Week 7: Fieldwork in Information Studies (Althea)

I agree with Eleni’s opinion that fieldwork exists wherever and whenever researchers are engaged with or observing the environment with its people and things. During my time as an anthropology undergrad, one of the professors told me that research can be found wherever we find something we are interested in understanding. In my opinion, fieldwork happens when researchers put themselves in the field, physical or virtual, where the people and things they want to study exist.

The idea that going out into the field exposes researchers to situations that challenges their assumptions is something I have experienced for myself when I carried out my final research project during my undergraduate studies. However, I do not think fieldwork’s necessarily the antithesis of the library in terms of where research should be done. Instead, we might have to consider the history of fieldwork in the social sciences to understand the bad reputation that doing research in the library, as opposed to the field, has. Within the field of anthropology, doing research without stepping out onto the field i.e. researching in the library, developed bad connotations because the late 19^th century – early 20^th century anthropologists made conclusions and theories based on their own imagination without making actual contact with the people of the cultures they are attempting to study.

The research that I proposed involves looking at how people interact with information, particularly when information is in abundance. My field will be the platforms on which these interactions occur and the places where I choose to interact with my participants. In this case, the field where fieldwork occurs is fluid and is just wherever I choose to put on my Indiana Jones fedora..