Research Beyond Borders

Reviews / Votes

This wide-ranging collection of essays that spans behavioral ecology to feminist ethnography is an excellent contribution to the subject of transnational research diplomacy. Authors in the volume self-reflexively present the observer and the observed together showing how an ethics of methodology could dissolve the imperial gaze on the objectified other. -- Neela Bhattacharya Saxena, Nassau Community College We live in a globalized world. Many people now claim to be part of transnational networks of family, friends, scholars, corporations, diasporas, consumers, tourists, activists, humanitarians, and religions. Yet our research methods continue to reflect methodological frameworks we developed to study people within single nation-states. This timely and excellent collection challenges and addresses this methodological problem. It draws our attention to the ways in which research, mostly developed to reflect the cultures and institutional settings in northern countries, is uncritically extended to other socio-cultural-political settings. This excellent book challenges us to think outside the northern research box, and it provides many examples that we can fruitfully follow. A much-needed, thought-provoking collection. -- Bandana Purkayastha, University of Connecticut Concomitant with the increased globalization of contemporary society, research opportunities and requirements are now global too, and cross the entire spectrum of disciplines from the humanities to the sciences. Almost all such studies, however, have been lived by researchers as an individual field experience with few or no guidelines to help. Smith and Narayan's Research Beyond Borders is the first comprehensive attempt to study the challenges of research abroad as a generalized phenomenon. The essays included in the volume take on the specific issues of conducting archival or field work in foreign settings (as well as that of foreign researchers working in the American setting) with a stunning breadth of personal and professional experiences as well as unremitting critical reflection. An indispensable work for anyone undertaking research in a foreign location, this work also means no one has to learn these challenges alone ever again. -- Georges Van Den Abbeele, Northeastern University