Ora Szekely’s research while affiliated with Clark University and other places

We talk to political scientists about what field research looks like on the ground. In each episode, we bring on expert guests to discuss different ethical and logistical aspects of the field research process, based on the book we co-edited with the same title: Stories From the Field: A Guide to Navigating Fieldwork in Political Science (Columbia University Press, 2020). Check out our growing list of episodes... 1. Introduction: Welcome to Stories from the Field 2. Developing Local Knowledge with Christina Greer, Wendy Pearlman, and Paul Stanilan‪d‬ 3. The Ethics of Field Research with Erica Chenoweth and Zachariah Mampilly 4. Positionality, Emotions, and Research in the Middle East with Carla Abdo-Katsipis, Nadya Hajj, and Ian Lustick 5. Creatively Collecting Information with John McCauley, Rich Nielsen, and Lindsey O'Rourke 6. Conducting Research Amidst Conflict with Zoe Marks and Will Reno 7. Field Surveys and Experiments with Matthew Cancian, Kristin Fabbe, and Kristin Michelitch

This reflection article presents insights on conducting fieldwork during and after COVID-19 from a diverse collection of political scientists—from department heads to graduate students based at public and private universities in the United States and abroad. Many of them contributed to a newly published volume, Stories from the Field: A Guide to Navigating Fieldwork in Political Science (Krause and Szekely 2020). As in the book, these contributors draw on their years of experience in the field to identify the unique ethical and logistical challenges posed by COVID-19 and offer suggestions for how to adjust and continue research in the face of the pandemic's disruptions. Key themes include how contingency planning must now be a central part of our research designs; how cyberspace has increasingly become “the field” for the time being; and how scholars can build lasting, mutually beneficial partnerships with “field citizens,” now and in the future.

What do you do if you get stuck in an elevator in Mogadishu? How worried should you be about being followed after an interview with a ring of human traffickers in Lebanon? What happens to your research if you get placed on a government watchlist? And what if you find yourself feeling like you just aren't cut out for fieldwork? Stories from the Field is a relatable, thoughtful, and unorthodox guide to field research in political science. It features personal stories from working political scientists: some funny, some dramatic, all fascinating and informative. Political scientists from a diverse range of biographical and academic backgrounds describe research in North and South America, Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, ranging from archival work to interviews with combatants. In sharing their stories, the book's forty-four contributors provide accessible illustrations of key concepts, including specific research methods like conducting surveys and interviews, practical questions of health and safety, and general principles such as the importance of flexibility, creativity, and interpersonal connections. The contributors reflect not only on their own experiences but also on larger questions about research ethics, responsibility, and the effects of their personal and professional identities on their fieldwork. Stories from the Field is an essential resource for graduate and advanced undergraduate students learning about field research methods, as well as established scholars contemplating new journeys into the field.

The PKK’s gender policy, which includes maintaining a fighting force that is 40% female and the promotion of women’s liberation as a key component of its political platform, makes the PKK an outlier among both Kurdish nationalist groups and leftist armed movements in the Middle East. Based on interviews with members of the PKK’s allied civilian political movement and former PKK combatants, this paper argues that rather than being a function of the PKK’s ethnic or ideological identities, this policy emerged as a result of a confluence of four other factors: the PKK’s leftist ideology, the preferences of its leadership, and the need to recruit selectively all served as permissive factors. Ultimately, however, it was the greater participation of Kurdish women as a result of Turkish state violence in the Kurdish southeast in the 1980s that ultimately changed the PKK from within.