Addressing the new agenda for fieldwork in higher education

Abstract

Recent changes in higher education in the UK effectively make the traditional mode of fieldwork delivery unsustainable. This, coupled with criticisms of past fieldwork practices, suggests the need for a thorough re‐evaluation of the role and delivery of fieldwork programmes in contemporary higher education. A prudent place to start addressing this new agenda is an evaluation of some basic educational theory and the objectives of fieldwork. From such basic considerations, some of the contemporary problems with teaching fieldwork can be more effectively tackled and strategies for designing field exercises devised.     

Improving the preparation for fieldwork with ‘IT’: Two examples from physical geography

Abstract

Two potential roles for information technology (IT) to enhance the preparation phase for fieldwork are investigated. In the first initiative, a prototype geographical information system (GIS) is developed to support local fieldwork activity. The second initiative develops computer‐based briefing tutorials to prepare students for residential field classes. By enhancing the preparatory phase of fieldwork, students are more quickly acclimatised once they arrive at the field site, they are better able to focus on the key issues, and valuable time in the field can be utilised more effectively.     

'Geographical Expeditions': Assessing the benefits of a student-driven fieldwork method

A student-driven fieldwork method, focused in a local metropolitan area, is described and assessed. Developed for a second-level course in cultural geography, it was inspired by the 'Geographical Expeditions' originally devised by William Bunge in the 1960s. It is one solution to maintaining fieldwork in the syllabus for a large class, at the same time as providing benefits for participants in terms of challenge and autonomy. Student responses are compared with the merits of fieldwork as claimed in the literature. In view of concerns expressed about increasing student 'disengagement' from commitment to university study, active participation in a 'Geographical Expedition' is a strong motivating factor.     

Student Perceptions of Geography and Environmental Science Fieldwork in the Light of Restricted Access to the Field,Caused by Foot and Mouth Disease in the UK in 2001

Internationally, fieldwork is generally seen as intrinsic to the very nature of geographical education. However, objective experimentation comparing student learning experiences with and without fieldwork is rare. During 2001 in the UK, fieldwork was withdrawn from many university degree programmes as Foot and Mouth Disease led to restrictions on access to the countryside. This restriction provided an unexpected opportunity to assess student perceptions of fieldwork in the light of its absence and to review those alternative learning strategies which were put in its place (where appropriate). To this end, nominal group technique (NGT) was applied to five groups of students from five separate UK universities to obtain information on the groups' perceptions of the value of fieldwork. NGT elicited almost 300 responses from 33 final-year students representing a high level of group consensus on the issues involved. Rationalisation of responses identified 12 categories, which reflect and amplify key educational objectives addressed by fieldwork in geography and environmental sciences from existing theoretical literature. Results demonstrate that student perception of fieldwork (based on previous university-level field experiences) is overwhelmingly positive. The groups identified the experience of geographical reality, developing subject knowledge, acquiring technical, transferable and holistic skills, and working with peers and lecturers as being the most important perceived benefits of fieldwork. Negative impacts of fieldwork included high levels of time consumption. Using a systematic and objective methodology, these results confirm, in a novel rigorous multi-institutional approach, the conception of geography and environmental science fieldwork as being of significant value for the overall student learning experience.     

Archaeometric Clearinghouse XVII

Abstract

Rapid escalation of fieldwork costs during the past years has required archaeologists to pursue innovative methods for maximizing the amount of fieldwork for the funds available. One of the more labor intensive aspects of fieldwork is the recovery of cultural materials through the use of manual shaker screens. During the past several years, several archaeologists in the midwestern United States have utilized slightly modified, commercially-manufactured agricultural machines for this task. The result is a very cost-efficient method of artifact recovery which drastically reduces the amount of time spent at this task, allowing excavators to spend much more of their field time in excavation and data recording. It has also proved to be very nondestructive to artifacts passing through the machine. Instructions for modifying and using the machine are presented.     

Archaeological Applications of the Electra-Level

Abstract

The Electra-Level is a leveling device with applications in field archaeology. It offers advantages over the line level and optical leveling instruments in situations where visibility, obstructions, or shortage of personnel are factors. Some specific applications in archaeological fieldwork by Boston's City Archaeology Program are described.     

War-time academic professionalism

Abstract

This brief commentary shows how chronic problems of academic praxis come to the fore in times of major political crises. The areas of popularisation, education and fieldwork are used as examples to highlight the weaknesses and failures of scholarly routines. As a consequence of these difficulties, a fundamental re-conceptualisation of the boundaries of the academic sphere is required.     

The fortifications of Fort George,Ardersier, near Inverness: archaeological investigations 1990–2005

Abstract

Fort George was built between 1748 and 1760 at Ardersier Point on the Moray Firth. Extensive contemporary documentation of the fort's construction survives in the archives of the Board of Ordnance. This paper describes archaeological fieldwork carried out during conservation works between 1990 and 2005. Excavation was undertaken on the East Front, the Point Battery at the western extremity, and the North and South Casemates. Work was also undertaken at the Men's Latrine and at the Pier. Together with detailed analysis of documentary sources, fieldwork has enhanced understanding of methods and priorities for defence procurement during the mid-18th century.     

Covert Control? Indigenous Agency in Edward Winslow Gifford’s Fijian Archaeological Expedition of 1947

ABSTRACT

The story of University of California archaeologist Edward Winslow Gifford’s 1947 Fijian fieldwork has been told up to now as a classic piece of colonial fieldwork with aims and direction dictated by the foreign specialist. But examination of the extensive Gifford archive held in the University of California Berkeley’s Bancroft Library and its Hearst Museum and a bit of ‘reading against the grain’ reveal a quite different story. Indigenous agency played a major, probably even decisive, role in how the expedition unfolded. The value of archival research into the history of archaeology, and particularly its contribution to the teaching of archaeological practice today, is significant in revealing ‘hidden histories’ that make a difference.     

Student Evaluation and Assessment of Group Projects

University teachers in the UK are increasingly being asked to develop skills, such as the ability to work effectively in groups, both by government and by employers. This paper outlines and evaluates, from a student perspective, the use of fieldwork projects to develop group-working skills. It also considers the use of self-assessment for summative purposes and the development of reflective practice or 'learning to learn' skills in students.     

Introducing humanistic geography through fieldwork

Abstract

One challenge of teaching humanistic geography is to encourage students’ responses to landscapes in ways which may be different from their previous experience. Conventional wisdom about successful field teaching suggests that students should be prepared beforehand with the skills and techniques to be employed. The author questions how appropriate this is in humanistic geography and the article describes and evaluates an alternative approach using fieldwork as the introductory activity.     

Editorial Introduction

Abstract

The recovery of artifacts by sieving provides an essential means of standardizing excavated archaeological data. A simple but robust sieving apparatus is described here, which offers safety, efficiency, and reliability in use. The sieve frame is assembled largely from standard components, and only simple fabrication is required for the various parts. The apparatus has been successfully tested through many seasons of fieldwork, and at sites from Palaeolithic caves to urban post-medieval excavations.     

Neolithic Transhumance in the Black Forest Mountains,SW Germany

Abstract

The presence of Neolithic people in mountainous areas of Central Europe is a debated topic and there is a lack of systematic fieldwork to explore patterns of land use in upland regions. The results of two survey campaigns in the Black Forest mountains of SW Germany aid our understanding of Neolithic expansion into the uplands. An extensive inventory of flint artifacts dating predominantly from the Late Neolithic provides evidence of summer highland pasturing and leaf foddering.     

The development of the bottle kiln in pottery manufacture in Britain

Abstract

This paper describes the types of bottle-shaped kiln used in the British pottery industry in the 1950s. It reviews the evidence of standing structures, archaeological fieldwork and documentary sources for their operation and antecedents. It concludes that their origins are to be found in developments of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, and that their widespread adoption was as much for cultural as for technical reasons.     

Grief as method: topographies of grief,care, and fieldwork from Northwest Arkansas to New York and the Marshall Islands

Abstract

When we grieve during fieldwork, our grief forms new geographies of knowledge production and emotion. In this article, I use autoethnography to theorize my grief during fieldwork following the death of my sister. I examine grief’s methodological implications using the concept of ‘grief as method,’ an emotionally-inflected practice that accounts for the vulnerability produced by grief. By centering vulnerability, ‘grief as method’ also urges researchers to consider the practices and politics of ‘caring with’ our research subjects and caring for ourselves, raising larger questions about the role of care in research. Furthermore, this article demonstrates how grief’s geographical features—its mobility, its emergence in new sites and landscapes, and its manifestation as both proximity and distance—shape ‘grief as method’ profoundly. I examine grief’s spatial implications by building on Katz’s ‘topography’ to theorize a ‘topography of grief’ that stitches together the emotional geographies of researchers, blurring both spatial divisions (‘the field’ vs. ‘the not-field’) and methodological ones (the ‘researcher-self’ vs. the ‘personal-self’). If we see grief as having a topography, then the relationships between places darkened by grief come into focus. Moreover, by approaching grief methodologically, we can better understand how field encounters—relationships between people—are forged through grief. ‘Grief as method,’ in offering a spatial analysis of grief’s impact on fieldwork, envisions a broader definition of what engaged research looks like and where it takes place.     

The use of campus based field teaching to provide an authentic experience to all students

Abstract

Fieldwork is an important part of undergraduate degrees in Geography and has been shown to be an effective pedagogic strategy. Fieldtrips are often to remote locations, both residential and shorter day trips. For institutions, field trips can be costly in terms of money and staff time and difficult to timetable. Some students may have difficulty attending due to caring commitments or employment. For some, going to a novel environment to learn new skills can be overwhelming. At Askham Bryan College a “Field and Environmental Techniques” module for Foundation Degree level students, ran in weekly two hour sessions, for 24 sessions. These were formatted to suit the College timetable and to fit with students other commitments. It resulted in a structure re-think, moving from individual lectures and longer fieldtrips to an integration of theory and fieldwork in short sessions utilizing the campus environment. Student surveys revealed this structure benefited learning as they could link theory with practice and it prepared them for carrying out future fieldwork in novel locations. In addition, students highlighted the social benefits of the module. Social aspects of fieldwork are regularly reported as a benefit of residential trips, but it was an unexpected benefit of this module.     

Photography as Geographical Fieldwork

Photography has a long history in geographical fieldwork. This paper reports on a student project that recovers this history and uses photography and commentary to represent the city of Barcelona. The place of the project within the broader (second-year undergraduate) fieldcourse and curriculum is described. The paper concludes with considerations of the way that photography lends itself to raise issues of representation evident in contemporary human geography. Since it is accessible to students, and offers practical examples, photography is a good way to approach and introduce more complex questions of method, epistemology and representation.     

The Non-Geographer: Overlooked but not forgotten

This paper is concerned with epistemological and attitudinal problems encountered in communicating geographical concepts to non-geographers. It reflects a Canadian context and offers a case study of a group of non-geographers whose special needs are often overlooked: the teachers of social studies. An inductive approach, using systematic geography only as required in order to understand a case study, is found to be effective in building bridges for those new to the subject. The choice of sequence should be from the empirical to the theoretical, in which fieldwork fulfils a point of entry for non-geographers.     

Fireproof Mills — The Widening Perspectives

Abstract

The author discusses how fieldwork by RCHME and others has refined the typology for the development of the fireproof textile mill first put forward by H.R. Johnson and A.W. Skempton in 1956. Details of cast-iron roof framing, the different styles of supporting columns and the problems created by power transmission are all considered. It is suggested that early examples of fireproofing are generally associated with mechanised flax or cotton spinning, the branch of the industry most at risk.     

“This is what it is like”. An interview with the writer Geoffrey Moorhouse

Abstract

Observational fieldwork enables the completion of a qualitative research project despite the tight constraints of a research methods course. At the same time, the project enables the illustration of more general features of qualitative research. This paper considers the need to deconstruct the ‘folk myth’ surrounding observational work and provides clear, practical guidance on completing a piece of research. Completion of the project helps to uncover the role of students as analysts. The paper concludes with a discussion of student's reactions to their introduction to qualitative work and the constraints upon its wider adoption.