Riskler ve Belirsizlikler Kıskacında Pandemide Araştırmacı Olmak: Otoetnografik Bir Çalışma
Being a Researcher in a Pandemic in the Grip of Risks and Uncertainties: An Autoethnographic Study

Author(s): Cemre Erciyes, Aleyna Yıldırım, Meryem Erol
Subject(s): Anthropology, Psychology, Methodology and research technology, Health and medicine and law
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: Pandemic; risk; uncertainty; researcher; autoethnography
Summary/Abstract: The Covid-19 pandemic with its psychological, physiological, economic and social risks has become a crisis that threatens human life rather than being only a biological threat. The environment of uncertainty stemming from the invisible nature of the virus and its appearing as a pandemic has also affected societies in many ways. In the multidisciplinary social study on “Social Services in Istanbul during the Pandemic” that aims to find out the effects of the pandemic on social service delivery and to develop a proactive work plan for similar crises situations, the problems caused by these effects in accessing services were discussed. In this study, we aim to convey our personal experiences and observations about the measures and practices taken against the risks and uncertainties brought by the pandemic, while researching and experiencing them simultaneously in the field. A qualitative research method, autoethnography, is preferred in this study because it will let us reflect our experiences from an insider perspective in a systematic way. In this regard, our experiences in the research and reporting process as the people affected by the possible risks of the pandemic and the difficulties of being a researcher during the pandemic will be discussed from a subjective point of view in terms of preparation, fieldwork, online organization and inter-team communication. The difficulty of obtaining scientific research approval during the period when some of the institutions were temporarily closed due to quarantine and taking some precautions for planning of interviews and field study will be evaluated in this context. Additionally, the physical conditions of the institutions where the interviews would be conducted do not have the same standard and research participants' awareness levels about the virus were not known in advance. On the other hand, the differences in the anxiety levels of the participants and the researchers in the project team; the way they reflect this difference; protecting the researcher identity during the interviews without reflecting bias and maintaining the study process without damaging the organizational structure and inter-team communication to minimize the negative effects of the online process will be questioned as the factors affecting the research process.

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