The Stickiness of Conducting Fieldwork in Spatial Design Research: A Case Study in Hong Kong

What does ‘getting political’ mean within the context of design research? In design research where ethnographic data is used, emphasis is often placed on the findings rather than on how the data were acquired and what influences have shaped their acquisition, interpretation, and re/presentation. The focus on the information itself and how it serves a purpose in narrating an outcome without ‘seeing’ the ethnographer reflects a lack of understanding of how positionality plays an important role as an ‘invisible hand’ influencing the research. This chapter looks at the sticky situations of getting political during the research process and embodying agency within design research from the author’s perspective and experiences as an ethnographer and spatial design researcher. Intersecting these roles are the author’s gender and ethnicity, as well as their social-political identity, particularly in the site of Hong Kong. With a decade’s worth of experience in the field researching migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong, this chapter serves as a reflection, contemplation, and query into the future of how design research can be conducted, shaped, and received. It is presented with acknowledgment of the subjective entanglement of neoliberal ideologies and white-gazing Western frameworks of academic research, with the aim to progress toward inclusivity, accountability, and care.