9.1 Field Work

Definition: the sustained, on-site residence of the researcher among the people studied — the discipline's rite of passage and its method's foundation (Malinowski's Trobriand anchorage — Unit 1.3: knowledge earned by being there, in the language, through the seasons). The arc of afieldwork project (learn the sequence):1. Design and site selection (the research question first; site chosen for the question; permissions and visas — in Nepal: the research-approval regime for foreign researchers);2. Entry and rapport (gatekeepers, hosts, the first awkward month; the researcher's self- presentation — introduced by whom matters);3. The daily craft (mornings in the fields, evenings writing field notes — the discipline's primary document: dated, detailed, honest to confusion; the fieldnote journal as method's backbone);4. Key informants (the knowledgeable, the patient, the marginal — triangulating among them: the headman's account checked against the widow's);5. Language learning (working in the local tongue; interpreters as last resort and their distortions);6. Leaving the field (exit managed honestly — debts acknowledged; the "departure dilemma" what do you owe those who taught you?).