Returning Home and to the Field^*

* This article owes much to a stimulating panel discussion on “Exploring Cultural and Political Terrains of Qualitative Methods,” held during the 2000 annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers. I thank Vincent Del Casino, Dydia DeLyser, Jennifer Hyndman, Suzanne Michel, Richa Nagar, Yamuna Sangarasivam, and the attendees of that session for their insights. Helpful comments on earlier drafts of this essay came from Susan Terrio, Patricia Ehrkamp, Joan Hackeling, Steve Pile, Mary Thomas, Dydia DeLyser, Paul Starrs, Heike Alberts, and participants in the 2001 University of Minnesota Advanced Qualitative Methods Seminar. My warmest thanks are also extended to the many individuals in Berlin who have shared their lives with me. Without their generosity, my research would not be possible.

Abstract

Last week I “returned from the field.” Even though I am back home I certainly don t feel at home. I feel disoriented for all sorts of reasons. Because I came back during the sixth week of the semester, I feel like an outsider in my workplace, an empty shell moving through corridors and seminar rooms. (Was that me teaching that class a few months ago?) Where I live now seems foreign, perhaps because I've lived longer in Berlin than in any of my American homes during the last ten years. This blurring of home and the field reminds me of an experience last year when two of my Berlin research consultants gave lectures about their work at my “home” university. Due to various conversations and interactions, I unexpectedly had to face some of the moral issues and social relations of the field at home. I felt almost schizophrenic, torn between worlds, cultures, sets of social relations, and selves.

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Karen E. Till

Dr. Till is an assistant professor of geography at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455.