributions from “home” field sites around the world and international authors. Importantly, the various chapters address a wide spectrum of educational contexts – ranging from higher education, to K-12 public and private schools, to prison schools. The realistic accounts portrayed in each of the chapters address how local collaborations are instantiated through the research process, from access and data collection to the write-up phases. The major themes that emerge across the chapters highlight 1) positionality and negotiation of multiple roles, i.e., researcher, educator, colleague, friend, community member; 2) reconciling multiple, hybrid, and intersectional identities with varying insider/outsider statuses vis-à-vis research participants; 3) resulting power dynamics in connection to relational identities – sometimes conflicting, consolidating, equalizing, and/or elevating; 4) innovative methodological responses to these dilemmas; and 5) integrated research designs and research ethics, offering possibilities for participation and insights on the social impact of research findings. The book’s chapters thus individually and collectively treat and resolve local ways of doing home (field) work and highlight the creation and sharing of knowledge among researchers and research participants.