Information Fieldwork

I think the fieldwork of information research can take place anywhere. For Hartel, her fieldwork was in people’s houses, specifically their kitchens and areas of culinary research. For Park, he believed it could be at the orchestra hall, or the doorsteps of someone’s house. For one of my former professors, who is partially a real life Indiana Jones, his fieldwork of information research took place in archaeological sites on Mauritius studying the colonial history of the Atlantic. (I will be more than happy to speak to anyone about his research and level of cool).  

For me, my fieldwork of information research is my desk studying secondary resources on Lollard history. I am very limited in my fieldwork, which challenges the notions put forward by Hartel and Park. A researcher can be very interested in a topic, and wants to conduct the most thorough research they can in order to have the information they need. Yet their access to the fieldwork they need to conduct is limited geographically, financially, current resources. As a historian, my field of research is the library, archives, and sometimes archaeological site; though I am more focussed on textual documents than artefacts. And yet, because of my research topic, I cannot visit the archives and libraries to gather information from the primary sources. I rely on the portrayal and interpretation of these documents by secondary sources.

I think my research topic conveys the challenges of fieldwork, but also how the researcher alters their field in order to conduct the research they want. For example, my former professor wanted to study a specific topic and found that his fieldwork included archaeological research to uncover information. He also has means of accessibility to these sites. As well, Hartel was able to interact with individuals in the group she was studying. However, I unfortunately cannot travel to the UK and visit the Bodleian Library to look at 15^th century manuscripts, or interact with the individuals who wrote or are mentioned in the texts. Therefore, I altered my fieldwork to accommodate my research. I believe information research allows us to rethink notions of the field beyond sociological or archaeological fields as information research can be conducted on a number of topics where access to these two types of fields is not possible or needed.