Doing Fieldwork in China

Edited by Maria Heimer and Stig Thogersen

January 2006, 334 pp., 15x23 cm

• First volume in a new series of academic guides to Asian studies.
• Tackles both theoretical debates and practical issues.
• An absolute must for post-graduate students of Chinese studies, and a valuable resource for experienced China scholars.

Doing fieldwork inside the PRC is an eye-opening but sometimes also deeply frustrating experience. Fieldwork-based studies form the foundation for our understanding of Chinese politics and society, but there are conspicuously few detailed descriptions in the China literature of how people actually do their fieldwork, and of the problems they encounter. This lack of public methodological debate not only undermines academic standards of openness: it also stalls constructive discussion on coping strategies to shared problems, and it leaves graduate students going to the field for the first time with a feeling of being the only ones to encounter difficulties. This lack is addressed by Doing Fieldwork in China, in which scholars from around the world reflect on their own fieldwork practice in order to give practical advice and discuss more general theoretical points.