AMANEY JAMAL
▶ FIELDWORK LOCATION: JORDAN
“What do you mean, you’ve all been picked up by security forces?” I asked frantically, as three of my researchers called me while I was conducting interviews in Amman, Jordan. That day we had decided to divide the interview schedule. I would stay in Amman, and three other researchers would travel to small towns and villages outside the capital.
“We’re all being interrogated,” said Fatima. “They are accusing us of instigating incitement against the regime.”
“How is that?” I asked. Nothing in our interview questionnaire was directly critical of the current regime. We were very careful in developing our questions to ensure safety and security for ourselves and for respondents.
“Well, I don’t know, but I don’t want to stay here,” Fatima said. “They say we can’t leave the station. Help us get out!”
We were conducting research on my book project, Of Empires and Citizens. We were interested in how citizens viewed authoritarianism and democratization in the larger context of regional and international politics. How did they understand these relationships? Were there aspects about democracy they prized? What did they appreciate about the current leadership and style of rule? How did they view the role of external actors in shaping current political dynamics in Jordan? As citizens, what role did they see for themselves in these relationships? And how did this influence their views about their regime? These were some of the questions we tackled in the questionnaire. Clearly, they were directly political, but we were careful not to suggest that the regime wasn’t democratic. We allowed respondents to elaborate on whether they believed the regime was sufficiently democratic, or not.
I knew what had started out as a very pleasant, almost too pleasant, research day was going to be jinxed! Two interviewees showed up to the interviews, and although one of them was terribly late, we had an excellent exchange. Now three members of the research team were in jail. What should I do?
Well, I had been working in Jordan for quite a while. I have an extensive research network of colleagues, NGO leaders, students, researchers, and contacts in government. I immediately contacted a good friend and colleague, who is also well-connected. A bit hysterical and out of breath, I explained the situation.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “There must be a misunderstanding. In Jordan, researchers aren’t arrested.”
“But they are,” I exclaimed.
“And certainly, they wouldn’t arrest your colleagues,” he said assuredly. I think that statement was designed to make me feel better, and I probably would have felt better if three members of the research team (!), all of whom had lives and loved ones waiting for them, weren’t in jail!
“Give me one hour and I will call you back,” he comforted me.
If they didn’t get out, surely the security forces would dispatch others to pick me up, I started rambling to myself. Rule number 1, when your research materials (or researchers!) get seized by the government, what does one do? Secure the months of fieldwork already conducted. Upload your electronic research materials; delete your computers and hide hard copy research materials. As I began to execute rule number 1, I completely forgot rules 2 through 10 (or something like that). I think these rules included one to contact my home institution, another to contact the U.S. consulate, and so forth.
Then the phone rang. “They are all on their way back to Amman.”
“Wow, you mean they were released?”
“Yes,” said my colleague. “I told you it was a misunderstanding. We don’t arrest researchers.”
“Shukran, shukran” (thank you, thank you), I kept saying.
Almost a decade later, the moments of that day are still quite vivid. I remember the fear, the anxiety, the apprehension, and the worry. And relatedly, for this essay, I also recall how easy it was to get in touch with my “accessible” colleague, who was and still is part of a network of colleagues and friends I have built in the Middle East through conducting fieldwork. Not a month goes by that I am not reminded of the value of my field networks. Whether training students, conducting my own research, or participating in conferences, workshops, talks, and university visits, my fieldwork has been the doorway through which I have accumulated outstanding networks in the region. Indeed, these networks are one of my most prized academic and intellectual accomplishments.
In recent years, however, colleagues and friends in my research networks in the region have pointed out that the nature of U.S.-based research is shifting. Fieldwork traditionally entails researchers spending significant time in the field acquainting themselves with the context and people before they begin their data acquisition. This involves some mundane groundwork: reading daily newspapers, meeting other students, conducting interviews, and talking with contacts about current dynamics as they relate to one’s project. Wendy Pearlman captures it well in her essay (see chapter 22) when she says she was just “hanging out” and through that process learned a whole lot about her research site. Paul Staniland echoes this insight by labeling the field immersion process as “fieldwork by foot” (see chapter 23).
Then there’s the more deliberate work: visiting NGOs and organizations that might be working on similar themes, figuring out who else has written on the topic in the field country, and working on the process of data acquisition itself. However, today’s researchers seem to have prized data acquisition over fieldwork. What does this mean? Well, not all data collection strategies are similar. In fact, there is a stark distinction between fieldwork-based data acquisition and the acquisition of data from the field. Is this about semantics? Absolutely not. This is about process, knowledge accumulation (and not solely data accumulation), integrity, and network building, which includes intellectual and academic reciprocity.
Merriam-Webster’s definition of fieldwork is “work done in the field (as by students) to gain practical experience and knowledge through firsthand observation.” By definition, gaining “practical experience and firsthand observation” necessitates getting to know one’s research site and the people, culture, and community, along with their contextual nuances. Yet data acquisition per se does not require fieldwork. Data can be downloaded, administered in the form of a survey or experiment from a distance, discovered by research colleagues on the ground, or simply picked up from the field. Data collection can entail very little on-the-ground fieldwork.
Of course, different research questions mandate different data collection strategies. I am not going to impose normative boundaries on what is considered good or bad data, or good or bad practices. But I will say the following: Our discipline is moving in a direction that incentivizes data acquisition from the field rather than fieldwork-based data acquisition, and this momentum not only has consequences for how we conduct research—and for how our colleagues in the field perceive our research—but also deprives our discipline of some of the positive externalities linked to fieldwork, such as network building.
Two disciplinary transformations highlight the potential disincentivization of (conventional) fieldwork. The first is the “big data revolution” that is sweeping the social sciences and continues to grow.1 Big data sets, multiple data sets, “cool” data sets, experimental data sets, social media analyses, and bulk data are all part of this data renaissance. For the social scientist, the new and innovative ways to think about data and data analyses are profound. As the discipline increasingly prizes big data, this push is not necessarily accompanied by efforts to enhance fieldwork funding and research training to meet the associated empirical demands. The incentives for the researcher are to secure data first, rather than use fieldwork as a means of securing data. And because the data demands on students are increasing, this affords very little time and effort for fieldwork. Students are at risk of simply “following the data.”
A second development that encourages data collection from the field—and not fieldwork as a means of securing data—is the current funding structures of PhD programs. The five-year funding project (which includes two to three years of coursework) leaves very little time for prospectus development, research design, case selection, and language training, let alone adequate fieldwork.2 The funding structure encourages students to work quickly, find data, and move toward writing empirically rich papers (oftentimes at the expense of theoretical rigor).
This is an era that mandates rapid data accumulation and publications before entering the market. Chasing down data becomes the sole purpose of field visits, and fieldwork is considered both a luxury and a penalty. It is a luxury because only those who can afford to spend time in the field can do fieldwork. And it is a penalty because the five-year format provides little time for fieldwork. Students are expected to write and research more expeditiously, but it is hard not to see that which is painfully obvious: these demands mandate that students spend less time in the field. And as such, there are trade-offs between conducting significant fieldwork and meeting the demands dictated by a fast-moving field.
At risk then is fieldwork itself and the positive externalities it cultivates. For instance:
1. The continuing evolution of epistemological paradigms depends on accurate context-based research (fieldwork) and not merely data acquisition, as David Laitin reminds us in his essay (see chapter 24): “And when you demonstrate to local informants that you are sensitive to their incentives … you are likely to get more reliable interpretations from them.”
2. Academic networks are built through fieldwork. Students often take advantage of the networks their advisors have built, and in return they should build new networks for their own students.
3. The academic enterprise and building social science capacity, both here in the United States and abroad, depends on active engagement and intellectual reciprocity often facilitated by scholars while they are conducting fieldwork.
4. Treating fieldwork as research “laboratories” risks reproducing and exacerbating global academic and intellectual disparities and inequalities.
My ability to call on my networks in my moment of need was not based on any academic or other entitlements. Rather, years of investment and nurturing these intellectual bonds were vital. Following the new data acquisition mantra within specified funded time periods may very well render fieldwork an “old-fashioned” mode of data collection to the detriment of the creation and transmission of knowledge at the foundation of social science.
Solutions? The problems I outline aren’t zero-sum issues. Structural and institutional solutions to these prevailing challenges are available. First, PhD programs have to get ahead of the curve. The five-year funding program for students conducting significant fieldwork, including data acquisition and language training, simply does not work. Programs need to recognize that students conducting fieldwork require an additional year of funding. Furthermore, fieldwork grant and fellowship programs should recognize that the costs of conducting fieldwork in an era of big data are shifting as well. Big data are more costly. Traditional funding packages are great at getting students into the field but less beneficial for data collection. The trade-offs students are making are to replace fieldwork with data collection. PhD programs need to disincentivize these trade-offs by allocating more resources to funding packages. The traditional model to get PhD students into the field doesn’t go very far if a rigorous data collection requirement is linked to projects.
These discussions and solutions will require proponents of fieldwork and big data to come together to advocate solutions that will simultaneously benefit both camps, and in the end strengthen the overall discipline. Training and mentoring future generations of graduate students requires that we have the vision and the determination to insist that the field doesn’t lose sight of the importance of fieldwork to strengthen our knowledge about our own discipline and guarantee that students are developing the requisite network capital so important for the social sciences more generally.
There’s a risk, however, that this debate will devolve into yet another polarized cleavage in our subfield, with each camp lobbying for its optimal position at the expense of the other. If this were to happen, I worry that fieldwork-based approaches will be compromised and fewer incentives will be provided to allow students to spend sufficient time in the field. This outcome would be quite unfortunate.
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Amaney Jamal is the Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Politics at Princeton University.
PUBLICATION TO WHICH THIS FIELDWORK CONTRIBUTED:
• Jamal, Amaney. Of Empires and Citizens: Pro-American Democracy or No Democracy at All? Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012.
NOTES
2. Rina Agarwala and Emmanuel Teitelbaum, “Trends in Funding for Dissertation Field Research: Why Do Political Science and Sociology Students Win So Few Awards?,” PS: Political Science & Politics 43, no. 2 (April 2010): 283–93, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096510000156.