A roundtable about the unique issues facing women doing fieldwork, particularly the potential problems, hassles and challenges that aren’t usually discussed and their potential solutions.

This is a 2-hour event with a keynote speaker followed by small presentations of the graduate students and a roundtable discussion. Its goal is to provide a platform for female fieldworkers to exchange their experiences and reflections on the role their gender plays in both their work and personal life while in the field.

This roundtable is designed to address the gendered experience of female fieldworkers and gender dynamics in host communities. This should help female fieldworkers to be
successful field linguists.

Our keynote speaker is Nadine Grimm, a researcher in the University of Rochester, who has been doing fieldwork in West and Central Africa. Taking her field sites and their social contexts as a basis, she will describe the different social roles she has in the communities and how they relate to social stratification in this area of the world (with a special emphasis on gender). The talk will review the literature on the topic and provide recommendations to fieldworkers who are new to the field.