Friday 4 March 2016
Week 7
I don’t see fieldwork as something that necessarily
needs a physical space. I think that it’s possible to gather information by
participating in online communities. A website is a virtual space that has its
own community, or even multiple communities, and so I have a hard time even
thinking that it needs justifying. In contrast, I did my undergrad in English
(and Sociology), and I’m not sure that I would consider anything that I did in
English to be fieldwork. I see fieldwork from a social sciences viewpoint, and
so I focus on the idea of community as the field. This viewpoint doesn't really hold up for things like archaeology or biology, but it does show what I'm most interested in.
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It's an interesting point that you bring up - what is the definition/scope of "the field"? Can it really be restricted to just physical space anymore? With the advent of technology, there are countless titles and categories that have had to be revisited and reconsidered. I suppose this might be another area where we either have to include spaces like online communities into existing research terms, or come up with new terms/methods all together.
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