Dick Hobbs & Richard Wright 
The SAGE Handbook of Fieldwork 

′This is an excellent collection of papers which celebrates the best of traditional approaches to fieldwork, whilst also looking to its future. The
Handbook will quickly become essential reading for the novice and experienced fieldworker across many of the social sciences′ –
Chris Pole, University of Leicester

Fieldwork is widely practiced but little written about, yet accounts of the exotic, mundane, complex and often dangerous are central to not only sociology and anthropology but also geography, social psychology and criminology. In all these – increasingly overlapping – fields, experience underlies any comprehensive understanding of social life.

The SAGE Handbook of Fieldwork presents the first major overview of this method in all its variety, introducing the reader to the strengths, weaknesses, and ′real world′ applications of fieldwork techniques. Its 22 carefully chosen chapters are each based on a substantive field of empirical enquiry, written by an acknowledged expert in the field. The range is impressive: from the traditional to the virtual, concerning subjects as diverse as emotion, sexuality, sport, embodiment, identity, self-narrative, fieldwork in organizations, science and technology.

Specifically intended for use in undergraduate and postgraduate courses in qualitative research design and methodology in sociology, anthropology, criminology, urban studies, social geography, public health and education, the handbook will also prove beneficial to academic researchers in these and other disciplines.

Table of Content

PART ONE: LOCATING FIELDWORK

The Fieldwork Tradition – George J Mc Call

Praxical Reasoning and the Logic of Field Research – Gary Shank

PART TWO: SITUATING FIELDWORK

Jelly′s Place – Elijah Anderson

An Ethnographic Memoir

Your Place or Mine – Michael Stein

The Geography of Social Research

PART THREE: SITUATING THE RESPONDENTS

Fieldwork with the Elite – Mary Dodge and Gilbert Geis

Interviewing White-Collar Criminals

Entering the Field – C H Browner and H Mabel Preloran

Recruiting Latinos for Ethnographic Research

PART FOUR: FIELDWORK AS A REFLEXIVE ENTERPRISE

Self-Narratives and Ethnographic Fieldwork – Ben Crewe and Shadd Maruna

`You Don′t Do Fieldwork, Fieldwork Does You′ – Bob Simpson

Between Subjectivation and Objectivation in Anthropological Fieldwork

PART FIVE: THE FIELD OF EMOTION

Aural Sex – Christine Mattley

The Politics and Moral Dilemmas of Studying the Social Construction of Fantasy

The Case for Dangerous Fieldwork – Bruce Jacobs

PART FIVE: FIELDWORK AND SEXUALITIES

Fieldwork on Urban Male Homosexuality in Mexico – Joseph Carrier

Knowing Sexuality – Chris Haywood and Mairtin Mac an Ghaill

Epistemologies of Research

Researching Sex Work – Teela Sanders

Dynamics, Difficulties and Decisions

PART SEVEN: EMBODIMENT AND IDENTITY

Fieldwork and the Body – Lee F Monaghan

Reflections on an Embodied Ethnography

Sport Ethnography – Susan Brownell

A Personal Account

Hidden Identities and Personal Stories – Jennifer Hargreaves

International Research About Women in Sport

PART EIGHT: FIELDWORK IN ORGANIZATIONS

Policework and Fieldwork – Nigel Fielding

An Ethnographer′s Tale – Robert G Burgess

A Personal View of Educational Ethnogrpahy

PART NINE: FIELDWORK, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Software and Fieldwork – Susanne Friese

Seeking Science in the Field – Steve Fuller

Life Beyond the Laboratory

PART TEN: LOCATING FRESH FIELDS

Postmodern Fieldwork in Health Research – Nick J Fox

Fieldwork in Transition – Peter Kirby Manning

About the author

Richard Wright is Curators′ Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and Editor-in-Chief of Oxford Bibliographies [Criminology]. He has been studying active urban street criminals, especially residential burglars, armed robbers, carjackers, and drug dealers for twenty-plus years. He is the author or co-author of five books and seventy scholarly articles and book chapters, including Armed Robbers in Action and Burglars on the Job, which won the 1994-95 Outstanding Scholarship in Crime and Delinquency Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems. In addition, he has written widely for the popular press, locally, nationally, and internationally. He has appeared on numerous nationally broadcast TV news programs in the US and Great Britain, and he has been interviewed twice on NPR′s Fresh Air with Terry Gross. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Justice, Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, Icelandic Research Council, National Consortium on Violence Research, and Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences.