The fieldwork of never alone

When the author returned from her ethnographic fieldwork in Paraguay, she felt disoriented and unsure of her findings. In order to re-engage with anthropological writings, she returned to researchers whose work she admired. The author selected an ethnographer with extensive fieldwork experience in a nearby region, whose theoretical work she drew upon leading up to her field research. In this chapter, the author seeks to address the decisions she made, and limitations she faced, that shaped her fieldwork. Early in her fieldwork, the author approached her field sites based on the framing of risk-taking in the context of access and exclusion. Re-reading her field notes, she identified the recurring themes of access, exclusion, and relationships. Her fieldwork in Paraguay examined the aftermath of land titling in indigenous Guarani and campesino communities in Paraguay, including the perspectives of local elites

Geography · Anthropological Studies and Insights · History