FIELDWORK is a key component of research for many disciplines in the humanities, arts, and social sciences (‘HASS’). It takes many diverse forms, from solo individuals conducting archival-based research off-campus, through to fully co-designed collective projects where community partnerships require significant time-based commitments including meetings, and including face-to-face interviewing and oral histories, as well as large-scale surveys.

Every type of fieldwork has its own risks and requirements relating to stakeholder collaboration and management. Some fieldwork activities can be appropriately transferred from face-to-face mode to online forms of communication. Other forms of participant-observation, archaeological excavations, or knowledge exchange cannot, for reasons that are multiple and specific, but include heightened health and safety vulnerability, undue or additional work pressure as a result of changed methodology, increased caring responsibilities, lack of necessary technology, and so on. The present situation may make research less of a priority for some participants, while others may see an opportunity for developing community-led responses. All fieldwork activities continue to require approval of institutional or professional ethical protocols, and any alterations require amendments to existing protocols.

Fieldwork can also describe the implementation of translational research impacts. In contrast to processes of data collation described above, these activities refer to the reporting and dissemination of research results, be it directly, to community stakeholders and participants, or to a wider field of general community audiences. The communication of results to achieve social engagement, outreach, or impact for researchers working in every field will be adversely affected by social isolation and distancing measures, as all commonly develop associated activities such as workshops and follow-uptraining programs, exhibitions, and performances. Dissemination activities occurring in public typically do not require HREC approval but changes to deliverables may need to be negotiated with funders.

SUMMARY OF ISSUES

COVID-19 has led to widespread disruption of all kinds of fieldwork, from data collation and knowledge sharing, through to the dissemination of results. These issues affect many researchers, as well as research students conducting fieldwork in the humanities and social sciences.

OBSTACLES to fieldwork and face-to-face research include:

• COVID-19 transmission and re-transmission risks globally.
• Closure of, and/or restricted access to Indigenous and at-risk communities (e.g. aged care facilities, prisons); and community imposed self-isolation measures.
• Bans on some regional and interstate travel.
• Restrictions on international travel, likely to be long term.
• Institutional restrictions to Human Ethics approvals processes.

RISKS of research stoppages are financial and reputational, and include:

• Not being able to meet obligations to research participants, communities, beneficiaries.
• Not being about deliver outcomes or acquit funded grants and consultancies.
• Not being able to disseminate research findings per public or community impact, outreach and communication plans.
• Rescoping research projects (replacing face-to-face interviews with video ones, for instance) will have implications for methodology and outcomes. It may lead to more text-based research and reliance upon existing materials rather than creating new resources. Additional in-person, on the ground, meeting time and relationship building may even be a pre-requisite for appropriate re-scoping.

OPPORTUNITIES arising from the present situation may, in some cases, include:

• Exploring what is really possible in terms of community engagement and ways to mitigate risks to community health in real terms.
• Considering ways that we can engage with communities in new innovative ways, and assessing community resources, technology and skills (what is the capacity for undertaking field work remotely?)
• Asking if there are others in the field that we can work with to facilitate communication. For example, might community-located researchers, sometimes called field-based liaison officers, become greater assets to facilitate or conduct in- and on-country research? These could include people conducting interviews, surveys, documents, meetings, or other field-work or archive/library-based tasks.

ADVICE FOR RESEARCHERS RETURNING TO FIELDWORK

PRINCIPLES for returning to fieldwork remain regulated by government regulations around travel and social distancing, human ethics protocols, and community agency and consent.:

• Maintain communication with your partners and participants.
• Reschedule travel.
• Consider a range of risk management processes for all research including but not restricted to interviews and fieldwork that has direct contact with Indigenous peoples and cohorts that may be at heightened risk during the pandemic.
• Discuss strategies for relocating field sites, rescoping communication methods (from face-to-face to online meetings), or modifying team composition in case you are not able to access your normal field sites for some time (e.g. employing community-located researchers) What innovative options might emerge for co-designed research as a result of the crisis?
• Renegotiate milestones and deliverables with teams, partners, participants, and funders as required.
• Keep abreast of advice coming from your institution’s Ethics and Research Services sections, and revise protocols where required.

ARE YOU STILL HERE? A KIND OF CONCLUSION

RECOGNISE that every situation, partner, researcher, site, and collaboration is different, and that their needs are subject to change. Every research question will have many solutions, which might themselves be influenced by the modified methodologies or adjusted forms of engagements that emerge in response to the problems of the doing fieldwork in a pandemic.

Author’s note: This paper was written in March 2020, soon after our national and state borders closed and we were directed to work from home. It sought to encourage discussion at our university about how to assess the impact of COVID19 on fieldwork for researchers in the humanities and social sciences, and gain a clear understanding of the acute as well as longer term needs arising from the pandemic and associated restrictions. It was accompanied by a  compilation of resources. The discussion formed the basis for much more substantive and nuanced research into impacts, needs and ways forward, that are addressed elsewhere.

Photo by John Baker

In February 2019 I foolishly bragged that “if I had a trainer, I could run a marathon”. This coming from a person with a less than athletic background and life style. Around that time, I had to do a test: how far can you run in one go. The answer was a shocking but eye-opening 750m. 

Why did I do the test? Well, turns out one of the people I made this comment to was a running coach. Ah. Great. Now I have two options. Either I admit I am all talk and live with the shame, or buckle down and start training. So, the next day, I got myself a pair of trainers, and tested how far I could go.

As my training has progressed, I am constantly struck with how similar my hobby and my work are:

1. Neither is just a job or a leisure time activity – both occupy my time and attention all the time, and they are a defining feature of my identity now (well, sort of, I’ll get back to this later).
2. Both are hard work. Running does not come easily to me, and I don’t know that it does to many people. I don’t always look forward to my runs and I don’t always want to get my shoes on and head out. Similarly, research and learning don’t come easy to me, and I don’t know that they do to many people. I don’t always feel excited about the things I have to read about, and I don’t always have the concentration to keep reading. 
3. Both require constant and continuous effort and investment, with the returns of that effort only manifesting much later. Train for months to finally push into a new PB (personal best) on your 5km time? Write and draft and wait for months to see that paper finally appear in print. I would say that both running and academia require patience in terms of seeing successes roll in, but also require you to constantly keep striving for the next goal, the next PB, the next publication. If you stop pushing for the next thing while waiting for the previous thing to come in, soon you run out of things, momentum and progression are lost, and there is a formidable challenge is getting it all rolling again.
4. There are different approaches to different goals. You can’t sprint a marathon, you can’t constantly churn out top level journal articles. Success is as much about the right technique, the right process, the appropriate plan of attack for the task at hand. 
5. Progression and improvement happens when you rest. Athletes know that rest is when your muscles repair, and when the true improvement happens. Academics, I think, are mostly bad a resting because at least I spent my academically informative years (my undergraduate studies) in an environment that glorified pulling all-nighters and surviving on 4 hours of sleep (or less). But your brain needs sleep and you do your best thinking with a fresh noggin’. In sleep, things get stored in long-term memory. I am forever telling my students that if they get less than 8hrs of sleep every night, they’re doing it wrong.
6. If you cut corners with your training, you cut corners with your fitness. If you cut corners with your research, you cut corners with your papers. I tell myself this all the time. Especially when it’s not easy (see point 2 above). But if you take it easy on the run, or if you just skim a paper and don’t really engage with it, what’s the point of doing it at all? Why do we do this? It’s not for the task itself, it’s for the effect completing that task has on us. You do your training session properly, you improve. You engage with your research properly, you improve.
7. The Imposter Syndrome is real. In 2020, I was promoted to a position of Senior Lecturer. I also started running the distance of a half marathon on a regular basis. I have a working week of 5 days. And I work on academic stuff in the evenings, weekends, days off. Mostly because I want to, because I love what I do, and it’s interesting and exciting and fun. But also because I know it all contributes towards achieving the next goal, even if indirectly. Similarly, I have a running session 5 days per week, and I do other things like bike rides and workouts in evenings, weekends, and on my days off. Because I want to, because it’s fun, because it’s a break, because it’s sunny outside. And, yes, because I know it all contributes towards achieving the next goal, even if indirectly. Slowly, very slowly, over the last couple of years I have moved away form quietly thinking to myself “If I just keep doing this, one day, I’ll be an academic” and actually seeing myself as one. But just last week, as I was nearing the 21st km of my Saturday long run, I caught myself thinking “Wouldn’t it be great if one day I was a runner”. And so I tell my students now, whenever they worry about academia and their studies “If you’re doing research, you’re an academic!”. No matter the distance, or the speed, if you’re running, you’re a runner. No matter the topic, or the rate of publication, if you’re researching and writing, you’re an academic.