| Abstract [eng] |
Accordingly, controllable and uncontrollable factors interact with the expectations of research subjects to create a particular image of the scientist. A dedicated role is fairly quickly assigned to the researcher, but it may be transformed in the course of the fieldwork. As each given role allows for a specific amount of social power, and the researcher’s power translates into freedom of inquiry, the fieldworker’s scientific endeavour is enhanced by attainment of powerful roles and limited by reception of powerless roles. Although the former statement has become fieldworkers’ common sense, a mere recognition of the fact does not suffice. In order to thoughtfully and efficiently handle the research process, fieldworkers need to delve deeply into the everyday interaction among their social roles, psychological characteristics, subjects’ expectations and dispositions about them and their research. Scientists must also evaluate their level of coping with all the tasks and how it advances or hinders data collection. It is clearly evident that knowledge about social life, as generated during fieldwork, has little to do with the controlled setting of a lab. Its life-like character is marked with intimate, long-term, complicated, and multidimensional relationship between the research parties. Hence, it is important to register not only the flow of events in the field that are external to the researcher, but also his or her inner processes and to treat them as a product of multifaceted interaction between the fieldworker and natives of the field. It is quite apparent that because of a multitude of reciprocal effects between ethnographers and the field, researchers cannot be regarded as infallible and objective means of research. Henceforth, regular efforts by the researcher to analyse this complicated relationship from one’s point of view are mandatory. These efforts might provide a fruitful insight into research development and data interpretation... |
