Teaching field survey in a university environment: going out into the world

Abstract

This article is the result of a pedagogical experiment carried out by the two authors over the last few years in the context of a course on field methods in the social, political and communication sciences at a university in French-speaking Belgium. After briefly outlining the institutional context and the sociological profile of the students, the article begins by exposing the organizational, contextual and epistemological constraints with which the teaching of field research has been confronted. It then details the tactics used by the teachers in an attempt, if not to resolve them, at least to get around them. While these tactics reflect the inventiveness and adaptability of fieldwork, which must always deal with uncertainties, a more critical reading also reveals its fragility and invites us to rethink the teaching conditions of fieldwork.