Fieldwork: Time, Fidelity and the Ethnographic Method in Religious Studies

Abstract

Fieldwork, a term frequently employed in religious studies to describe qualitative research with contemporary subjects in their own milieu, is a concept inextricably linked with the ethnographic project. Anthropologists have for years challenged and pushed the limits of what fieldwork is, where fieldwork takes place, and how fieldwork is conducted by asking productive questions about where exactly “the field” is located and what precisely constitutes “the work”. In religious studies, debates about ethnographic fieldwork, per se, are less advanced. Traditional notions of fieldwork in anthropology assume long-term engagement with folk and their communities. This often means living and working with research subjects for years, even decades. A critical reflection on the method and idea of fieldwork in religious studies brings to the fore important issues of legitimacy, accuracy and comprehensiveness in the study of “lived religion” and raises anew enduring questions about the ethics of ethnography when time, access and intimacy are evershifting and precarious.