SEPARATING “HOME” FROM THE “FIELD”

Inherent to contemporary understandings of fieldwork in political science—as in other social science disciplines—is a distinction between “here” and “there” or “home” and the “field.” Before the COVID-19 pandemic, scholars regularly conceptualized the field as a physical site requiring travel, at least “beyond our institutions and desks” (Knott Reference Knott2019, 140). Being “in the field” and “getting close” to the people and places we study was argued to yield deep insights about the settings “where the political decisions, events, and dynamics of interest took place” (Kapiszewski, MacLean, and Read Reference Kapiszewski, MacLean and Read2015, 14–15). Our home, conversely, is the place where we live our day-to-day lives prior to and following these visits. Thus, it exists separately from the locations where we collect archival materials, conduct interviews, and engage in ethnographies and participant observations (Wood Reference Wood, Boix and Stokes2007). Stated differently: home is the place where we analyze, write, and disseminate the data that we gather in the field.

Although the use of these categories is not enforced in any way by the broader academic community, the perceived temporal and spatial boundaries between them help to separate our personal and private lives, as well as our physical selves, from our research expectations and obligations, including the contexts, people, and places with whom we communicate, write, and study. Social scientists have, therefore, regularly found ways to separate our fields from our homes while conducting in-person field research. For instance, we often use proxy interviewing or hire local enumerators when collecting data on sensitive topics, in dynamic research settings, and in situations wherein our positionalities may impact our access to sites and participants, thereby influencing the quality of our data (Cammett Reference Cammett and Mosley2019). To uphold the home–field dichotomy when we are embedded physically in our field sites, it also is often suggested that we find “a balance of personal needs with research demands,” such as by scheduling calls to our families and institutional collaborators or taking personal time through exercising, eating well, and outdoor activities (Loyle and Simoni Reference Loyle and Simoni2017, 143). These efforts help to create mental and emotional distance from the people and topics that we study, ostensibly rendering our research more objective and divorced from our personal views and subjective interpretations. Establishing a boundary between our home and field likewise helps us to align our work with the philosophy of science and best practices in the social sciences more broadly (King, Keohane, and Verba Reference King, Keohane and Verba1994).Footnote ²

The reality, however, is that our homes and fields have never been entirely separate categories. Because the inspiration for much of our research comes from our personal experiences, identities, and/or cultural and ancestral linkages, we frequently conduct research on (and in) our own communities, home countries, and other places with which we have prior experiences or personal connections (e.g., Howlett Reference Howlett, Alyangula, Edwards and Howlett2022a; Kamarauskaitė Reference Kamarauskaitė, Dall’Agnola, Edwards and Howlett2022). Some research projects are also only possible because scholars have preexisting ties to certain communities and, therefore, already have access and/or a high level of trust and rapport. This is especially true for ethnographic and participant observation work about sensitive or politicized topics and projects involving underrepresented, marginalized, or minority groups. In these situations, it can be extremely difficult for researchers to enforce physical and emotional distance from the topics and societies that they study or to separate their homes and fields due to the muddling of their multiple responsibilities, roles, and identities. This is further complicated by the fact that there is no distinguishable or deliberate “leaving” and “returning” home or “entering” and “exiting” the field before and after data collection (Till Reference Till2001).

The increasing use of digital platforms and telecommunication software for data collection has equally blurred and challenged the assumed home–field dichotomy by facilitating our access to distant and disparate populations and contexts without requiring travel (Hine Reference Hine2000, Reference Hine2015; Pink Reference Pink2013; Pink et al. Reference Pink, Horst, Postill, Hjorth, Lewis and Tacchi2016; Postill Reference Postill, Hjorth, Horst, Galloway and Bell2017). This includes opening new research sites, societies, behaviors, and identities in online communities (Nast Reference Nast1994), as well as enabling the spaces where much of our lives are now lived (Howlett Reference Howlett2022b) and where we regularly show unfettered versions of our “true selves” (O’Connor and Madge Reference O’Connor, Madge, Fielding, Lee and Blank2017; Sullivan Reference Sullivan2012). Whereas research involving in-person interactions in a “field site” for a long time has been viewed as the “gold standard” (Hine Reference Hine2005) and integrally more serious, rigorous, respectable, and meaningful than digital approaches (Deakin and Wakefield Reference Deakin and Wakefield2014), remote and online methods have been accepted and used at unprecedented rates since 2020. Scholars now routinely rely on digital repositories and observe and engage with online communities through audio, visual, and textual platforms including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok (Krause et al. Reference Krause, Szekely, Bloom, Christia, Daly, Lawson, Marks, Milliff, Miura, Nielsen, Reno, Souleimanov and Zakayo2021; MacLean et al. Reference MacLean, Turner, Rahman and Corbett2020; Nguyen et al. Reference Nguyen, Scheyvens, Beban and Gardyne2022). As a cost-saving measure and for ease of access, interviews and focus groups are also now regularly conducted on communicative platforms such as Zoom, WhatsApp, and Microsoft Teams (Colom Reference Colom2022; Gibson Reference Gibson2020; Howlett Reference Howlett2022b; Marzi Reference Marzi2023). By enabling instantaneous access to and communication with our participants and research sites, digital research thus replicates in-person approaches and provides a feeling of close spatial and temporal proximity similar to face-to-face engagements (Hine Reference Hine2000).

However, these methods change how we interact with our homes and fields. Although remote and online methods open up new opportunities for research—including both novel topics and methodological innovations—by enabling access to our fields from our homes, they fundamentally obfuscate the distinction between and the ways that we understand these sites. In many ways, our fields are brought into our homes and our homes become part of our fields. The blurred line between these spaces in digital research inherently presents new challenges for researchers’ professional boundaries that are not observed in offline research and have been largely overlooked in discussions about field research in political science. As remote and online tools continue to be and, in fact, are used increasingly in political science, we argue that there is an urgent need to critically evaluate the implications of these overlapping sites in digital research. The remainder of this article accordingly presents this important discussion for the discipline of political science.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN OUR “HOMES” AND “FIELDS” OVERLAP?

As research has progressively entered the confines of our “everyday lives” with our expanding use of technology, it has proven increasingly more difficult to separate our homes from our field sites. Pink (Reference Pink and Amit1999, 114) demonstrates this using the example of email, explaining that scholars must adapt to and switch between different roles when they conduct research remotely due to the “intermingling of fieldwork among other emails” that they send and receive. When exploring the proximity and distance (both physical and metaphorical) with the people and sites that we study when using online and digital tools, Bengtsson (Reference Bengtsson2014, 872) similarly argues that our workspaces (whether our personal residences or home institutions) inevitably—and sometimes even unintentionally—become part of our research environments because we are required to “adjust to two different rhythms at the same time.” As the structural frames of our personal lives come to “coexist with the frames of the culture [or societies] we strive to understand,” we effectively create new research spaces as we “leave without leaving” our home environments—a phenomenon that is akin to “travelling to, but not from” (Bengtsson Reference Bengtsson2014, 872). The distortion of our private/personal and work/research boundaries, as well as domestic/international distinctions, when conducting fieldwork from our personal dwellings and institutions ultimately fuses our homes and fields into ambiguous gray areas.

The erasure of the spatial, temporal, and even emotional distinctions between our homes and fields when using digital methods can be immensely challenging and risk-laden for scholars. Similar to researchers who investigate their homes or other familiar places as their field sites, anyone accessing their field remotely from their home may struggle to disengage from their project when they are not actively collecting data, such as at the end of their workdays and during holiday periods (Knowles Reference Knowles and Amit2003; Loyle and Simoni Reference Loyle and Simoni2017). Although the field may sometimes be a social media platform or forum that researchers do not use regularly in their personal lives, in effect creating distance between their home and the field, scholars often use the same apps for research as in their personal lives, including Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, and WeChat. Some may have separate accounts for professional purposes; however, many leverage their personal credentials and telephone numbers to gain access to and build rapport with the communities they study, thereby blending their private lives with research tasks (Howlett Reference Howlett2022b). Researchers’ ongoing efforts to separate their homes and fields in ways that respect their personal and professional boundaries may consequently prompt different stressors and, arguably, even cause greater stress than what they otherwise might face if they conducted the same studies in person.Footnote ³ In addition to obfuscating these already less-than-clear private–professional boundaries, using personal accounts for research can lead to increased risks of cyberharassment and stalking, especially for researchers from sexual and gender minority populations (Powell, Scott, and Henry Reference Powell, Scott and Henry2020; Sammut, Bezzina, and Scerri Reference Sammut, Bezzina and Scerri2023).

The overlap of researchers’ homes and fields in digital research equally can pose issues for ensuring objectivity and impartiality. Whereas most qualitative scholars understand the importance of reflexivity and explicitly acknowledging intersubjectivity throughout the research process, the weakening of the mental and emotional separations between our personal and work lives when researching remotely can make it difficult to always act objectively and unbiasedly. Our ability to “see” our research sites in ways that we otherwise may overlook or be unable to access using in-person methods can be advantageous for our projects (Howlett Reference Howlett2022b), but it also can change our interactions with our participants and make it more challenging to remove our personal views, subjective interpretations, and emotions from our studies. This is especially true when scholars can see and engage with their participants’ homes and, likewise, when participants can see and engage with theirs. Even in situations where scholars are reflexive and open to changing their views when new information is presented, the process of self-reflection rarely follows a linear and unproblematic path due to the unequal power distributions within research settings (Bilgen and Fábos Reference Bilgen and Fábos2024). Whereas acknowledging the overlapping reality of our homes and fields is indeed a corrective move toward building knowledge “without compromising research quality, ethics, and integrity” (Bilgen and Fábos Reference Bilgen and Fábos2024, 950), it nevertheless requires a shift in conceptualizing “‘objectivity” that has not yet been observed within political science. Thus, the merging of our homes and fields when researching remotely may not only create challenges for removing ourselves from our studies but also for aligning our work with long-standing disciplinary standards around “impartiality” and “objectivity” (King, Keohane, and Verba Reference King, Keohane and Verba1994).

Similar to in-person fieldwork, remote research can also have a significant impact on the emotional and mental health of researchers, even when efforts are made to mitigate possible harms. This includes the same risks associated with in-person field research, such as intense feelings of isolation, loneliness, and even depression, especially for scholars working in remote, dangerous, and dynamic environments (Hummel and El Kurd Reference Hummel and El Kurd2021). Unpredictable harms also may emerge during digital research, just as during in-person field research or after we have physically left our field sites (Knott Reference Knott2019). For example, digital researchers may encounter distressing images and testimonies when accessing online archives or be told disturbing stories by interlocutors during remote interviews and focus groups. Although the fears of scholars (and their institutions) about physical safety during in-person fieldwork certainly may be alleviated when data are collected online, these conversations and observations may be equally emotionally and psychologically harmful for researchers. Junior faculty, early-career scholars, and graduate students are particularly at risk because they are often in precarious jobs, face immense pressure for research and publication, have limited financial resources, and are less experienced than their more-senior colleagues in finding helpful and proactive techniques to separate their personal and work lives. This was shown by Almasri, Read, and Vandeweerdt (Reference Almasri, Read and Vandeweerdt2022), who outlined how the already endemic feelings of isolation and depression experienced by doctoral students in political science worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Digital researchers working on or with sensitive topics and contexts especially face heightened risks of emotional and psychological harm. This is because the possibility that (un)foreseeable forms and degrees of harm will be extended into their home and those of their participants, assistants, and gatekeepers increases when research is conducted remotely. Prior work reveals that secondary traumatic stress and burnout are highly prevalent among social scientists working in politically dynamic and trauma-exposed settings (Whitt-Woosley and Sprang Reference Whitt-Woosley and Sprang2017) due to “the stress connected with constant concerns about safety” (Reno Reference Reno and Mosley2013, 175). The merging of scholars’ homes and fields when conducting digital research therefore risks exacerbating this stress by bringing work-related security concerns into their private spaces, where they otherwise would feel comfortable and safe.

Although supports, theoretically, are already in place when scholars conduct research from their homes—such as having friends, family, colleagues, and institutions nearby—they evidently do not protect against all possible tribulations. Field guides regularly advise researchers to foster institutional connections, engage with local researchers, and proactively seek mental health supports when possible to overcome potential mental health concerns when collecting data (e.g., Dall’Agnola, Edwards, and Howlett Reference Dall’Agnola, Edwards and Howlett2022; Kapiszewski, MacLean, and Read Reference Kapiszewski, MacLean and Read2015; Krause and Szekely Reference Krause and Szekely2020; The Fieldwork Initiative 2020). However, few, if any, comparable guides have been written solely for remote and online fieldwork. Regular mental health support services and trauma-informed research training for researchers who are working fully remotely are also rare and often not covered by fieldwork grants or institutional sources. Thus, greater attention must be given to the mental health challenges that can arise when research is conducted remotely. It likewise is paramount that scholars transparently evaluate the real trade-offs of relying on digital rather than offline approaches, as well as acknowledge the personal and professional risks associated with both. Failing to do so normalizes the overlap of our homes and fields—and the blurring of our personal and professional lives—which risks causing harm not only to ourselves but also to our participants and the societies that we study. Even more, it jeopardizes the conduct of rigorous, transparent, and ethical empirical research.

FINAL TAKEAWAYS

Whereas remote and online methods were once perceived as less valuable than in-person approaches because the so-called interesting “stuff” worthy of study cannot be gathered or observed “in context” (Deakin and Wakefield Reference Deakin and Wakefield2014; Kapiszewski, MacLean, and Read Reference Kapiszewski, MacLean and Read2015), they have become increasingly robust options for political science research. The practical and ideological reasons for using remote and online methods for research have been especially observed since the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital research has proven advantageous for individuals who are unable to spend long periods away from home due to financial constraints, illness or physical health concerns, and family and care responsibilities.Footnote ⁴ The academy’s carbon footprint is also reduced when we work remotely, which can aid in overcoming our environmental and ecological dilemmas of traveling for fieldwork and conferences (Colom Reference Colom2022; Deakin and Wakefield Reference Deakin and Wakefield2014). Using digital tools for data collection likewise can prompt new collaborations between institutions and scholars (e.g., coauthorships and research assistantships), which otherwise may not be possible. This encourages more inclusive and participatory research (Ansoms et al. Reference Ansoms, Bashizi, Amani, Akilimali, Matabaro, Bushenyula, Mutabesha, Nabintu, Ndayikengurutse, Nsabimana and Polepole2024; Colom Reference Colom2022; Marzi Reference Marzi2023) and helps to flatten the asymmetrical power relationships between researchers and participants and in the academy more generally (Bilgen and Fábos Reference Bilgen and Fábos2024; Gibson Reference Gibson2020). Given their proven usefulness and convenience thus far, it is also likely that remote and online tools will be used for even more political science research, dissemination, and teaching going forward.

Still, remote and online approaches inherently challenge the underlying premises about what, who, and where we study (Beaulieu Reference Beaulieu2010; Hine Reference Hine2015; Jowett, Peel, and Shaw Reference Jowett, Peel and Shaw2011). In addition to broadening political scientists’ methodological approaches to research, they fundamentally blur the boundaries between our homes and fields. Yet, in doing so, these methods also highlight that these categories are not as temporally, spatially, or emotionally separate as they often are framed. Rather, they are largely unstable academic constructions (Till Reference Till2001) that have never been truly distinct (Knott Reference Knott2019). This is simply because it is the same person (i.e., the researcher) who occupies both spaces. Thus, researchers always bring aspects of their homes, including their insight, ideas, and subjectivities, into their fields and take elements of their fields back to their homes, such as memories, photographs, and souvenirs. The act of writing, analyzing, and disseminating data collected in the field—regardless of whether the field is located online or offline—from and in our homes also inherently connects these sites. As such, both our homes and fields play important roles in our data collection, analyses, and ultimately the production of knowledge.

Because it is unlikely that we will be able to fully disentangle or create space between our homes and fields as technology becomes progressively more integrated into our personal and professional lives, if it ever was possible, we argue that it is critical for political scientists to seriously account for the muddling of these categories in our research. Indeed, completely disregarding the terms “field” and “home” at first may appear an attractive solution. However, some empirical projects will always have distinct sites because they require data to be collected offline and researchers to travel to other cities or countries to conduct in-person interviews or archival work. As technology develops, scholars will also continue to find innovative and creative ways to combine digital and in-person approaches, thereby blurring our fields and homes even further. Replacing these labels is neither an effective nor practical way forward as ensuring some type of distinction between the here and there—regardless of what we call these sites—ultimately aids us in establishing a healthy boundary between our personal and research lives, mitigating risk and harm to ourselves and our participants, and protecting our mental health. This is important not only for producing high-quality research but also for promoting a culture of work–life balance in our profession.

We thus contend that the discipline of political science must more clearly acknowledge that the home–field dichotomy provides an “ideal” model for researchers—and for the academy more generally—to spatially, temporally, and emotionally separate our personal and professional lives. Nevertheless, like all archetypes, it is difficult to apply this in practice in the real world. This indeed is true for in-person research, but it has become much more evident as the distinction between these sites is blurred with the increasing use of remote and online methods. Rather than applying these labels equally to all projects in all times and places, we must critically consider how our homes and fields interact and overlap in, and are both affected by and influence, different empirical investigations, regardless of the methods that we use. By doing so, we can better recognize the implications of these sites for our interactions with the people and societies that we study, ourselves and our professional boundaries, and ultimately our research and the knowledge we produce. This will ensure that our research enables a divide between our personal and professional lives, mitigates risks to ourselves and all of our research stakeholders, and safeguards our mental health. Acknowledging the (dis)entanglement of our homes and fields in political science investigations also supports rigorous, transparent, and ethical data collection, analyses, and dissemination. It therefore is a critical and necessary goal for the future of the discipline.