Abstract
The researcher with his or her multiple identities, his or her background, and habits forms part of the experience in the field and therefore influences data generation. In this chapter, Ammann reflects on how her identity shaped her field research on the women-state nexus in a Muslim West African city. She analyses how she has dealt with gender-related difficulties and opportunities she came across during fieldwork, especially how she adapted her ethnographic approach because accessibility to women proved to be a major challenge. In the conclusion, Ammann argues that flexibility and adaptation are key for ethnographic research. She pleads for more contributions in which not only female but also male researchers reflect on how their gendered presence influences their research settings.
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Acknowledgements
This research was made possible thanks to the Marie Heim-Vögtlin Grant by the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Research Fund Junior Researchers by the University of Basel, the Freiwillige Akademische Gesellschaft, and the Josef und Olga Tomcsik-Stiftung. I thank Djénabou Dramé and Thierno Sow for their collaboration and for sharing their reflections on the topic of this article. I presented this article in a colloquium at the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Bern in November 2016 and I am grateful for the received comments. Furthermore, I am thankful for inputs by Marion Bernet, Ruth Jackson, Max Kelly, Rahel Müller, Aïdas Sanogo, Sandra Staudacher and Frederik Unseld on earlier versions of this chapter.
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Ammann, C. (2019). Challenges and Opportunities of Doing Fieldwork as a Woman on Women in Guinea. In: Jackson, R., Kelly, M. (eds) Women Researching in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94502-6_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94502-6_11
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