ABSTRACT
The fieldwork of organizational research largely tends to be conducted within organizational settings rather than in the settings of the markets that those organizations serve. As unravelling social problems in the field is a key path to building robust social theory, this approach contains some limitations. This chapter explores the conduct of research fieldwork in subsistence settlements, which is an emerging context for organizational research. Based on insights from three case studies of research programs spanning a period between 2008 and 2016 and across three continents, the chapter builds a framework for fieldwork-based research in subsistence market contexts. The framework is organized around four themes – preparing, conducting, and publishing from the research, and disseminating its findings within communities. The insights range from the reflexivity and emotion work required in subsistence work to the choice of scientific vs. aesthetic method orientations and the challenges in abstracting theory from complex fieldwork episodes. The insights from the framework will be useful to organizational scholars wishing to conduct fieldwork-based research in subsistence environments.
