Letting failure be: COVID‐19, PhD fieldwork and to not (want to) learn from failures

Abstract

The ongoing COVID‐19 pandemic has prompted researchers to rethink their fieldwork. My doctoral fieldwork plans, which involved conducting ethnographic research amongst Afghan refugees and migrants in New Delhi and Kolkata, were upended because of the recurring waves of the pandemic and the lockdowns/curfews that were imposed in their wake (2020−2022). Locked out of my field, my inability to conduct my research as planned amounted to a failure that could not be redeemed, especially because of time constraints. Using autoethnographic vignettes of my encounters in the lead up to the eventual suspension of in‐situ fieldwork, I critically reflect on how I approached and felt towards failures in/of field and how these encounters speak back to the discourse on failure in academia. In doing so, this article advocates for the need to revisit failures simply for what they are, without necessarily demanding and/or (self) expecting that we recast them as stepping stones towards success. By challenging the neo‐liberal desire to re‐present failures in a productive light, I argue we can make greater room for more supportive discussions around failures without committing ourselves to the task of having to find triumph in (every) adversity.