Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the multiple meanings and constructed imaginaries of 'the field' in my own experience of multi-sited, ethnographic research, as well as in the everyday life of my research participants: humanitarian workers with experience working in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the multiple meanings and constructed imaginaries of 'the field' in my own research, and how it reflected or diverged from understandings of 'the field' among my research participants: humanitarian workers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

First, by drawing on my experience of researching, and geographically tracking, the everyday practices of a humanitarian organisation - from its 'head-quarters' in Paris, to the 'capital' in Goma, to 'the field' in rural DRC - this paper explores the ambiguous, spatial construction of 'the field' in multi-sited ethnographic enquiry, as process that comes to incorporate multiple settings and groups over time.

Second, this paper explores the diverse understandings of a space defined as 'the field' by both researchers and national and international humanitarian workers in Congo. Drawing on my own experience of living with and studying humanitarian workers, I explore how academics and humanitarians come to share and occupy a shared imagined space: 'the field'. Whereas it remains understood as an 'exotic' space, isolated from 'home,' by international workers and researchers, I explore how national humanitarians working in their own 'home' come to understand 'the field.'

Finally, given that the 'field' is not bounded spatially or temporally, this paper reflects on how one 'exits the field.' I argue that the artificial separation between the 'field' and 'normality' or 'home' becomes further problematized - with lasting relationships and ongoing discussion with 'participants' that alter conceptions of 'home' long after the end of 'fieldwork.'