I. Sample Instructions for Reflexive Diary

Excerpted from the book

Tied to the field trip, each student is to write a 2,500-word field work diary.

The diary carries a weighting of 40% of the total course grade.

The assignment is designed to assess your ability to critically reflect on your position as a development researcher and/or practitioner. The diary is a critical and reflexive account of key lessons that you have learnt from the field trip. You are the unit of analysis.

Such lessons may concern:

• how to improve your practice,
• critical thoughts you have on the research process,
• or critical thoughts you have on field work itself.

You must clearly state in the diary the key lessons that you have learnt from the field trip and structure your diary around these lessons.

In the diary, you should synthesize the field observations and/or experiences that led you to learn these lessons. You should analyze these observations and/or experiences by linking them to relevant literature (e.g. literature on research methods, field work ethics, positionality in research, knowledge and power in development planning, etc.). The diary is not a description of what you did and saw, but an evaluation of what you observed and learnt about yourself as a research/practitioner; it must therefore refer to relevant literature.