Romance and Everyday Work, the Two Sides of Fieldwork - a Challenge for the Anthropologist

Authors

• Pirjo Rautiainen, MA, Researcher University of Tampere
• Salla Poutiainen

Keywords:

fieldwork, participant observation, interview, self-reflection

Abstract

Despite of the alternating emphasis in the fieldwork methods in different disciplines, the basis for doing fieldwork has stayed the same: in and through the fieldwork the researcher aims at getting as close as possible to his/her object of research. The empirical tradition in ethnology and anthropology is based on the fieldwork data collected by the researcher him/herself and on the analysis of this data. The perspectives on problemizing fieldwork have changed rather drastically over the decades. in the monographies written by the contemporary anthropologists fieldwork is more and more writing about 'me' and 'the other'. Fieldwork is two-folded; on the one hand participatory, providing a close relationship with the researcher's informants, but on the other hand, the reflection and distance are requirements for the theoretical analysis to become possible (Lönnqvist 1999, 14).