Developing Fieldwork in Social and Cultural Geography: Illustrations from a residential field class in Los Angeles and Las Vegas

Abstract

A recent critique of the politics of fieldwork has raised questions concerning traditional approaches to fieldwork and the value of field-based learning to a more radical social and cultural geography. At the same time, a review of the literature on undergraduate fieldwork reveals few examples of innovations in fieldwork practice by those teaching in this area of the discipline. Here, it is argued that fieldwork in fact continues to represent one of the most appropriate forms by which student understanding of a number of the key concerns of social and cultural geography may be developed but that this development is best encouraged by working with a new approach to fieldwork emerging not out of the educational literature but the literature on fieldwork in the research process. The argument is illustrated by means of an account of a specialist residential field class for social and cultural geography undergraduates to Los Angeles and Las Vegas .