On ‘being there’

Abstract

In his timely article, Silverman discusses the implications of the pandemic for ethnographic research. He refers to Kumar’s comment, that ‘unless one’s ethnography is conducted only in and through the virtual world, much of ethnographic practice still heavily relies on on-the-ground, in-person encounters and observations’. As the pandemic has led to severe restrictions on collective, face-to-face activities, ethnographic researchers have had to adapt to extraordinary circumstances which have shaped their research, their field and their work environment. Silverman’s article is particularly interesting in the questions it asks about ‘being present’ in research. Silverman suggests that when faced with barriers to access, such as is the case in the pandemic, the researcher might consider alternative methods or resources. This was the position he found himself in many years ago, when he accessed recordings of clinical consultations for his HIV counselling research, in place of witnessing the consultations himself. Silverman reminds us to be reflexive and flexible about what we consider to be the nature and location of our field. With the increasing move online, he points us to Katarina Jacobsson, who suggests that we do not need to distinguish between ‘being there’ and ‘virtual’ data; instead, we should ‘follow research participants where they go’. Ethnographic research and conferences