Becoming Data: Star Trek Wisdom and the Unforeseen Effects of Fieldwork on the Fieldworker
Religious communities present very different, and often difficult, issues to the researcher. In particular, religious groups often have more interest in the researcher as a person than as a social scientist. In other words, religious people often are more interested in "saving" the researc...
| Published in: | Journal of religion and popular culture |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
University of Saskatchewan
[2010]
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| In: |
Journal of religion and popular culture
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | Religious communities present very different, and often difficult, issues to the researcher. In particular, religious groups often have more interest in the researcher as a person than as a social scientist. In other words, religious people often are more interested in "saving" the researcher's "soul" in than providing that researcher with accurate information. This article unravels this issue through a single event that the author experienced in the field. Struggling to understand this event, the author uses a piece of popular culture—a scene from Star Trek—to contextualize and substantiate what happened to him. This scene provided a base from which the author could begin to access related academic literature on fieldwork in religious communities. In sum, this study exposes one of the many vulnerabilities that junior/student researchers experience in the field. In addition, it reveals the expediency of using popular culture to understand difficult fieldwork experiences. |
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| ISSN: | 1703-289X |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of religion and popular culture
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.3138/jrpc.22.3.003 |