When Fieldwork “Fails”: Participatory Visual Methods And Fieldwork Encounters With Resettled Refugees^*

* The author thanks her advisor, Dr. Micheline van Riemsdijk, for her constant encouragement and crucial feedback, and would like to thank fellow UTK graduate students Emma Walcott-Wilson, Jordan Brasher, and Ethan Bottone for their support and helpful comments on early versions of this manuscript.

EMILY FRAZIER is currently a PhD Candidate in Human Geography at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 37916; [[email protected]].

ABSTRACT

While feminist scholarship has long recognized the inherent “messiness” of fieldwork, research encounters can easily mutate from messiness to “failure.” As little work has been conducted on fieldwork failure, reflexive analysis of the complications and disappointments of fieldwork is crucial. Increasingly, human geographers are engaging in participatory and visual methods with populations characterized as “marginalized” or “vulnerable.” Though touted as reflexive, possibly empowering, and culturally sensitive, these methods do not automatically overcome neocolonial tendencies of fieldwork. Realization of these methods varies between participants, sites, and the fieldworkers themselves. Drawing on field notes and reflections, this paper analyzes fieldwork failure in dissertation research involving participatory visual methods with resettled refugees. These encounters reveal complex and challenging circumstances that can arise in implementing participatory visual methods with marginalized or vulnerable populations. This analysis advances understandings of participatory visual methods, and answers calls for transparency in fieldwork reflections.

Keywords:

• fieldwork failure
• marginalized populations
• participatory research
• refugees
• visual methods

Notes

  ¹ Per Institutional Review Board regulations on the study, all photos were to exclude facial and any identifying features of human subjects. This was explained to participants when they consented to the photography portion of the study.