Fieldwork in Discomfort

Discomfort can make one doubt one’s taken-for-grant accounts of reality. Thus, for settler colonial scholars—such as myself—undertaking collaborative research projects with First Nations communities, discomfort is a necessary companion. In this article, I tune into my own discomfort to explore its generative potential to disrupt my knowledge practices. To do so, I improvise with Lisa Stevenson’s ‘fieldwork in uncertainty’ (2014). Fieldwork in discomfort is paying attention to when my ‘facts’ falter and I butt up against my epistemological limits. I reflect upon moments of discomfort during a collaborative project with the Wolgalu and Wiradjuri First Nations community in Brungle-Tumut (New South Wales, Australia). The project aims to revitalise the community’s connection to a species of ecological importance: the corroboree frog—a critically endangered and culturally important species, whom the Wolgalu nation call Gyack (Williams, 2019). A collaborative project involving people from different epistemic traditions demands of participants an attentiveness to what is not shared. Afterall, to take care of Gyack requires taking care of, and with, divergent knowledge practices. Discomfort is a method of coming to know what I cannot know.