The Fieldwork Initiative

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The Fieldwork Initiative

Chronicle of Higher education article with recommendations on centering accountability in DEI statements.

The Fieldwork Initiative is a grassroots network of over 3,500 students and researchers facing trauma, unsafe conditions, or sexual harassment and assault during research fieldwork. The Fieldwork Initiative seeks to maintain a network for victims who have struggled with gendered violence while conducting research and to proliferate pre-fieldwork training seminars that break open the blackbox of data collection.

Chronicle of Higher education article with recommendations on centering accountability in DEI statements.

“The show must go on!” Fieldwork, mental health and wellbeing in Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

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“The show must go on!” Fieldwork, mental health and wellbeing in Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

Chronicle of Higher education article with recommendations on centering accountability in DEI statements.

Fieldwork is central to the identity, culture and history of academic Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences (GEES). However, in this paper we recognize that, for many academic staff, field trips can be a profoundly challenging “ordeal,” ill-conducive to wellness or effective pedagogic practice. Drawing on research with 39 UK university-based GEES academics who self-identify as having a mental health condition, this paper explores how mental health intersects with spaces and expectations of fieldwork in Higher Education.

Chronicle of Higher education article with recommendations on centering accountability in DEI statements.

Mental Health and Fieldwork

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Mental Health and Fieldwork

Chronicle of Higher education article with recommendations on centering accountability in DEI statements.

Successful fieldwork and fruitful academic careers hinge on acknowledging and managing our mental health. This paper discusses peer-support networks, secondary trauma, coping skills, therapy, and researchers’ mental health options before, during, and after fieldwork.

Chronicle of Higher education article with recommendations on centering accountability in DEI statements.

Not just muddy and not always gleeful? Thinking about the physicality of fieldwork, mental health, and marginality

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Not just muddy and not always gleeful? Thinking about the physicality of fieldwork, mental health, and marginality

Chronicle of Higher education article with recommendations on centering accountability in DEI statements.

This paper acknowledges that geographical fieldwork and fieldtrips can be deeply stressful, anxiety-inducing, troubling, miserable, hard and exclusionary for many colleagues, students and pupils. This paper draws on on qualitative data from research with UK university-based Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences (GEES) academics who self-identify as having mental health conditions which substantially affect their daily lives. These data prompt reflection on the nature and experience of fieldwork in two ways. First, they require acknowledgment of fieldwork as not just ‘muddy’, widening disciplinary imaginaries of fieldwork accessibility to encompass marginalities in/of Human Geography fieldwork practice. Second, contrary to pervasive disciplinary idealisations, these data demand recognition that fieldwork and fieldtrips are not necessarily gleeful but can be sites of intense latent anxiety and intersectional marginality.

Chronicle of Higher education article with recommendations on centering accountability in DEI statements.