Field conversations as a data source in qualitative social research

This article highlights field conversations as a research tool. Our intention is to place field conversations in the literature of methodology. In spite of being commonly used by qualitative social scientists, field conversations are often invisible and under-communicated in scientific literature. The unsystematic and informal characteristics of the conversations make them hard to quantify and describe. The similarities with ordinary, everyday talk can be confusing. The field conversation is placed in a continuum between the qualitative interview on the one hand and common talk between researcher and participant/informant on the other. Using examples from our own empirical research, we show how field conversations differ from the interview when it comes to context, format, conditions and control. We also discuss the contributions of field conversations as a data collection tool, and what might be the strengths and weaknesses of the tool. The purpose is to illustrate how we can utilize the arena in which researchers and participants meet to increase our knowledge and insight. We argue that field conversations are a necessary and useful tool in the social scientist's toolkit and that the status of the conversation should be upgraded.