Epilogue: Best and Worst Practice, Surprises and Lessons

In contrast to the spate of advocacy of ‘rapid’ rural field methods, contributors to this book, sadly, find no quick fix for fieldwork on markets. As Clough writes here (Ch. 14), the process of ‘entry into the mind of a trading system’ is a long one. Furthermore, virtually every fieldworker reported slippage in their timetable, whether that was planned to last six months or (as in several cases here) four years. Our accounts will serve one useful purpose if our experiences can be used as precedents for claims for larger contingency budgets than those funding research conventionally allow. It is as well to know in advance the likely sources of slippage: protocols and institutional clearance (which may take up to a year, in which other kinds of preparation must be planned); sickness (epidemics affecting respondents, crops and livestock as well as researchers); staff turnover and training replacements (in projects where paid field staff are used); and unexpected ‘freak’ weather conditions which preclude field-work and are exacerbated when poor people are forced by lack of alternative to colonise hazard-prone environments. Each of the last three could very reasonably require time increments of 10–40 per cent of the total time anticipated for field work, with corresponding additions to costs.