Socially distanced but virtually connected: pandemic fieldwork with Black Bostonians

ABSTRACT

The Eastern Massachusetts Life and Language project was in its planning stages when the COVID-19 pandemic began to make headway in the United States in 2020. We contribute to the conversation about conducting linguistic fieldwork during a major social upheaval by providing a description of our shift to virtual methodologies, which include utilizing Instagram for participant recruitment and Zoom for conducting sociolinguistic interviews. Virtual data collection remains underexplored, as there has never been a widespread need for such practices until the recent lockdowns resulting from the pandemic. Likewise, social media appears to be underutilized as a recruitment tool in linguistic fieldwork. Nevertheless, it is effective in producing a heterogeneous participant sample in a short amount of time. We are delighted to engage in discussions about the effects of virtual recruitment and data collection on linguistic fieldwork and the data itself. We offer a description of our pivots to virtual recruitment and interviewing and the racial justice initiatives that become achievable because of these changes. We hope this contribution is beneficial to researchers looking to incorporate virtual methodologies into their research program.