From Walkabout to Meditation: Craft and Ethics in Field Inquiry

• Published in: Qualitative inquiry Vol. 5; no. 1; pp. 47 - 63
• Main Author: Liberman, Kenneth
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Thousand Oaks, CA SAGE Publications 01.03.1999; Sage
• Subjects: Ethical aspects; Ethics; Ethnography; Ethnology; Field work; Fieldwork; Methods and techniques; Qualitative research; Sources and methods; Eastern Asia; Australia; Tibet; China; Oceania; Qualitative research; Fieldwork; Deontology; Competence; Epistemology; Methodology; Social sciences; Tibetan; Collective identity; Individualism; Survey; Aborigine; Researcher subject relation; Know-how
• ISSN: 1077-8004; 1552-7565
• DOI: 10.1177/107780049900500103

Craft and ethics in qualitative field research are vitally related to each other in that the satisfaction of the demands of each is closely dependent on an honest engagement with the local contingencies of fieldwork, which includes a willingness to keep oneself and one’s research agenda open to transformation by these contingencies. Similarly, craft and ethics in fieldwork compel the researcher to provide considerable epistemological space to one’s subjects; when these epistemological obligations are fulfilled, a sound moral relationship with one’s field subjects can develop. Three professional obligations are discussed—an obligation to the integrity of the corporate life of the people one is investigating, to the individual persons one is researching, and to the value of one’s own research. Certain distinguishing features of ethnographic craft are identified.