Reflections of a geographical past...of sorts

Since leaving the world of international conservation and living collections, I get very little front-line experience with fieldwork, more so as most of my own research is focused on a niche of human geography.  Naturally, when I was doing an advisory stint in Further Education I gave guidance on the Duke of Edinburgh activities, but it hardly compares .

Nowadays it is more just the occasional advice to some folk who are taking adventurous holidays to the parts of the world where you could either catch or tropical infection and have a part of your body removed by something sharp, or just have a part of your body removed by someone carrying something sharp as you happened to look at them in the wrong way. Of course, it is always difficult to explain how what the right way is to look at someone carrying something sharp who’s happy to remove bits of other peoples bodies with it, and a person is almost certainly have a better understanding of these random psychotic acts after they have come face-to-face with one or two incidents. Should they retain all their face following these incidents, then I would always recommend that these are the very fieldworkers to listen to careful, so long as you still have you ears and wish to keep them.

In some ways I take solace in no longer having to project manage issues that arise out of civil unrest, sexual assault, geophysical hazard and the array of other themes that make international fieldwork so fraught - not least dealing with the terribly naïve short-sighted tendencies of dreadfully nice well-educated middle-class academics whose unique cognitive defects have made them congenitally unable to understand the concept ‘acceptable risk’, often putting them not so much close to the cliff edge but completely over it. Given that many of the fieldworkers were zoologists, it often seemed inappropriate to put in sufficient control measures given that it would be construe as counterproductive to the process of natural selection. This was one such point they would earnestly approve of, which if anything further demonstrates their complete inability to understand acceptable risk. 

Still, being part of a team delivering a première international sports event, with one of the of the world highest number of outside broadcast operations, and catering to deal with over 500,000 during it, quite aside from the year round construction works, brings its own challenges and demands, but  thankfully none of these require me having to spend six months of the year dealing with variety of fungal infections on my body thanks to humidity and lack of clean clothes. As a colleague pointed out to me recently, whilst fungal infections make great talking points at pool parties and bring one closer to like minded people they make intimate relationships more problematic.

Andrew Böber MSc CMIOSH FRSPH FRGS

Field Researcher