Vainio, A. and Pendleton, M. orcid.org/0000-0002-4266-2470 (2023) Fieldwork from home?: Covid-19 and the patchwork future of Japan-based fieldwork pedagogies. Japanese Studies, 43 (3). pp. 251-270. ISSN 1037-1397
Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic, entry to Japan was heavily restricted causing challenges to research and study opportunities. This extended exclusion from Japan has since emphasised questions about the way in which we approach Japanese Studies in the future, and the nature of academic field research more broadly. In this article, we explore these through an innovative digitised ‘field trip from home’ class that we ran for undergraduate students in 2020 as a replacement for in-country fieldwork. Based on these experiences we argue that, while digital approaches are not a replacement for classic field research, digital approaches to scholarship and pedagogy within Japanese studies and related subjects can help to enhance on-site physical field practices and their position in our subjects. We discuss our findings as an example of ‘patchwork ethnography’ through how pandemic-era teaching and research experiences have shone a spotlight on the necessity to rethink the possibilities for classic fieldwork within contemporary academia. As we move beyond the pandemic, we conclude that the future will require both the reopening of borders and the necessary resources to better support the development of both digital and in person fieldwork training.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent. |
Keywords: | fieldwork; patchwork ethnography; digital learning; methods training; Tokyo |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > School of East Asian Studies (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 21 Sep 2023 09:59 |
Last Modified: | 01 Nov 2024 12:16 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Taylor and Francis Group |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/10371397.2023.2267023 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:203496 |