LOVA Study Day 2021b – Harassment in the Field

Harassment in the field 

Reflections on safety and vulnerability during fieldwork 

 

Invitation for a webinar on 27 and 28 May 2021

LOVA’s Working Group Safety in the Field is inviting you for a two-part non-prep webinar to reflect on the impact of (sexual) harassment and intimidation in the field, both for us as ethnographers and for the practice of ethnography. 

 

During our first webinar in June 2020, we opened up the discussion around the structural issues that prevent researchers to be better prepared, and better cared for on their return. In this follow-up a webinar, we invite participants to reflect and discuss questions such as: 

  • How do we balance the personal and the professional in the field? 
  • How do our ideas about ‘ethnographers’ compare with our own field experiences? 
  • How does the way we think about ‘ethnography’ affect our safety in the field, as well as the way we construct ethnographic knowledge? 

 

The first session will start with a keynote by dr. Mindi Schneider has written on the sexual politics of doing fieldwork, followed by an interactive workshop to discuss and reflect upon our understanding of ‘ethnography’ and ‘the ethnographer’, as well as the way we navigate personal and professional boundaries in the field. In the second session, we will focus more specifically on digital and remote ethnography, since many of us currently conduct this type of fieldwork due to the corona pandemic. How do we protect our personal and professional boundaries in online settings? How do we deal with online harassment and intimidation? What differences and similarities are there between our safety as online and offline ethnographers? 

 

Session 1 – Thursday, May 27, 2021, 14.00 – 17.00 hrs 

14.00-14.15 hrs Plenary introduction by Janne Heederik (Radboud University) and Lise Zurné (Erasmus University)

14.15-15.00 hrs Keynote by dr. Mindi Schneider (Wageningen University)

15.15-17.00 hrs Interactive workshop facilitated by dr. Norah Karrouche (VU University), Loes Oudenhuijsen (Leiden University), and dr. Karin Willemse (Erasmus University)

 

Session 2  – Friday, May 28, 2021, 15.00-16.30 hrs

15.00-15.15 hrs Plenary introduction 

15.15-16.30 hrs Interactive workshop on remote and digital ethnography with presentations by dr. Sonja Marzi (London School of Economics and Political Science) and Laura Thurmann (University of Manchester)

 

Both parts of the non-prep webinar are free to attend. You can sign up at safety@lova.network until May 20, 2021. Please include your name, a short (2-3 sentences) motivation, and whether you would like to attend session 1, session 2, or both. Once you sign up, you will receive an entrance link via email. As a follow-up to the webinar LOVA Journal will publish a special issue on harassment in the field in December 2021. We invite all participants to submit a contribution.