AUTHOR=Madziva Cathrine , Chinouya Martha Judith 

TITLE=Remote Fieldwork With African Migrant Women During COVID-19 Pandemic in London: A Reflection

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Sociology

VOLUME=Volume 7 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sociology/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2022.788180

DOI=10.3389/fsoc.2022.788180

ISSN=2297-7775

ABSTRACT=As the COVID-19 pandemic unravelled, state led preventative restrictions created a ‘new’ normal through remote home-working.  A long planned follow up qualitative research study on risk perceptions and experiences regarding Clay Ingestion among black African women during pregnancy, in London was disrupted as England went into lockdown. Against this backdrop, we shifted to remote data collection which raised pertinent concerns around access to technology and participant digital skills. We share our experiences of navigating through remote field work during the pandemic with  Black African mothers with caring responsibilities as well as the extra burden of homeschooling, the challenges we encountered and how we mitigate these and the lessons learnt. Thus, drawing from our remote qualitative research experiences, we refer to notable examples of challenges, mitigating strategies applied and potential lessons to inform future practice.