Doing global fieldwork: a social scientist's guide to mixed-methods research far from home
Doing global fieldwork: a social scientist's guide to mixed-methods research far from home
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进行全球实地考察：社会科学家远离家乡的混合方法研究指南
DOI：
10.1093/ia/iiac002
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发表时间：
2022
影响因子：
4.5
通讯作者：
K. Eggeling
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
K. Eggeling
杰西·德里斯科尔通过这本书打开了一扇通向政治学、比较政治学和国际关系领域实地考察后台的大门。作为一本“建议书”（第xi页）、一本“从业者操作指南”（第205页）和一本写给“年轻版的自己”（第xiii页）的专业反思，德里斯科尔写的这本书——正如他所说——特别是那些“年轻、无方向、诚实地承认自己实际上不知道自己想做什么”的人（第92页）会觉得内容丰富、令人安心和鼓舞人心。正如标题所暗示的，这本书主要关注的是实地考察，作为多方法研究议程的一部分，也是在远离“家乡”的“异国”（第 32 页）“全球”发生的事情。这是基于对“实地考察”的理解，即“收集对理论上重要的变量的测量结果，这些变量[人们]无法仅使用图书馆和互联网资源来观察或测量”（第18页）；以及将“领域”理解为一个只能通过“离开你的家乡机构”和“登上那架飞机”来研究的场所（第30页）。德里斯科尔共分七章，每一章都重点关注田野调查的“如何做”这一核心问题，包括如何准备田野调查、如何在抵达时自我介绍以及如何处理“困难环境”（第 166 页），他引导读者完成国外政治研究的传统周期。在第一页，他介绍了“即兴多元化”的概念，以捕捉本书的“概念支架”和成功进行实地考察的“精神”。他建议，虽然并非所有事情都可以计划，但这并不意味着什么都不能：“即兴创作会在现场发生，但是，就像在爵士乐中一样，它是围绕和弦进行的”（第21页）。因此，这本书可以最好地为学生提供指导，帮助他们制定如何将实地考察纳入数据收集的详细计划，并承认，在此过程中，他们将不得不放弃该计划的部分内容，并使这种放弃成为他们学习过程的一部分。这本书的总体相关性反映在德里斯科尔的写作方式上。文本以简单的语言编写，参考文献以不间断的尾注形式出现，并且他经常直接与读者交谈。例如，他写道，“对于拿着这本书的研究生来说，停下来反思我们学科中所包含的多样性是很重要的”（第 85 页）。诸如此类的评论让这本书给人一种关于政治和政治学专业动态的非正式厨房水槽交流的感觉。这确实很有价值，在书中的不同地方，作者利用他的方法论反思对学术“行会”的状况做出了更一般的陈述（第2页）。
With this book, Jesse Driscoll opens a door to the backstage of fieldwork in political science, comparative politics and International Relations. As an ‘advice book’(p. xi), a ‘how-to practitioner guide’(p. 205) and a professional reflection written to a ‘younger version of [him] self’(p. xiii), Driscoll has written a book that—as he puts it—especially the ‘young, directionless, and honest about the fact that they do not actually know what they want to do’(p. 92) will find informative, reassuring and inspiring. As the title suggests, the book is mainly concerned with fieldwork as part of a multi-method research agenda and as something that happens ‘globally’, in ‘exotic’(p. 32) places far away from ‘home’. This is based on an understanding of ‘fieldwork’as a strategy ‘to collect measurements on theoretically-important variables that [one] cannot observe or measure using library and internet resources alone’(p. 18); and an understanding of the ‘field’as a site that can only be studied by ‘leaving your home institution’and ‘get [ting] on that plane’(p. 30). Over seven chapters, each focusing on a central ‘how to’question of fieldwork, including how to prepare fieldwork, how to present oneself on arrival and how to deal with ‘difficult settings’(p. 166), Driscoll guides his readers through the traditional cycle of researching politics abroad. On page one, he introduces the concept of ‘improvisational pluralism’to capture the ‘conceptual scaffolding’for the book and the ‘ethos’ of doing successful fieldwork. While not everything can be planned, he advises, this does not mean that nothing can:‘improvisation will happen in the field, but, as in jazz, it takes place around a chord progression’(p. 21). The book may therefore best serve students as a guide to making a detailed plan for how to fit fieldwork into their data collection, acknowledging that, in the process, they will have to abandon parts of this plan and make this abandonment part of their learning process. The general relatability of the book is reflected in how Driscoll writes. The text is written in plain language, references appear as non-interrupting endnotes, and he frequently speaks to his readers directly. For example,‘it is important for a graduate student holding this book to pause and reflect on the diversity contained in our discipline’(p. 85), he writes. Comments like these give the book the feel of an informal kitchen-sink exchange on the politics and dynamics of the political science profession. This is indeed valuable, and at various points in the book the author uses his methodological reflections to make more general statements about the state of the academic ‘guild’(p. 2).