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The LSE Field Research Methods Lab Blog is an initiative that aims to bring together both established and early career researchers in order to share their hands-on fieldwork experiences. It is an online platform for researchers to appraise various constraints that they have encountered in the field and reflect upon how they have successfully or unsuccessfully addressed those constraints.

Despite the fact that ways of addressing constraints in the field often determine the quality of research findings and their validity, they have not been given enough space or opportunities for debates in academic works. Rich details of field research are often buried in individual researchers’ private domain such as research journals. At best, they remain between lines in academic texts without a chance to be fully disseminated.

The Field Research Methods Lab Blog, however, does not purpose to offer any “model” approaches or “best practices.” A seemingly effective or successful method in some aspects may still be subject to controversy in other views and contexts since neither the ways we relate with our field nor the logics we apply for analysis can ever be exempt from epistemological, ontological or ethical scrutinies. The underlying complexity of methodological discourses is no less significant than the reality of our field.

In this context, this online platform introduces diverse strategies adopted by field researchers, facilitating critical yet constructive debates and responses. Each contributor is to reflect upon their past or present field research projects and draw meaningful lessons in both practical and academic terms. Wherever possible, each posting accompanies a research outline as well as details of research outcomes so that viewers can better understand how the researcher’s experiences in the field have fed into their final research outputs.

Contributions to this blog are currently built around, but not limited to, the themes below:

  • Practicalities associated with field research: field access; collaboration with local partners; language barriers, including dependence on translators
  • Constraints on data collection: sampling; access to government sources; credibility and contamination of field data
  • Relationship between the researcher and the researched: researcher’s positionality; power relations; insider-outsider dichotomy; boundary crossing
  • Constraints on international collaboration
  • Cultural encounters
  • Government censorship and data access
  • Research ethics

It is the aim of the Field Research Methods Lab Blog to expand its coverage and develop further discourses. We welcome new contributions from any researchers who wish to share their invaluable field experiences as well as responses to existing postings. Please e-mail seac.admin[at]lse.ac.uk your ideas including a short abstract and brief biography. You may also contact the Blog Editor, Professor Hyun Bang Shin (h.b.shin[at]lse.ac.uk) for discussing any publication-related queries.

From 2019, the Field Research Method Labs Blog is supported by the LSE Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre.

 


About the Editor

Hyun Bang Shin is Professor in Geography and Urban Studies at the Department of Geography and Environment and the Director of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is also editor of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. His research centres on the critical analysis of the political economic dynamics of urbanisation with particular attention to cities in Asian countries such as China, South Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Singapore. His most recent project on circulating urbanism and (Asian) capital has also brought him to work on Quito, Manila, Iskandar Malaysia, Kuwait City and London. His research themes include speculative urbanisation; the politics of redevelopment; displacement; gentrification; housing; the right to the city; mega-events as urban spectacles; mega-projects. He has been the editor of the Field Research Methods Lab blog since its foundation.

More details of his current research are available on his personal webpage at https://urbancommune.net. Twitter: @urbancommune

About the Editorial Manager

Katie Boulton is the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre Manager.

 


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Disclaimer: The views expressed on the LSE Field Research Method Lab blog are those of the authors alone. They do not reflect the position of the LSE Field Research Method Lab, nor that of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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