Contribution short abstract:

Being accompanied by family members such as small children during fieldwork “at the home place” brings challenges and opens up possibilities. On condition that fieldwork activities are suitable to the life with children, they can make fieldwork and knowledge production more diverse and enriching.

Contribution long abstract:

This paper seeks to explore what it means to do field research “at the home place” being accompanied by family members. It refers to the experiences of a female cultural anthropologist whose previous research was characterized by taking place “far away”. In the framework of a new research project about sports and migration in Germany, “the home place” becomes the field. For researchers with small children doing research “at home” opens up possibilities and brings challenges. (As other working parents) researchers with children depend on social infrastructure as kindergarten and schools as well as social networks like friends or other family members in their daily life. Staying at the local place signifies that researcher can make use of established structures and networks which is extremely helpful. However, it also means that other (non-)academic duties like teaching or administrative tasks continue parallel to field activities and care work. Doing fieldwork in sports contexts accompanied by small children also signifies to evaluate the form of participation in the field in order to make it suitable to the research topic and to a life with children. Being accompanied by family members can open “new doors” and make possible other forms of participative fieldwork, for example through the active participation of family members. Thus, it might allow the gain of particular, worthful knowledge. Being accompanied during fieldwork “at home” changes the parameters of the research, but it can bring an enriching diverse perspective to the anthropological debates.