Setting the Table: A Bahá’i geographer reflects on faith, fieldwork, and farmworkers

Abstract:For my PhD dissertation, I surveyed agricultural guestworkers, also known as H-2A workers, in Ohio. In the summer of 2022, a research assistant and I drove around Ohio, knocking on doors and surveying the people who agreed to participate. In the end, we drove over 10,000 miles and spoke with 285 male, Spanish-speaking H-2A workers throughout the state. My larger project was focused on gathering demographic data and learning more about the men’s working and living experiences in Ohio. The results of the study have been published elsewhere. This is a personal essay recounting some of my experiences in the field and reflecting on the dialectical relationship between my identity as a Bahá’i and the fieldwork experience. Specifically, I reflect on how my faith informed my approach to fieldwork and how the Bahá’i concept of the oneness of humanity helps me connect with, or at least more clearly see, the “Other.”