Abstract
Rather than entering and getting immersed into a local community for a prolonged period, this chapter focuses on the ethnographic process in working with post-place communities which are tied together with a shared identity and set of norms. Using an example of two temporarily formed communities of volunteer tourists from Hong Kong and Taiwan travelling to Cambodia, I highlight the complexities and messiness of various identities of the fieldworker during active engagement with time-specific mobile communities, and the challenges of defining and leaving the field. The chapter starts with how I identified the ‘field’ — time-specific space of temporary communities of volunteer tourists — through collaborating with NGOs. It then explores and reflects on my identities and roles, and on the embedded relational ethics that framed my practices as the fieldworker and shaped the field, relationships and research process. Working with these post-place communities invites discussion about what is temporary and what is temporal throughout the process, and of friendship as a form of reciprocity.
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Kwong, Y.M.C. (2021). Travelling with the Field: Post-Place Communities of Volunteer Tourists on the Move. In: Ajebon, M.O., Kwong, Y.M.C., Astorga de Ita, D. (eds) Navigating the Field. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68113-5_3
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