Mothering from the Field

The Impact of Motherhood on Site-Based Research

Edited by Bahiyyah M. Muhammad and Melanie-Angela Neuilly

Rutgers University Press

The heated national conversation about gender equality and women in the workforce is something that women in academia have been concerned with and writing about for at least a decade. Overall, the conversation has focused on identifying how women in general and mothers in particular fair in the academy as a whole, as well as offering tips on how to maximize success. Aside from a long-standing field-specific debate in anthropology, rare are the volumes focusing on the particulars of motherhood’s impacts on how scientific research is conducted, particularly when it comes to field research.

Mothering from the Field offers both a mosaic of perspectives from current women scientists’ experiences of conducting field research across a variety of sub-disciplines while raising children, and an analytical framework to understand how we can redefine methodological and theoretical contributions based on mothers’ experiences in order not just to promote healthier, more inclusive, nurturing, and supportive environments in physical, life, and social sciences, but also to revolutionize how we conceptualize research.

Upending the common assumption that being a field researcher and mother are incompatible, this important volume not only provides insightful tips for merging parenthood and site-based research, but it also reveals the varied ways that caregiving for children can actually strengthen our connections in the field and provide a valuable lens for understanding and interpreting our data. Mothering from the Field is an indispensable resource for field researcher-mothers across the academy. Shannon Elizabeth Bell, field researcher-mother of two and author of Fighting King Coal

'Mothering From the Field provides just the right mix of academic research on women in field- work-intensive fields, discussion of the institutional responsibilities of the academy, cautionary tales of the struggles of combining parenting and field work, and (to me) most importantly, practical 'can do' advice on how to do 'what needs to be done.' I recommend taking this book and your kids (and a sturdy stroller) and going for it!' Rachel Connelly, co-author of Professor Mommy: Finding Work-Family Balance in Academia

Selected New Books on Higher Education' compiled by Ki-Jana Deadwyler and Ruth Hammond
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Selected-New-Books-on-Higher/246666 Chronicle of Higher Education

Bahiyyah M. Muhammad is an assistant professor in the department of sociology and criminology at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

Mélanie-Angela Neuilly is an associate professor in the department of criminal justice and criminology at Washington State University in Pullman.

Contents

Introduction1
MÉLANIE-ANGELA NEUILLY AND BAHIYYAH MIALLAH MUHAMMAD

Part I Women and Mothers Doing Field Research:
What Do We Know? 9
MÉLANIE-ANGELA NEUILLY
1 Women Working in the Field: Perspectives from STEM and Beyond 11
KELLY WARD, LISA WOLF-WENDEL, AND LINDSEY MARCO
2 Fieldwork and Parenting in Archaeology 27
STACEY L. CAMP

Part II The Truth Is, It Will Be Hard: The Difficulties of Doing Field Research for Mothers 43
BAHIYYAH MIALLAH MUHAMMAD
3 Malaria and Spider-Man: Conducting Ethnographic Research in Niger with a Three-Year-Old 47
KELLEY SAMS
4 Birthing in the Field 62
LYDIA ZACHER DIXON
5 Looking at the Field from Afar and Bringing It Closer to Home 76
CECILIA VINDROLA-PADROS

Part III Teamwork Makes the Dream Work: The Importance of Networks and Family Support 89
BAHIYYAH MIALLAH MUHAMMAD
6 Parenting through the Field: Criminal Justice Ethnography, Cinematography, and Field Photography in Africa with Our Babies 91
BAHIYYAH MIALLAH MUHAMMAD AND MUNTAQUIM MUHAMMAD
7 Privilege, (In)Competence, and Worth: Conflicting Emotions of the Student-Mom and Her Support Community 108
GRACE KARRAM STEPHENSON, JOHN STEPHENSON, AND JOANNE FLORENCE KARRAM
8 Fathering in Support of Fieldwork: Lactation and Bourgeois Feminism (and More Privileged White People’s Problems) 124
BRIAN C. WOLF

Part IV This Too Shall Pass: Field Research before, during, and after Motherhood 135
MÉLANIE-ANGELA NEUILLY
9 Lactating in the Autopsy Room: Mothering from the Field When the Field Is a Morgue and Your Child Is a Nursing Infant 139
MÉLANIE-ANGELA NEUILLY
10 Fieldwork Adventures on the Mommy Track 155
ANNE HARDGROVE
11 Mommy in the Field: Raising Children and Breeding Plants 171
KIMBERLY GARLAND CAMPBELL

Part V What Is the Field, Anyway? Mothers Redefining Field Methodologies 181
MÉLANIE-ANGELA NEUILLY
12 Entangled Knowledge: On the Labor of Mothering and Anthropological Fieldwork 185
SARAH KELMAN
13 “Manman, Poukisa Y’ap Rele M Blan?” (Mama, Why Are They Calling Me a White?): Research and Mothering in Haiti 201
MARYLYNN STECKLEY
14 Birthing the Social Scientist as Mother 222
DEIRDRE GUTHRIE
15 Two Notes on Bringing Children Other Than Your Own in the Field 239
APRILLE ERICSSON, DAWN ERICSSON PROVINE, ARIELLE ERICSSON WHITE, MIKAE PROVINE, PIERRE ERICSSON, BAHIYYAH MIALLAH MUHAMMAD, AND MÉLANIE-ANGELA NEUILLY

Part VI Practical Solutions to Complex Problems: Because Mothers Can Do Anything! 251
BAHIYYAH MIALLAH MUHAMMAD
16 “I Don’t Know How You Do It!”: Countering a Narrative That Presumes That Researching and Mothering Are Incompatible 253
RYANNE PILGERAM
17 Ethnographic Research in Africa: The Hidden Costs of Conducting Fieldwork for Mothers with Children 264
BAHIYYAH MIALLAH MUHAMMAD
Conclusion 272
BAHIYYAH MIALLAH MUHAMMAD AND MÉLANIE-ANGELA NEUILLY
Acknowledgments 281
Notes on Contributors 283
Index 293

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