Research and access to (re)sources and fieldwork in time of crisis

Abstract der Sitzung

In the light of the Covid-19 pandemic, researchers have encountered numerous difficulties in terms of access to (re)sources in and for their fieldwork. The immobilisation caused by the coercive measures of containment and the closure of borders, and more broadly all the injunctions to ‘distance’ put in place in order to limit interaction and travel, forced researchers to adapt and develop new strategies for investigation and research. This moment has contributed to an increased awareness of the need to adapt in a crisis context and has put into perspective the ways of doing things in the field. In fact, the problem of accessibility to (re)sources is a common denominator of fieldwork in times of crisis: this concerns both access to territories in conflict (Afghanistan, Haïti, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukrainia, Venezuela, the Sinai, Yemen, etc.) and the possibility of carrying out surveys among certain populations (persecuted, irregularised, fragmented, conscripted, silenced or invisibilised transnational communities). Moreover, we can also observe externalised conflicts, making it difficult to survey transnational communities in times of civil war (Rouland and Jarraya, 2019).

This session aims to explore the many difficulties of accessing sources and fields and to question the way in which researchers circumvent these obstacles by taking ‘chemins de traverse’ (side roads). This reflection is inspired by Michel de Certeau’s distinction between strategy and tactics: the former is similar to a calculation of power relations, an overhanging cartography of the situation, while the latter is elaborated ‘in situation’, through practice and experience (De Certeau, 1980). It is the articulation of these two levels of action that guides the research work in a perpetual tinkering between methodological orientations and inscriptions in identified disciplinary fields and the reality of the field and the sources. Difficulties in accessing sources and certain places of territories refers primarily to the case of conflict zones which are and therefore dangerous and difficult to access. However, it is also a question of taking into account the apparent absence of sources and access to the words of the actors. The challenge is then to read the blanks, the silences and the absences and to put in place other readings that are interested in the traces and the hollows. These side roads that researchers take in the face of difficulties are thus tactics used to get around the obstacles. This session will focus on analysing the inventiveness of research in the implementation of “messy fixes” and the combination of creativity with scientific and methodological rigour.

The session is open to all proposals of contributions interested in the issue of access to (re)sources in times of crisis: e.g. the Covid crisis and online fieldwork; Investigating territories in conflict; Reading the ‘blanks’ in the archives: circumventing obstacles and silences; The ‘biases’ of fieldwork; Etc.