Returning‐home fieldwork in China with a dear friend: Friendship, personal safety, and diversity

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Drawing on my accompanied returning-home fieldwork in China with a dear friend, Yun, this paper critically reflects on the ideas of friendship in fieldwork and the enabling and enhancing role of friendship in managing safety concerns and negotiating data collection. The contribution is two-fold. First, it advances current fieldwork scholarship in Humanities and Social Sciences that predominantly focuses on the researcher-informant friendship formed in the field by engaging with the companionship of pre-existing friends. This diversifies our understandings of fieldwork friendship in individually, socially, and culturally unsettling ways. Second, this study furthers ongoing conversations calling for greater visibility and support of different forms of accompanied fieldwork by focusing on the accompaniment of pre-existing friends. Three potential directions are outlined to normalise the model of accompanied fieldwork in efforts to promote Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in Geography fieldwork.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)303-311
Number of pages9
JournalArea
Volume55
Issue number2
Early online date10 Nov 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2023

Keywords

  • accompanied fieldwork
  • China
  • diversity
  • friendship
  • positionality
  • safety

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