Fieldwork in Political Science 4. Stories from the Field.

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Session Description

When groups of political scientists get together, we often find ourselves sharing stories about our research experiences – the stories we tell our students, friends and colleagues, of the kind we perhaps wish someone had shared with us before we embarked on field research for the first time. After one such conversation, we found ourselves thinking: someone should really be writing this stuff down. And so, we decided to do just that. The result is Stories from the Field: A Guide to Navigating Field Research in Political Science, a collection of stories, insights, and advice about field research from 44 political scientists from a range of backgrounds and subfields, with a wide range of geographic and theoretical expertise. The book will be published with Columbia University Press in the summer of 2020. The purpose of this roundtable is to further the conversation begun in this book. It will include the volume’s editors (Ora Szekely and Peter Krause), as well as four contributors from the volume whose chapters represent the book’s scope, and two other scholars (Jesse Driscoll and panel chair Diana Kapiszewski) whose own expertise allows them to speak to the book’s contributions. Themes of the volume to be discussed include innovative research methods, the impact of personal identity on the research process, and the ethical challenges that occur during field research.

Sub Unit

• Division 46: Qualitative Methods

Chair

• Diana Kapiszewski Georgetown University

Presenters

• Jesse Driscoll University of California, San Diego

• Ora B. Szekely Clark University

• Peter Krause Boston College

• Christina M. Greer Fordham University

• Ian S. Lustick University of Pennsylvania