′This is an excellent collection of papers which celebrates the best of traditional approaches to fieldwork, whilst also looking to its future. The Handbook will quickly become essential reading for the novice and experienced fieldworker across many of the social sciences′ - Chris Pole, University of Leicester Fieldwork is widely practiced but little written about, yet accounts of the exotic, mundane, complex and often dangerous are central to not only sociology and anthropology but also geography, social psychology and criminology. In all these - increasingly overlapping - fields, experience underlies any comprehensive understanding of social life. The SAGE Handbook of Fieldwork presents the first major overview of this method in all its variety, introducing the reader to the strengths, weaknesses, and ′real world′ applications of fieldwork techniques. Its 22 carefully chosen chapters are each based on a substantive field of empirical enquiry, written by an acknowledged expert in the field. The range is impressive: from the traditional to the virtual, concerning subjects as diverse as emotion, sexuality, sport, embodiment, identity, self-narrative, fieldwork in organizations, science and technology. Specifically intended for use in undergraduate and postgraduate courses in qualitative research design and methodology in sociology, anthropology, criminology, urban studies, social geography, public health and education, the handbook will also prove beneficial to academic researchers in these and other disciplines.

Table of Contents:
PART ONE: LOCATING FIELDWORK The Fieldwork Tradition - George J McCall Praxical Reasoning and the Logic of Field Research - Gary Shank PART TWO: SITUATING FIELDWORK Jelly′s Place - Elijah Anderson An Ethnographic Memoir Your Place or Mine - Michael Stein The Geography of Social Research PART THREE: SITUATING THE RESPONDENTS Fieldwork with the Elite - Mary Dodge and Gilbert Geis Interviewing White-Collar Criminals Entering the Field - C H Browner and H Mabel Preloran Recruiting Latinos for Ethnographic Research PART FOUR: FIELDWORK AS A REFLEXIVE ENTERPRISE Self-Narratives and Ethnographic Fieldwork - Ben Crewe and Shadd Maruna `You Don′t Do Fieldwork, Fieldwork Does You′ - Bob Simpson Between Subjectivation and Objectivation in Anthropological Fieldwork PART FIVE: THE FIELD OF EMOTION Aural Sex - Christine Mattley The Politics and Moral Dilemmas of Studying the Social Construction of Fantasy The Case for Dangerous Fieldwork - Bruce Jacobs PART FIVE: FIELDWORK AND SEXUALITIES Fieldwork on Urban Male Homosexuality in Mexico - Joseph Carrier Knowing Sexuality - Chris Haywood and Mairtin Mac an Ghaill Epistemologies of Research Researching Sex Work - Teela Sanders Dynamics, Difficulties and Decisions PART SEVEN: EMBODIMENT AND IDENTITY Fieldwork and the Body - Lee F Monaghan Reflections on an Embodied Ethnography Sport Ethnography - Susan Brownell A Personal Account Hidden Identities and Personal Stories - Jennifer Hargreaves International Research About Women in Sport PART EIGHT: FIELDWORK IN ORGANIZATIONS Policework and Fieldwork - Nigel Fielding An Ethnographer′s Tale - Robert G Burgess A Personal View of Educational Ethnogrpahy PART NINE: FIELDWORK, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Software and Fieldwork - Susanne Friese Seeking Science in the Field - Steve Fuller Life Beyond the Laboratory PART TEN: LOCATING FRESH FIELDS Postmodern Fieldwork in Health Research - Nick J Fox Fieldwork in Transition - Peter Kirby Manning