Already There: Deferred Awareness in Ethnographic Fieldwork

• In Event: Open Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 1: Qualitative Methods

Abstract

This paper theorizes deferred research awareness as a distinctive epistemological condition in ethnographic fieldwork, one in which sustained participation in a community precedes the formation of a research consciousness. Drawing on over six months of autoethnographic fieldwork in a Chinese Christian community across two states, it examines what happens when a researcher enters a field through personal ties before recognizing its research potential. Three analytic themes emerge: deferred awareness as an epistemic resource rather than a methodological shortcoming; the transition from unintentional participant to intentional researcher and how this shift reframes what becomes visible in the field; and affective ambivalence as constitutive data that illuminates how belonging is produced through the affective architecture of hospitality and shared practice. The paper contributes to methodological debates on field entry, positionality, and the conditions under which ethnographic knowledge is produced.

Author

• Zhiyue Lu, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign