Paper short abstract:

The way the field turns a research project upside down is not new. However, how do we, as anthropologists, deal with the fact that our main research topic is not a priority in the lives of our interlocutors? How prepared are we to listen to the field and cope with changes?

Paper long abstract:

As a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology interested in 'people-nature conservation' dynamics, I focused my research proposal on a turtle protection project established in Goa (India) with the aim of understanding the relations established between the local fishermen and the turtle project. Even knowing that a research project had to be done and that, certainly, it would be changed by the field, I never imagined the challenges.

Although anthropological research distances itself from other sciences, mainly due to the study duration and involvement with the interlocutors, anthropologists are subject to the same research detailed planning: delimitate research object, elaborate questions, outline hypotheses, define an array of gather-data tools to collect information and, finally, inserted all the future fieldwork 'movements' in a timetable. The point, whatsoever, is that we are also trying to put in boxes the lives, understanding, and expectations of people that we don't know yet. My fieldwork experience is an example where a constructed object is reformulated by the field itself (read context and interlocutors). This field turn is not new. However, it is pertinent to reflect on it. How do we, as anthropologists, deal with the fact that our main research topic is not a priority in the lives of our interlocutors? How prepared are we to listen to the field and cope with changes? In this paper, I intend to reflect on the way I manage to cope with the above mention questions and the role of fieldwork in the process of knowledge production in anthropology.