Leaving the field: an editors’ introduction
Sara Delamont and Robin James Smith


Part I Entanglements and im/perfect exits
1 Finishing fieldwork in less than perfect circumstances: lessons learned in ‘labyrinth’ exiting
Alexandra Allan and Sarah Cole
2 Exeunt omnes!! The case for bad exits in ethnography
Sally Campbell Galman
3 Reflections on care and attachment in the ‘departure lounge’ of ethnography
Alex McInch and Harry C.R. Bowles
4 Unfinished business: a reflection on leaving the field
Gareth M. Thomas
5 Materia erotica: making love among glass-blowers
Erin O’Connor


Part II Troubling the field
6 Those who never leave us
Jessica Nina Lester and Allison Daniel Anders
7 Déjà vu et jamais vu: what happens when the field expands in ways that mean there is no exit?
Dawn Mannay
8 Student voices ‘echo’ from the ethnographic field
Janean Robinson, Barry Down and John Smyth
9 Public space and visible poverty: research fields without exit
Andrew P. Carlin
10 ‘The martial will never leave your bones’: embodying the field of the Kung Fu family
George Jennings


Part III Intermissions and returns
11 Between open and closed: recursive exits and returns to the fuzzy field of a community library across a decade of austerity
Alice Corble
12 On the importance of intermissions in ethnographic fieldwork: lessons from leaving New York
Joe Williams
13 Can you remember? Leaving and returning to the field in longitudinal research with people living with dementia
Andrew Clark and Sarah Campbell
14 A constant apprenticeship in martial arts: the messy longitudinal dynamics of never leaving the field
David Calvey


Part IV Returns, responsibilities and representations after ‘leaving’
15 A cautionary tale about ‘respondent validation’: the dissonant meeting of ‘field self’ and ‘author self’
Daniel Burrows
16 Commenting on legal practice: research relationships and the impact of criticism
Daniel Newman
17 Emotional honesty and reflections on problematic positionalities when conducting research in another country
Ashley Rogers

This collection gathers a diverse range of tales from ethnographers’ experiences of leaving the field in order to generate original methodological insights about fieldwork and ‘the field’ more generally. Whilst much has been written on field access and field relations, the actual processes and practices of exiting have been relatively neglected. This book addresses that oversight.

In Leaving the field, ethnographers at different career stages reflect upon field exits that were variously ‘good’ and ‘bad’, total and incomplete, planned and unexpected. These accounts are intended to provide guidance for other fieldworkers and contribute to broader methodological discussions relating to the doing and writing of ethnography. Speaking from diverse contexts – from glassblowing and Kung Fu to community libraries and dementia – contributors consider key methodological issues such as ethical conduct and obligations to informants. Chapters examine entanglements in the field in the context of ‘perfect’ and ‘imperfect’ exits (and why we should perhaps abandon those ideals), exits that trouble the notion of ‘the field’ itself, and contexts where it is hard to imagine that ‘the field’ could ever be truly left. They consider the significance and management of intermissions from and returns to the field, whether planned or unexpected. Finally, the chapters consider the lasting effects of leaving the field and the challenges of representation and writing that begin when we do.

These creative and thought-provoking contributions shine a new light on what it really means for ethnographers to leave the field.