The guests of the first Opinion Peace podcast in 2021 are Dr. Katarina Kušić and Dr. Jakub Zahora, editors of the open-access volume "Fieldwork as Failure. Living and Knowing in the Field of International Relations". Through thirteen chapters written by early-career researchers, the edited volume engages with fieldwork experiences and politics of methods in IR through the concept of failure. In their personal and analytical reflections, the editors and chapter contributors take the concept of failure from a personal and affective reaction towards epistemological, political, and structural points that the concept of failure reveals. They say failure can be productive. It can also present a resistance towards neoliberal hyper-productivity. Some failures, however, never turn into anything productive - and that is OK too. While they grapple with disappointments and feelings of failure that arise out of personal and structural expectations and images of ideal researchers, the authors of the chapters and the editors also acknowledge the joy of doing research through fieldwork and the value of community that they've built through vulnerability and intimacy in writing about fieldwork 'failure'.
As uncomfortable and hard as it gets, still admitting the failure and exploring it as an academic project is also a privilege. As Katarina put it: "To think about failure we have to have come out the other end quite well."
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