What My Roles Are? Relationships in the Field Research.
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2013 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Religious studies fieldwork focused on new religious movements may bring double trouble: the researcher is trying both to keep the bounds with the group tight and not lose the connections with the academic background at the same time. The need of keeping balance and symmetry in the relationships with group members requires understanding the new world that he/she is going to enter. However, the tendency to understand “the other” is not a one-way process and the members are trying to classify the researcher in their own meaning system with the same intensity. The researcher may be offered with the roles and activities that he/she didn’t expected when being “safe at the university”. In my paper I argue that the different discourses of researcher and the group may bring tensions and even conflicts, including negotiation the purpose of the science and practical use of its results. Reflecting backwards my own experiences with the Czech, Slovak and American branches of Unification Church, I would like to propose a possible solution to the discomfort situations in the field. The careful strategy of role playing may both bring comfort to the researcher and the studied objects as well as provide valuable answers to the research questions. |
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