Fieldwork Experiences:
Exploring Challenges and Constructing Self-Fortitude
The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people. (Randy Pausch, Last Lecture, 2008).
Introduction
Ethnographic? Fieldwork? I heard those two words during my first semester of my enrolment in this university from my senior back in 2012. I had no ideas at all what does it indicates and to be franked I do not even “register” those two words in my mind. During my lecture session with Dr. Siti Elizad, she explained thoroughly and comprehensively on conducting fieldwork and all its components. This includes the preparation prior to conduct fieldwork physically, mentally,
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What are the methods or tools for ethnography? How long to stay in one particular place? What is the reason to conduct ethnography in which apparently it consumes lots of time? Further literature reveal that basically “ethnography is a research process based on fieldwork using a variety of research techniques (observation, interview, collection of objects & artefacts) which includes engagement in the lives of those being studied over an extended period of time. The eventual written product ethnography – draws its data primarily from this fieldwork experience and usually emphasises descriptive detail as a result” (Davis, 1999). Based on the literature that I had found, I met Dr Siti Elizad once again for further clarification. According to her, there are three major modes in ethnography. They are observation, interviewing and archival research (Angrosino, 2007). Now, the explanations by my lecturer had been cleared the cloud. Despite all this, I decided to leave aside my interest on fieldwork and ethnography for a