Trickin and Trippin

Analytical Essay

Claire E . Sterk 's article Tricking and Tripping : Fieldwork on Prostitution in Era of AIDS ' published by Social change Press in 2000 takes into account the patterns and procedures that a fieldwork tales into account during field research work . She provides some useful insights and learnt lessons during her fieldwork with prostitutes to provide a close and intimate account of their lives and psychological being in their own words . Her learnings are substantiated with proper examples . Unlike students expectations who think of fieldwork as a leisure time activity as

some serene place , Sterk manifests some of the pains associated with fieldwork and bring into light some important patterns and procedures that fieldwork must consider while taking on a field work

Sterk establishes her point of view about importance of fieldwork about prostitution by provoking the essential human quality of compassion . She does not by describing that prostitutes are not alien and are endowed with fine human qualities . Their habitual formations and mental qualities are like other ordinary humans . She emphasizes this theme by highlighting the poem written by a prostitute . Whole purpose of this initial exercise is to create consideration among readers about the lives and activities of prostitutes . Her ascriptions of these qualities to prostitutes and information provided support his arguments

I like the methodology that she adopted to get an insight into the lives of prostitutes . Furthermore , her objective to provide an internal point of view and personal account and experiences of prostitutes in their own word is highly approving as it aims at making their lives comprehensible from their viewpoint . Additionally , writer efforts to cast away her own past experiences about prostitute live , removing her pre-conceived notion and biases are appreciative as it not only facilitate the working of Sterk among prostitutes but enabled her to provide an objective account of their lives and activities . As Chadwick et al . illustrates that there are also reactive effects which may be described as errors from the investigators (p .38 ) but Sterk keeps herself away from these reactive errors . She kept her ownself away from interfering in the research work and her findings . Sometimes she underwent serious ethical turmoil but did not interfered in the lives of her subjects and her observations . It is really beneficial for a young fieldworker to inculcate these qualities in him to become a better researcher

In addition to these excellent patterns that she adopted in her field work , there are any flaws . For example she describes about poor working conditions ' and prostitutes strategies to cope with these low working conditions but she does not provide a of these working conditions and does elaborate how and why they are poor (p .17 She does not substantiate her finding with details and /or comparative analysis of working conditions elsewhere . But what seems obvious is that at this stage , her aims is to underline the research principles and patterns to gain entry and acceptance into the prostitutes ' world and to draw attention toward pains...