Challenges and Opportunities of Doing Fieldwork as a Woman on Women in Guinea

The researcher with his or her multiple identities, his or her background, and habits forms part of the experience in the field and therefore influences data generation. In this chapter, Ammann reflects on how her identity shaped her field research on the women-state nexus in a Muslim West African city. She analyses how she has dealt with gender-related difficulties and opportunities she came across during fieldwork, especially how she adapted her ethnographic approach because accessibility to women proved to be a major challenge. In the conclusion, Ammann argues that flexibility and adaptation are key for ethnographic research. She pleads for more contributions in which not only female but also male researchers reflect on how their gendered presence influences their research settings.