How does shared identity between researcher and the researched influence trust-building for data generation and knowledge production? We reflect on this question based on two separate studies conducted by African-based researchers in sociology and political science in Nigeria. We advanced two interrelated positions. The first underscores the…

Reflexivity is a practice through which researchers engage themselves fully in their studies. It opens up different aspects of research that can shed light on important accounts that may otherwise be dismissed. It was through reflexivity that I observed ethical concerns emerge during my fieldwork in Korea. Despite academic ethics being discussed…

Purpose: Doing qualitative research with vulnerable urban populations such as street traders present significant methodological challenges, which many researchers may not be prepared to handle. This paper aims to provide a reflective account of the authors' fieldwork experiences while conducting a study with street traders in Harare, Zimbabwe.…

Urban planning research usually requires researchers to undertake fieldwork. This fieldwork is frustrated or enabled by gatekeepers who can influence effective data collection. Traditionally, gatekeepers are perceived as monolithic, neutral, and static individuals, yet they are complex individuals with varying needs and expectations from the…

This study explores the complexities of qualitative fieldwork and unpacks the fieldwork dynamics drawing on critical reflections based on the experiences of interviewing primary level teachers in exploring their identities. I argue that qualitative fieldwork is not a one-shot, linear activity but a negotiated and relational task requiring a…

Writing fieldnotes is an important part of ethnographic research. However, there is a striking lack of discussions about how different ways of producing fieldnotes may influence ethnographic research and meaning-making. The use of "shorthand notation" is sometimes mentioned as a tool to increase the speed and efficiency of note-taking,…

As part of their field education, social work students develop and implement change agent projects to influence positive change. Faculty and students, however, have identified a lack of placement options for Black students to allow them to both learn and feel supported in their racial identity. To ensure that Black students have placement options…

This is an inquiry into my experience as a doctoral researcher undertaking an action research/narrative inquiry project investigating the emotion experienced in teacher practice. From the outset, I recognized my position as an active participant of the research -- a protagonist, a story-teller, a listener, a re-teller -- and facilitator. This…

In this article, we interrogate the concept of methodological 'failures' as they arise during fieldwork, in the process of collecting empirical data. We highlight how the techniques of validity horizon matrices and power analysis can be used as methodological tools to illustrate moments in the fieldwork process where these 'failures' occur and to…

In the United States, the academic discipline of higher education has emerged as a site in which transgender scholars have begun to engage. Transgender scholars have begun to disrupt the normative logics of epistemological trans oppression, forcing those in higher education to contend with us, our work, and the possibilities therein. And yet, the…

Universities consist of students, faculty and staff, interacting through multiple layers of organization and on a variety of time scales. They are complex adaptive systems (CAS) yet the bulk of scholarship on higher education analyzes them using conventional social science methods, with little work that tries to understand them using complexity…

This article examines a grassroots parent organizing effort in a large, high-poverty, urban school district. Drawing from ethnographic field research at a community-based popular education organization, the study describes how parent organizers worked to educate and mobilize Latina/o immigrant parents on issues of educational justice and equity.…

In the 14 years since the 9/11 events, this nation as a whole, and New York City in particular, has escalated its state-sanctioned surveillance in the lives and activities of Muslims in the United States. This qualitative study examines the ramifications of police infiltration and monitoring of Muslim student and community-based organizations.…

The purpose of this article is to analyse and interpret the effect of the primary school teachers' trade union in Greece insofar as the formation and realisation of education policy is concerned, and, more precisely, insofar as it concerns the issue of teacher evaluation. The research material used comes from the filing and analysis of the…

After completing a qualitative methods course in geography, we moved classroom discussions into practice. While undertaking graduate fieldwork in sites across the globe, we participated in critical, reflexive journaling. Whereas journal writing is often private, we shared our entries, aiming to facilitate rigour while concurrently exploring…