Faire de la recherche en Chine

Abstract

Fieldwork practice, central to geography research, can be more or less complex and constraining. It is indeed linked to multiple factors, such as access to stakeholders, availability of data, knowledge of the language and local codes by the researcher, etc. This article aims to highlight both the constraints of fieldwork practice in foreign context, and the measures, arrangements and methodological “deals” that can be put in place to overcome these constraints. For that, two researches carried out in China by researchers from North America and France are mobilized. The first one focuses on heritage-making and tourism development in an urban neighborhood in the city of Ningbo. The other one explores the urban, artistic and tourist dynamics of Shanghai's creative district M50. In both cases, it was the lack of Mandarin-language skills that was the main constraint, although others were also added (short-term contracts, authoritarian political context, etc.). The crossing of these two examples, where the initial constraints and contextual elements are similar, highlights the variation of workarounds implemented depending on the specificity of fieldworks.

Keywords

• Constraints
• Methodological workarounds
• Fieldwork in foreign countries
• China