The show must go on!” Fieldwork, mental health and wellbeing in Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8360974 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Faith Tucker (0000-0002-1013-3398, University of Northampton, corresponding author), John Horton (0000-0002-2956-2264, University of Northampton) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 51 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 84-93 |
| Publication date | 2019-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Area (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0004-0894 • E-ISSN: 1475-4762 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/area.12437 |
| OpenAlex | W2784948328 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 31 |
| References cited | 23 |
Fieldwork is central to the identity, culture and history of academic Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences ( GEES ). However, in this paper we recognise that, for many academic staff, fieldtrips can be a profoundly challenging “ordeal,” ill‐conducive to wellness or effective pedagogic practice. Drawing on research with 39 UK university‐based GEES academics who self‐identify as having a mental health condition, we explore how mental health intersects with spaces and expectations of fieldwork in Higher Education. We particularly focus on their accounts of undertaking undergraduate residential fieldtrips and give voice to these largely undisclosed experiences. Their narratives run counter to normative, romanticised celebrations of fieldwork within GEES disciplines. We particularly highlight recurrent experiences of avoiding fieldwork, fieldwork‐as‐ ordeal, and “coping” with fieldwork, and suggest that commonplace anxieties within the neoliberal academy – about performance, productivity, fitness‐to‐work, self‐presentation, scrutiny and fear‐of‐falling‐behind – are felt particularly intensely during fieldwork. In spite of considerable work to make fieldwork more accessible to students, we find that field‐based teaching is experienced as a focal site of distress, anxiety and ordeal for many GEES academics with common mental health conditions. We conclude with prompts for reflection about how fieldwork could be otherwise
Aesthetics · Framing (construction) · Geography · Identity (music) · Mental distress · Mental health · Narrative · Political science · Psychiatry · Sociology · Trial by ordeal · Data Analysis and Archiving · Gender Studies · Geography Education and Pedagogy · Law · Psychology · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics
Exploring the importance of inter-departmental women’s friendship in geography as resistance in the neoliberal academy
Critical Reflections on Mental Well-being for Post-Secondary Students Participating in the Field of Global Health
Why do some students opt out of fieldwork? Using expectancy-value theory to explore the hidden voices of non-participants
Mitigating Chronic Diseases during Archaeological Fieldwork
Recommendations for Safety Education and Training for Graduate Students Directing Field Projects
Blobbing Along
Let’s talk about emotional labor—some reflections from the field
Student evaluations of using virtual reality to investigate natural hazard field sites
The paradox of the ‘sustainable fieldtrip’? Exploring the links between geography fieldtrips and environmental sustainability
Sustainable and inclusive; transforming residential undergraduate fieldtrips in an age of the climate crisis
Health geographies 1
Geographies of night work
Copenhagen not Copacabana? Practices and Perspectives for Fieldwork Without Flying
The future of geography field course pedagogy in UK higher education
Significant nothingness” in geographical fieldwork
Mental health and well‐being in primatology
Disability and postsecondary fieldwork experiences in the natural sciences
Let’s talk about researchers’ mental well-being
What does geography look like
GeogEd
Mud and glee at the crossroads
The role of virtual field trips in Geography higher education
Returning‐home fieldwork in China with a dear friend
Disability and gender in the history of geographical exploration
Not just muddy and not always gleeful? Thinking about the physicality of fieldwork, mental health, and marginality
Six simple steps towards making Gees fieldwork more accessible and inclusive
Working with community interviewers in social and cultural research
Fieldwork in flux
A Place for Serendipitous Mistakes? Selling Mixed Methods Fieldwork to Students in a Digital Age
Glitch environmentalism
Missed opportunity
Occupational stress in Australian university staff
Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students
What Has the Geography of Sleeping Arrangements Got to Do with the Geography of Our Teaching Spaces
Fieldwork and disabled students
Work, life, and creativity among academic geographers
Disabilities in academic workplaces
Breaking the silence
Cultivating an ethic of wellness in Geography
Everyone is fed, bathed, asleep, and I have made it through another day
Producing anxiety in the neoliberal university
Women on the edge
Being open in academia
The emotional challenges of conducting in‐depth research into significant health issues in health geography
Gender differences in attitudes to undergraduate fieldwork
Disabled students’ experiences of fieldwork
Academic superheroes? A critical analysis of academic job descriptions
| Unique citing works | 31 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,88 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2026 (9) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 30 |