Stories from the Field

Daniel Neep , who just published Syria: A Modern History , joins Ora Szekely , who published Syria Divided: Patterns of Violence in a Complex Civil War , for a conversation focusing on research on a specific conflict: the war in Syria. Reflecting on their own experiences, Daniel and Ora dig into the ethical and methodological challenges of researching civil war from afar, as well as some common my...

After your field research is done, there is always that final, daunting step: publishing. We are joined by Caelyn Cobb , Senior Editor in global history and global politics for Columbia University Press, and Jacqueline Hazelton , Executive Editor of the journal International Security , to gain an editor’s perspective on what they look for in conflict research and how aspiring scholars can navigate...

When conducting research and fieldwork on civil war, it is not only challenging to remain impartial or get physically and emotionally close to conflict participants, but it is especially difficult to do both, given that more of one often requires—or leads to—less of the other. How do researchers navigate the challenges of partiality and proximity in the field? How do they deal with their values an...

Even though you might think you know the place that you’re researching, things can still surprise you when you’re new to the field. In this episode, we welcome Ana Paula Pellegrino and Ulaş Erdoğdu . Pellegrino is the Gerhard Casper Postdoctoral Fellow in the Rule of Law at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University. She will be starting as an Assistan...

The study of civil war and political violence presents researchers with a wide range of ethical questions to navigate. In this episode, we welcome Christine Cheng (Senior Lecturer in War Studies at Kings College London) and Christopher Day (Professor of Political Science and Director of African Studies at the College of Charleston). They discuss their own fieldwork alongside their recent co-edited...

The Stories from the Field Podcast is back for a second season! In this introductory episode of Season 2, Ora and Peter reunite to preview the new season line-up and look back on the origins of the podcast and the co-edited book that it’s based on. Season 2 focuses on research on civil war across the globe, bringing together scholars from a wide range of perspectives. This season’s conversations w...

Kira Jumet and Merouan Mekouar join the podcast to share their insights on what it means to be a “native scholar” and all the complications and benefits that can bring to the process of field research. We talk about the benefits of knowing local languages, the question of citizenship (and other state-related challenges) as well as the very real struggles researchers may face to separate their pers...

In this special final episode, we weave together numerous lessons from throughout the book and podcast, from the value of unstructured time in the field to the surprising parallels between hosting a podcast and doing fieldwork. Using some of our favorite interview clips and book readings, we reflect on the excellent advice our contributors shared and talk about why we love field research.  We also...

Fotini Christia , Aliyu Zakayo , and Aidan Milliff offer their perspectives as a full professor, a medical doctor and researcher, and an advanced graduate student, respectively, on the ethical and logistical challenges posed by COVID-19 for field research. Each guest draws on their own experiences to offer insights and suggestions for how to adjust your research approach in the face of the pandemi...

We trace the process of learning field research by talking to a group of excellent undergraduate students ( Leah Hickert , Jack MacDonald , and Renata Martinez ) and advanced graduate students ( Vierelina Fernandez , Ayse Lokmanoglu ) about how they first encountered and began to conduct field research in their own communities and all over the world. These student-led discussions provide vibrant r...

We welcome Jesse Driscoll from UCSD, Milli Lake from the London School of Economics, and Sarah Parkinson from Johns Hopkins University to talk about teaching field research. How can we teach others how to think about, prepare for, and carry out ethical, valuable field research? All of our guests have taught field research methods to undergraduate and graduate students. In addition, Milli and Sarah...

We welcome Ravi Perry from Howard University and Sarah Zukerman Daly from Columbia University to talk about the crucial but oft-overlooked issues of health and safety in the field—whether in one's home community or in a foreign location. Ravi and Sarah share some of the personal challenges they've faced in the course of their fascinating research on the balancing act of racial politics b...

We talk to Enze Han  from the University of Hong Kong and Robert Ross  from Boston College about the significant potential and challenges of doing research in China. Our guests reflect on everything from their experiences building academic relationships with colleagues at Chinese universities to how local perceptions of researchers' own identities can shape the research process.    Producers:...

We welcome Matthew Cancian from MIT, Kristin Fabbe from Harvard Business School, and Kristin Michelitch from Vanderbilt University to talk about conducting field surveys and experiments. We discuss what goes into designing an experiment or survey, developing local relationships, and navigating the ethical and logistical challenges of conducting complex research projects with multi-member research...

We welcome Zoe Marks from Harvard Kennedy School and Will Reno from Northwestern University to talk about doing research in insecure or conflict-affected situations, and learning how to keep our research participants, our teams, and ourselves safe in difficult environments. Producers: Harper Barbaree, John Gehman Editors: Hannah Jones, Garrett Madden, Gabriel Wallen, Lila Zarrella Find Stories fro...

Once you're in "the field," how can you most effectively gain knowledge and collect information? How do you build trust and connections with local leaders? How to show respect and become part of a new community? How to access and decipher classified archival documents? We welcome John McCauley from The University of Maryland, Rich Nielsen from MIT, and Lindsey O'Rourke from Bos...

How do our identities and lives outside of academia shape our fieldwork? And what does that look like in a region like the Middle East? We talk to Carla Abdo-Katsipis from Wesleyan University, Nadya Hajj from Wellesley College, and Ian Lustick from the University of Pennsylvania about doing research across the Middle East, and reflect on how our personal backgrounds shape the experience of doing f...

Peter and Ora welcome Erica Chenoweth from Harvard Kennedy School and Zachariah Mampilly from the Marxe School of International Affairs at Baruch College to discuss research ethics, including whether political scientists should have an individual and/or shared code of ethics, tough decisions about accepting funding from government and non-government institutions, and how to ethically engage with p...

In this introductory episode, Peter and Ora discuss the evolving definition of "field research," which is conventionally defined as research conducted outside of one’s institution to observe, interact with, and interview people, work in the archives, and otherwise learn about a place and its politics and society. Regardless of where and how it is conducted, field research poses numerous...

Ora and Peter welcome Christina Greer from Fordham University, Wendy Pearlman from Northwestern University, and Paul Staniland from the University of Chicago to discuss local knowledge, perhaps the most important aspect of field research. Local knowledge is a collection of facts, beliefs, and perceptions used by people in a specific region to interpret the world around them. Ora and Peter discuss...