Development Fieldwork

This book provides an invaluable guide to undertaking development fieldwork in both the developing world and in western contexts. It takes you through all the key stages in development research and covers: Research design and the roles of quantitative and qualitative methods. Research using archival, textual and virtual data, along with using the internet ethically. Practical as well as personal issues, including funding, permissions, motivation and attitude. Culture shock, ethical considerations and working with marginalized, vulnerable or privileged groups, from indigenous peoples through to elites and corporations. How to write up your findings. Sensitive, engaging and accessible in tone, the text is rich in learning features; from boxed examples to bullet-pointed summaries and questions for reflection. Development Fieldwork is the perfect companion for students engaged in research across development studies, geography, social anthropology or public policy.

Regina Scheyvens and Donovan Storey draw upon a rich and diverse set of fieldwork experiences across the developing world, in both rural and urban settings, and utilize case studies to illustrate the many common issues and challenges that both new and experienced fieldwork researchers will face.

Research and Fieldwork in Development explores both traditional and cutting edge research methods, from interviews and ethnography to spatial data and digital methods. Each chapter provides the reader with an understanding of the theoretical basis of research methods, reflects upon their practice and outlines appropriate analysis techniques. The text also provides a cutting edge focus on the role of new media and technologies in conducting research. The final chapters return to a set of broader concerns in development research, providing a new and dynamic set of engagements with ethics and risk in fieldwork, integrating methods and engaging development research methods with knowledge exchange practices. Each chapter is supported by several case studies written by global experts within the field, documenting encounters and experiences and linking theory to practice. Each chapter is also complimented by an end of chapter summary, suggestions for further reading and websites, and questions for further reflection and practice. The text critically locates development research within the field of international development to give an accessible and comprehensive introduction to development research methods. This book provides an invaluable overview to the practice of international development research and serves as an essential resource for undergraduate and postgraduate student embarking of development fieldwork. It is supported by online resources including extended bibliographies for each chapter, example risk and ethic forms, example policy briefing notes, research reports, links to websites and data sources.

Research and Fieldwork in Development explores both traditional and cutting edge research methods, from interviews and ethnography to spatial data and digital methods. Each chapter provides the reader with an understanding of the theoretical basis of research methods, reflects upon their practice and outlines appropriate analysis techniques. The text also provides a cutting edge focus on the role of new media and technologies in conducting research. The final chapters return to a set of broader concerns in development research, providing a new and dynamic set of engagements with ethics and risk in fieldwork, integrating methods and engaging development research methods with knowledge exchange practices. Each chapter is supported by several case studies written by global experts within the field, documenting encounters and experiences and linking theory to practice. Each chapter is also complimented by an end of chapter summary, suggestions for further reading and websites, and questions for further reflection and practice. The text critically locates development research within the field of international development to give an accessible and comprehensive introduction to development research methods. This book provides an invaluable overview to the practice of international development research and serves as an essential resource for undergraduate and postgraduate student embarking of development fieldwork. It is supported by online resources including extended bibliographies for each chapter, example risk and ethic forms, example policy briefing notes, research reports, links to websites and data sources.

Development and aid projects often fail to improve technological capacity. Their reform has been a widely acknowledged challenge for three decades. This book demonstrates theoretically and empirically how aid practitioners shape the organizational, social and inter-cultural dynamics of development projects in industry.

Regina Scheyvens and Donovan Storey draw upon a rich and diverse set of fieldwork experiences across the developing world, in both rural and urban settings, and utilize case studies to illustrate the many common issues and challenges that both new and experienced fieldwork researchers will face.

Social media users fracture into tribes, but social media ecosystems are globally interconnected technically, socially, culturally, and economically. At the crossroads, Huatong Sun, author of Cross-Cultural Technology Design, presents theory, method, and case studies to uncover the global interconnectedness of social media design and reorient universal design standards. Centering on the dynamics between structure and agency, Sun draws on practice theories and transnational fieldwork and articulates a critical design approach. The "CLUE2 (CLUE squared)" framework extends from situated activity to social practice, and connects macro institutions with micro interactions to redress asymmetrical relations in everyday life. Why were Japanese users not crazed about Facebook? Would Twitter have had been more successful than its copycat Weibo in China if not banned? How did mobilities and value propositions play out in the competition of WhatsApp, WeChat, LINE, and KakaoTalk for global growth? Illustrating the cultural entanglement with a relational view of design, Sun provides three provocative accounts of cross-cultural social media design and use. Concepts such as affordance, genre, and uptake are demonstrated as design tools to bind the material with the discursive and leap from the critical to the generative for culturally sustaining design. Sun calls to reshape the crossroads into a design square where differences are nourished as design resources, where diverse discourses interact for innovation, and where alternative design epistemes thrive from the local. This timely book will appeal to researchers, students, and practitioners who design across disciplines, paradigms, and boundaries to bridge differences in this increasingly globalized world.