Writing negotiations: Collaborative field note-taking during global environmental meetings

Abstract

Participant observation and collaborative field note-taking are increasingly being used to study global environmental meetings. However, taking field notes in these complex and dynamic settings is challenging. This is illustrated by multilateral negotiations towards an ocean protection treaty that involved many state and nonstate actors both in-person at the United Nations Headquarters and online. We developed and used a fieldnote-taking method and tool supporting team research and systematic participant observation to track 5 years of negotiations that resulted in a marine biodiversity agreement. Our tool supports researchers to collect data systematically and collectively while allowing individual interpretations or styles of recording field notes. Hence our field note-taking practice constitutes a key methodological innovation for negotiation scholars, although with some epistemological, practical, and ethical limitations.