7 - Surviving fieldwork: Travel and living in the field

Summary

Introduction

Fieldwork usually involves travel, sometimes quite a lot of travel, and often staying in accommodations that are far from ideal. Some might be lucky enough to stay in a pleasant motel or with a nice family, with modern comforts, in or near their field site, maybe even in the fieldworker's own hometown or village or reservation or reserve for those doing fieldwork on their own native or heritage language. For others, especially typical academics, fieldwork usually involves at least some long-distance travel to and from the location of the language that is the object of the fieldwork, and staying in often taxing accommodations. In this chapter the intention is to share some tips for travel and living in the field derived from repeated vexing experiences. I report some coping strategies that come from these personal experiences—many of them learned the hard way—that may be of use to others who do fieldwork, or even for anyone traveling or working in difficult or out-of-the-way places. Of course, not everything reported and suggested here may have any relevance for everyone and it definitely does not work in all situations or locations. Also, sadly, some of what is talked about here may seem just downright unpleasant.

Travel

Travel is often enjoyable and enlightening, but at the same time travel in less developed countries and in remote regions is usually difficult and can be perilous as well. Some of the fieldwork projects I worked on involved lots of local travel—for example, for surveying dialects or seeking possible speakers of languages where it was not known whether any speakers remained or where they might be found if there were any. I have done many kinds of travel for fieldwork, lots and lots of travel actually. I’ve traveled many times by bus, boat, bush plane, car, dugout canoe, horse, mule, and on foot. What follows reflects some of that travel.

Buses

Local buses in Central America and Mexico tend to be Bluebird buses, the same as the school buses seen all over North America. The gear ratio for these buses tends to be set very low in those countries, good for climbing mountains, which are everywhere in Guatemala and abundant in other places there.